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For a while, I thought I might be running these with the final PfRPG ruleset, it was taking so long for our group to get it started, but we wrapped up a homebrew adventure the last time we met and got to get started in Golarion today!
It was one player's first time with PfRPG rules, and two of the others had very little experience with them. I was a bit worried because one of my players is an anti-munchkin (he tends to handicap his own characters because he thinks it's unfair for them to be to powerful), and I thought he might see the boosts PfRPG gives the core classes as "cheating." Everyone enjoyed the racial hit dice, however, and once I explained the simplified skill system ("But why do I have this +3?"), he liked that as well. (He always hated the half-ranks in cross-class skills.) He was playing the cleric and also liked being able to channel positive energy instead of having to load up on cure lights.
I decided I wanted the PCs to have a chance to meet each other and some key NPCs before the adventure officially began, so I had them roll initiative to determine in what order they arrived in town and tried to herd them all subtly to the Publican House. One PC didn't go there but did go by the Gold Goblin while they were setting up for the tournament so he was the first to meet Larur Feldin. When the rest of the PCs arrived at the Publican House, already present were a group of dwarves fresh off the night shift at the Gas Forge, including Gravin Goldhammer; Josper Creesy and his crew celebrating a fast run from Magnimar; and Lavendar Lil, deep in a cloak and cowl, looking for information about that lost cleric of Desna, who I decided was a "friend" of hers. Coming in later were Samaritha Beldusk and Liry Parmenter, stirring up interest in the tournament. I used the PCs' time at the Publican House to cover the "Riddleport Rumors" sidebar in the Companion.
My players said they really enjoyed a non-railroady way to "meet up" before the tournament, and I think it will add to the players' motivations later on to be able to say, for instance, "Gravin Goldhammer and the dwarves you drank with your first day in Riddleport are in danger" rather than "A strange dwarf you've never met approaches and asks for your help." One PC, a half-orc monk escaped from slavery in Cheliax and passing as a human with the Veiled Vileness feat, fell for Samaritha instantly, and a fighter from the Land of the Linnorm Kings bonded with the dwarves over braided beards and rounds of ale. A half-orc cleric of Gorum who is convinced the Blot is a divine omen had no interest in the gambling tournament but was convinced to go along anyway to get the money to pay for a day of research at the Cypherlodge.
I test-ran all the gambling games the night before, which was a life-saver. I couldn't get the skiffs game to work as written (all the skiffs just ended up in a big pile in the middle of the board when I poured them out) so I retooled it by dealing out the skiffs evenly like a Sudoku board. I also found that it takes *forever* to play. As we were running against a deadline when we played and I wanted to get to the robbery attempt -- and as the cleric wasn't gambling but just trying to get money from the fighter, so the player was getting bored of watching everyone else play -- I interrupted the gambling before we got to the Skiffs table. Since all the other players were having a good time, however (especially the fighter, who was racking up the wins quickly at Bounder), and at least one really wanted to try Skiffs, we plan to get together next weekend when the cleric's player will be out of town, and all the other PCs are going gambling at one of Riddleport's other casinos.
Since we were running Beta rules, I should have given Angvar and his crew racial hit dice too, but I didn't think of it so the robbery was pretty easy for the PCs to foil. Thuvalia did manage to get away, though, largely because all the PCs failed their will save against the pyrotechnics.
We wrapped up our first session with all the PCs having accepted Saul's job offers, if only for the free room and board and weekly pay (the half-orc cleric). The halfling bard is genuinely enthused about the prospect of working at the casino; when they get their hands on the deed, I expect him to be the one to take the initiative to keep the place running. The half-orc monk has already asked for a job for Samaritha until she can get in at the Cypherlodge. We hope to pick up at that point in 2 weeks, although our playing schedule is pretty hit-or-miss.
Thanks for the link!
I forgot to add two things: First, my husband enjoyed getting to do his best Jack Bauer "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?" when they questioned Angvar. And second, if you're an idiot like me and accidentally pick up a permanent Sharpie instead of a water-soluble marker to write on your GameMastery Combat Pad, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser takes it right off.
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Hi Joana,
Welcome to the fun of Second Darkness and PFRPG.
Sounds like you had a great start, i did something similar with folks arriving with separate backstories and all eventually meeting each other, very fun.
Couple quick things:
1) There is a handy thread where people smarter than i have done all the heavy lifting of converting all the NPC to PFRPG, you can just print out new stat blocks. Check it out here
2) I use sharpie on my flip mats all the time (i highly recommend drawing out the GG in sharpie as you'll be there a lot and it helps to just leave it on the table) you can just write over the sharpie with dry erase and then both wipe away together (good for revealing secret doors etc.)
Have fun and i look forward to following your groups adventures
A
That conversion thread rocks! No offense to Paizo, and I know space is at a premium, but I love having the spell descriptions and such printed right there with the character instead of having to flip through another book. If I start using these conversions, I'm going to be spoiled for normal stat blocks!
The player of our non-gambling PC was out of town last weekend, so the rest of us got together for a casino night in Riddleport. Now that they're on staff at the Gold Goblin, it wouldn't seem fair for them to gamble there, so they headed to a casino in the Free-Coin district. I figured Liry Parmenter was among the staff that quit after the robbery attempt, so she set up her Ghoulette wheel there.
The PCs had a roller-coaster night at Bounder and Golem, stacking up the chips and then losing everything again, before they realized they could make a small profit every time by teaming up at Skiffs and splitting the proceeds. Of course, if they make a habit of it, it won't be without consequences. Soon they'll be recognized and won't be able to find enough people willing to play on the same board with them, and I wouldn't rule out a halfling wing of one of the crime syndicates making a point in an alley one night if they press their advantage. (Of course, Saul is going to have plenty of extracurricular activities planned to take up their free time before long.)
From a DM's standpoint, I have to point out that Golem is a difficult game to run unless the PCs are willing to merely redistribute their money amongst themselves, losing some to the house regularly. If they're to have any chance of making a profit, NPCs have to play as well and put up money they can win, and it's hard to play dealer *and* play more than one NPC hand at the same time. The other option is for only one PC to play at a time and let the other players play NPC hands, although then they know it's in their best interest to let the PC win. Has anyone else found a good way to handle this? The players enjoyed the gambling, and I know they'll want to do it again before more serious developments in the adventure distract them.
Four hours and one encounter!!!
My PCs are getting way too into running the Gold Goblin.
They've already instituted a Happy Hour and prepaid the ferry man to give free passage to anyone headed to the Gold Goblin. One PC who had overlooked his extra skill point for being human put it in Profession: Bartender and is Cocktailing it up behind the counter. They're spreading rumors of murder and scandal at the casinos in the Free Coin District and advertising their private dining rooms to apprentices at the Cypherlodge as places to study while also gawking at scantily-clad barmaids. In addition, they're considering trying to make a deal with the House of the Silken Veil to allow their girls to solicit customers in the casino for a percentage, as well as trying to find a dwarf with Profession: Brewer to provide a house label unavailable elsewhere. Failing that, they thought of merely printing up special labels and doctoring the ale with a certain yellow dwarf byproduct, which ought at least, I pointed out, to raise the alcohol content.
The one encounter, with the drunken crew of the Vesicant, was quickly dealt with by means of a successful Intimidate check. A few of the players paused in their get-rick-quick schemes long enough (they're already considering franchising themselves across Riddleport with the Gold Kobold, the Gold Gnoll, etc.) to remark on how not much seems to be happening in the way of adventure, to which I responded that if they spent less time being entrepreneurs they might have more time to get into trouble!
Of course, Saul will soon be sending them on various encounters, and the adventure timeline is proceeding; but as long as they insist on roleplaying their jobs as "business partners" every day, it's going to take a while for enough time to pass for the plot to pick them up. More importantly, the more time they spend as businessmen, the more difficult it's going to be to dislodge them from Riddleport and send them after the bad guys. I've already teased them that by the time trouble erupts from the Blot, they'll be looking to hire adventurers to take care of the danger threatening their investment!
So now I'm thinking of ways to motivate them to follow the AP, instead of settling down as moguls of Riddleport. Obviously, I have to make it crystal clear that if the drow's plans succeed, the Gold Goblin and Riddleport itself will be wiped off the map. No matter how many hit points Saul may actually have left, when they catch up with him, he'll linger long enough at 0 to deliver a dying monologue to that effect, so they know that to make a long-term success of the Gold Goblin, they must first deal with the danger threatening it.
Beyond that, the rumors they're spreading about the casinos in the Free Coin district might well attract the attention of the Overlord himself. If he has his thugs deliver a message to these upstarts via a humiliating-yet-nonlethal beating that the PCs have no chance to win due to their low level, it might inspire them to return to Riddleport as a much-higher-level threat to deliver some payback to Cromarcky. That way, I can use their dreams of becoming bigtime players in Riddleport to motivate them to leave -- at least until they're tough enough to challenge the Overlord.
My favorite moments from this session came when the PCs visited the House of the Silken Veil. The first visitor was the half-orc cleric who had asked who the highest-level cleric in town was. (He had heard all the Cyphermages had to say about the Blot and wanted to get a divine perspective.)
PC Cleric: I'm here to commune with your high priestess.
Silken Veil Girl: Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?
He had been a fairly gruff character, but once he found how they like half-breeds at the temple of Calistria, the other PCs noticed he came back to the Gold Goblin much more cheerful. He eventually had to let them in on his little secret, when a group of the PCs -- including a halfling bard -- went to question Lavender Lil about Saul, and all the girls in the temple greeted him by name when they walked in. Seeing the halfling, one of the girls assured him, "Size doesn't matter with us." They asked to see Lavender Lil, and a girl called "Lil, you have visitors. And one of them's Small!" To which the halfling (my nephew!) responded, "That's not what she said."
Charles, thanks for the idea and the link. I enjoyed reading the thread.
I really think that, given the opportunity, most of the players will jump at the chance to knock some heads (particularly the cleric of Gorum, who is presently deep in get-rich-quick schemes but will be in trouble with his deity if he declines), but when it comes time to go to the Devil's Elbow, I'll certainly offer them the possibility of hiring an iconic or two if some of them want to stay behind to take care of the Gold Goblin.
From what I understand of CotCT (I haven't run it), it stays in Korvosa for the first couple of installments and returns there for the big finale, unlike SD, which pretty much abandons Riddleport after the first adventure. That would certainly make it more difficult to keep any of the "entrepreneur" PCs involved. I might tinker with the AP, if I can figure out how, to return to Riddleport a time or two in between quests. It does seem a shame to introduce a lively city with several interesting NPCs and basically hand the PCs a business venture there and then leave it, never to return again, after the first book.
So how's this working, Joana?
So how's this working, Joana?
Sadly, we haven't gotten to play again since my last update. We were supposed to play last weekend, and one of the players couldn't make it so we rescheduled for this weekend, only a different player couldn't make it so we played a Pathfinder Society scenario just to be playing something. We're now tentatively scheduled to play next weekend, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Fair enough. Good luck getting the group together. :)
Is there anything in particular we should be brainstorming up while we're waiting?
Fair enough. Good luck getting the group together. :)
Is there anything in particular we should be brainstorming up while we're waiting?
For right now, I think I'm going to introduce a handful of the iconics when the tidal surge hits Riddleport and turn that into a major encounter. The PCs will either be saving people and fighting monsters alongside the iconics or being saved by them if the dice go against them. Then they can run into them around town a time or two before the end of "Shadow in the Sky." That way, they'll have a pre-existing relationship if they choose to hire some of them to go to the Devil's Elbow in their stead.
Honestly, I think the only one who might choose to stay behind to run the Goblin at this point would be the halfling bard. One PC has a relationship with Samaritha, and another pals around with the dwarves from the Gas Forges, so both will have friends on the island to rescue. The half-orc cleric of Gorum is one of the most profit-hungry right now, but if he passes up adventuring to stay in town and make money, I think his deity will have something to say about it!
The money-hungry half-orc cleric of Gorum began the session down at the wharf, selling his services of purifying food and drink to some of the ships in port so they didn't have to buy new supplies. He was very surprised to see purple mist engulf the crates of food he cast his spell on and, at first, thought the food itself was to blame. With the second casting, he and the halfling bard were able to ascertain that the mist rose toward the Blot. With the third casting, he had decided to try and capture some of the mist.
Unfortunately, the ship had already discarded its empty vials and bottles when it put into port, so the bard emptied a flask of oil he had in his pouch and positioned himself to capture some of the strange mist when the cleric cast. Unfortunately, he first had trouble figuring out how to angle the flask to catch the mist and then dropped the stopper (i.e., he rolled a 4). The fed-up cleric suggested one of them breathe in the mist and then exhale into the flask.
CLERIC: (to DM) Gambit [the bard] is going to be the one to suck.
ME (reflecting on Gambit's failed Dex check, failed Perception check, etc.): Well, he certainly has been so far.
Gambit, determined to avoid the unknown effects of breathing a strange mist, wanted to try his way again, and on the fourth casting, rolled well over 20 and managed to trap some of the mist in the flask as it rose toward the blot. The entrepreneurial cleric then turned a tidy profit selling the flask to the Cypherlodge for their research.
The party is convinced that the Blot was "powering up" by stealing arcane energy and became even more paranoid when the phenomenon ended, as the Blot is now presumably at full power. One player wanted to forbid using any magic in the city until it was pointed out that he lacked any authority to do so. They are sure that the Blot is a gate and are expecting Hell to come through it at any minute.
The more mundane concerns of running a business are pressing them as well. Profits at the Goblin fell in their second week as partners, due in part to Clegg Zincher setting a poisonous snake loose in the casino, but also having something to do with the signs and fliers the PCs commissioned for the second week bearing not the Goblin's address, but that of one of the casinos in the Free Coin district. When they went up there to confront the floor manager, he admitted how strange things can happen when you're running in business; for instance, a funny thing happened to him the previous week when an unknown half-orc told patrons on the way to his establishment that it was closed due to some murders being committed there and that they should go to the Gold Goblin instead. The party left unsatisfied.
The cleric of Gorum insisted on catching the aforementioned snake, sure he could sell it to someone, but found that no semi-respectable establishment was interested in a live snake. He determined, therefore, to return it to Zincher, with the Gold Goblin's compliments. He managed to intimidate his way past the hangers-on outside Zincher's tenement (who backed off with the contemptuous judgment that Clegg would chew him up and spit him out anyway) but got nowhere trying to convince the guards inside that he had an appointment with their boss. Instead, he threw the sack with the snake at them and left.
Frustrated at his impotence and itching for a fight, the half-orc did manage to land a punch on Braddikar Faje's flat-footed nose in the street outside and then took off at a dead run. He waited for Faje around the corner of a building, where a short scrum ensued. A PC fighter who had come with the cleric grappled Faje in an attempt to stop the fight, but the cleric of Gorum just took the opportunity to get in another swing of his greatsword. Sadly for the fighter, he just managed to hit the soft cover provided by his encircling arms and sliced open a huge gash in his friend's biceps. It ended with Faje bleeding and unconscious, but approaching footsteps of more of Zincher's men convinced the PCs to flee.
Back at the Goblin, Larur Feldin delivered a touching speech to the PCs about how he hadn't spent much time with his kinsmen since he'd had to quit working at the Gas Forges due to a worsening cough, but now that the fighter/bartender's friendship with the dwarfs at the Gas Forges had made the Goblin something of a dwarven hangout, he was feeling more like a dwarf again. He also asked them to go down to the wharfs to pick up a shipment of wine he'd ordered. He wanted them all to go since it happens at times in Riddleport that competitors will show up with forged papers or simple bribes and claim valuable shipments for themselves; he wants the wine to get to the Goblin safely.
Once down at the wharf, most of the PCs noticed the water level in the harbor draw down suddenly and successfully guessed that a tidal surge was coming. The elf managed to climb to safety, but the halfling lost his footing and was swept into the harbor. Only one PC had any training in swimming so he jumped in to rescue the halfling. He reached him easily, but the panicking bard grabbed hold of him and he was unable to swim back to shore. Just as he began to sink himself, a bald foreigner named Sajan swam out to help him, and between the two of them, they successfully brought the bard to safety.
Two other PCs, despite not being able to swim, decided to jump in and try to save people, too (the cleric rolling an Appraise check to determine which drowning person looked to be wearing the most expensive clothes and thus might be more likely to offer a reward). Unsurprisingly, they both began to sink themselves and had to be rescued, one by a older man named Ezren throwing a rope and another by a man with long, dark, wet hair named Valeros swimming out to him. The fifth PC threw ropes from the wharf to rescue people, then they all got to fight a swamp barracuda.
As they all stood around afterward, exchanging introductions, Valeros asked, "Dude, where can we get a drink?" So it was off to the Goblin for a survival party! They invited along everyone from the wharfs (and even remembered to pick up the wine) and the cleric paid for the first round. Their profitability check for the third week stood at 19, so I allowed the survival party to bump them back up to 0 on the chart.
A few days later, as they were all in the Goblin during off hours, the bard and the elf rogue overheard raised voices in Larur's office. Eavesdropping, they heard Larur accusing Saul of money going missing from the books. Saul tried to protest that it must be a simple mathematical error, but Larur insisted that Saul tell him where the money was going. Saul asked Larur to keep his voice down and to meet him in his office upstairs in 15 minutes. The PCs scattered before he opened the door but then followed Larur up the stairs, snuck into Saul's waiting room, and listed at his office door. Saul's voice was very low, but they overheard the name Lymas Smeed and then heard Larur say he was going to check out Saul's story and find out if he was lying. The PCs hid in the dressing room until Larur went downstairs, then told their friends what they had overheard.
The group decided to confront Larur and demand to know what was going on, but he had already left the Goblin. Asking some of the staff, they discovered that Lymas Smeed was a disreputable money lender. The bartender/fighter, being closest to Larur, ran after him and found him on Smeed's doorstep, but Smeed wouldn't let them both in. The PC waited in the steet for several minutes until Larur came back to the door and asked him to go back to the Goblin and get ready for the evening rush: Smeed had a blasted beast in there that was going crazy at the smell of him waiting outside the door. The PC reluctantly agreed.
The rest of the PCs went to Saul's office to confront him. Asking them to close to door, he told them what had passed between him and Larur. The dwarf had noticed money going missing every month that he had tried to hide with fancy bookkeeping. He admitted that when he had lost everything after his criminal past (of which the PCs were already aware), he was only able to scrape up enough money to buy the casino by borrowing money from Lymas Smeed. He hadn't told Larur because he had led him to believe that his job at the Goblin was secure after he had to leave the Gas Forges. Recently, however, he had heard rumors that Smeed was working for Clegg Zincher and was afraid his enemy would use the moneylender to put him out of business and Larur back on the streets. He said Larur had gone to Smeed to get confirmation from the moneylender that Saul's story was legitimate. "He's afraid I'm skimming money off for some criminal purpose," he explained, "and with my past, I can't blame him for not taking my word."
The PCs were troubled by the thought of Zincher taking the casino and even discussed the possibility of paying off the 500 gp Saul claimed still to owe from their own purses (mostly the half-orc's). However, as the night went on, they were more concerned by the fact that Larur had not returned. As soon as the casino closed in the early morning hours, they went straight to the moneylender's.
The cleric of Gorum went with them only on the condition that there be no diplomacy or negotiation, so they didn't even bother knocking. The elf rogue picked the locks, and they were spooked by the screeching creature throwing itself at the door to get at them. Dispatching the baboon turned out to be an easy affair for the cleric, however. Lymas himself, warned by his pet, managed to shoot a crossbow bolt deeply into the cleric and wound him with his scimitar, but the half-orc cornered him in his storeroom and buried his greatsword in his skull. Searching the premises, the PCs were deeply troubled to find Larur's torn and bloodstained cloak in a barrel outside the back door.
When I started this thread, I couldn't decide whether to put it in the campaign journal thread or the Second Darkness thread, and I think I made the wrong decision. I'd be pleased if someone would move it. (I just flagged it.)
EDIT: Thanks, Gary!
The PCs opened Smeed's strongbox to find a stack of loan documents signed by various debtors, with the payments they had made to date marked off. A document signed by Saul Vankaskerkin for a loan of 2000 gp was right on top. The elf rogue noticed two things: firstly, that no payments were credited to Saul's account; secondly, that the approval on all the documents was signed not by Clegg Zincher, but by Boss Croat.
Most of the group was distressed at the thought that they had probably just gotten on the bad side of another crime lord, but the half-orc cleric, Angar Zar, saw it as just another money-making opportunity, especially when he discovered that Boss Croat and his boys were all half-orcs as well. In the meantime, however, the group returned to the Gold Goblin with their news and Saul's loan document. Burning the document, Saul pronounced that, just as he'd feared, none of the payments he'd made were being credited to his account. As for Larur, since they hadn't found a body, it was still possible that he'd turn up safe and sound, he counseled them.
Angar, meanwhile, rolled up the bodies of the moneylender and his pet in a rug and carried them to the Boneyard to dispose of them before dawn. Gambit the bard went with him in case they ran into anyone and needed fast talking to explain what they were up to, but no one accosted them. Angar also placed a "for sale" sign in the window of Smeed's house, directing inquiries to the Gold Goblin.
The next day, the half-orc went to Boss Croat's compound, hoping to persuade him to take over the duties of the moneylender, who, he claimed, had left town suddenly and entrusted the loan documents to him. The boss noted that Smeed had left behind a great deal of his blood when he "left town" but didn't seem overly concerned. He also noted that he held the deed to the house that Angar was trying to sell. Expressing regret that the cleric had not come to him instead of Vankaskerkin when he came to Riddleport (Angar concurred with his regret but hadn't known of Croat at the time), the boss told him he couldn't have anyone working for both him and Vankaskerkin but agreed to let him collect what was left of the debts detailed in the documents he held and keep Smeed's cut.
Not satisfied with that source of income (and his salary from the Gold Goblin and the money he makes by going down to the docks and selling his spell-casting), the money-hungry Angar also decided to try to earn some coin by fighting in Zincher's arena. Going inside to talk to the man in charge, he was very much surprised to find Braddikar Faje, the man he had brawled with in the street outside Zincher's tenement, who greeted him with a furious Gambit the bard did some frantic Diplomacy rolling and managed to keep Braddikar from attacking the cleric immediately by telling he he had been very drunk when they last met. Angar, however, undid all Gambit's work by repeatedly insulting the man, and they ended up fighting a personal duel for the stake of 10 gold pieces. (Angar wanted Braddikar's armor and weapons if he won, but Braddikar refused because the half-orc had nothing remotely that valuable to put up in return.) After getting in a monstrously damaging first strike, Angar failed to score a hit during the rest of the battle, despite Gambit providing Inspiring background music and fell unconscious. The halfling bard had to send a message to the rest of the crew back at the Goblin to bring a cart to wheel the half-orc back home.
After a few days, Saul informed the PCs that another shipment of wine had come in for the Goblin down at the docks and asked them once again to go and fetch it, lest it be stolen by a competitor. The Wharf District still stank from an unusual occurance when all the sea gulls in town suddenly flew as one into the air and broke their avian bodies against the Cyphergate; decomposing seagulls still collected under the docks. Upon their arrival with their handcart, the PCs were surprised to see the wine already being unloaded and put on a cart by men led by none other than Braddikar Faje. With the immortal line "I owe you ten gold, and I'm going to take it out of your hide," Angar joined battle; Braddikar, in return, told his men to take care of the rest of the party but leave the half-orc to him. At this, their third meeting, while his companions took out Zincher's other men, Angar defeated Braddikar and finally obtained his armor and weapons. He furiously demanded of the ship captain why he had been releasing their shipment to other men. The captain objected that the men had given him a chit identifying themselves as the lawful representatives of the wine's purchaser. Angar looked at the chit and found it identical to the one he carried; however, he didn't take the time to notice that the seal on both wasn't that of Saul and the Gold Goblin but of Clegg Zincher. The party had little time to reflect on what happened at the Foamrunner, as a temblor struck the town of Riddleport as they were wheeling their cargo back to the Goblin.
When Angar returned to Croat's compound to bring in loan payments, he brushed off the half-orcs' misapprehension that he had stolen Zincher's wine shipment, but the Boss warned him that Saul's shenanigans were rocking the precariously-balanced Riddleport boat. He told him that if half-orcs ever came after Saul, he hoped that Angar would put blood before business and just walk away. Returning to Zincher's arena, the cleric of Gorum found it under new management in the person of Akron Erix. The intimidating-looking but surprisingly affable man agreed to sign Angar up for a bout, but when he heard he worked at the Gold Goblin, warned him to keep his head up -- that trouble was coming.
These rumors were enough to convince the party that they needed to be extra-alert around the casino in the coming days. They began sleeping in shifts and keeping watch outside the building after closing hours. Thus it came to pass that Angar and Dax the monk were patrolling outside the building one early morning, when they perceived some movement outside the window of the guest wing. In the meantime, Red the big, bearded fighter/bartender, who had taken to sleeping in the office outside the vault, was awakened by a crash and found 4 human thugs and a half-orc pouring onto the casino floor through an open window. Angar and Dax confronted 3 thieves outside, while Red took on the 5 intruders on his own. Upstairs in the party's quarters, the mysterious elf known only as "Nobody" thought he heard a sound down the back stairs. Going down and listening, he heard 3 people breaking in the back door. Hurrying back upstairs, he met the halfling bard Gambit and told him to go warn Saul. The elf hid and waited for the two humans and robed half-orc to move past him, hoping to make a sneak attack.
Angar killed one of the thieves outside and Dax was fighting another when the third climbed in through the window. Angar climbed in after him and Dax followed after the man he was fighting withdrew and fled into the darkness. The lone thief inside managed to hide and sneak-attack Angar before the two PCs chased him onto the casino floor and finished him. There, they were able to join up with Red in his fight.
Meanwhile, upstairs, "Nobody" had found, to his dismay, that the robed half-orc was not a weak wizard as he had hoped but Jasker Gant the monk. Sending the two humans on to find Vankaskerkin, he stopped in the hallway to fight the rogue. Gambit, in the meantime, had found Saul's door locked and was unable to raise him inside. Hearing the approach of the two thugs, he decided to concentrate on saving his own skin and slipped through the only other door available to him, which led to the dining room. From there, he took the secret door to the catwalks, found a melee taking place on the floor below him, and began the play the most welcome casino muzak his allies had ever heard. When they finally finished the half-orc, Gambit shouted down to them that there were more intruders upstairs, and they rushed to "Nobody's" aid.
They reached the top of the stairway just as "Nobody" fell unconscious, and Dax stepped forward to meet Jasker Gant unarmed-strike-to-unarmed-strike. Gambit, meanwhile, had gone back through the secret door to join up with his comrades just as the two thugs walked through the dining room door searching for Saul. Staring at them across the table, Gambit took a desperate shot at his one remaining spell -- and successfully Hypnotized the pair, suggesting that they leave. They all met up again, out in the hallway, where Dax defeated Jasker Gant, Angar channeled energy to heal the injured and bring "Nobody" back to consciousness, and the group easily defeated the final three intruders as they came up the stairs. Jasker Gant and the two hypnotized thugs were taken prisoner and locked up in the kennels in the sub-basement. Red went back downstairs to check on the vault and was panicked to see the door slightly open. When he investigated, however, it was only Saul inside. He said he had been just finishing up the money-counting when he heard the crash of the breaking window and had locked himself in the vault for safety. As for Bojask, when the party went down and pounded on his door, he finally answered in a drunken haze, with empty bottles strewn about the floor, so that explained his absence from the fight. A few of the PCs questioned Saul's alibi, but all the money seemed to be in place so Angar did some Mending on the broken doors and windows and they celebrated their successful defense of the Goblin.
Four hours and one encounter!!!
The PCs picked up in the immediate aftermath of the raid on the Goblin. Jasker Gant, left alone in the sub-basement, successfully freed himself from the cage and escaped from the casino through the back door to return to Croat's compound and update him on the failure. (Zincher was likewise informed that the operation had gone pear-shaped, as one of the theives had escaped as well.)
Angar Zar, the half-orc cleric of Gorum, took it quite hard that Croat had sent his men into the Goblin, despite his previous urging to Angar to just walk away if it came to that. He decided to go have it out with him face-to-face (being stupid and cocky), and Red the human fighter came along, in case there was trouble. Angar found the compound guards much less friendly than they had been before, and after some exchanging of words, some racial in nature aimed at the human, the PCs joined melee. They succeeded in defeating the guards, but while the cleric was trying to get their armor off so he could go sell it, another half-orc exiting the compound discovered them and ran to sound the alarm.
What followed was a running battle through the streets of Riddleport. Angar and Red would run around a corner and ready an action to attack the next half-orc they saw, take down one or two, then withdraw and run again as the stream of Croat's men chasing them became overwhelming. They finally had to claim sanctuary at the House of the Silken Veil. The pursuing half-orcs, not wanting a dispute with Shorafa Pamodae, waited around the temple's entrances for their quarry to come out. Shorafa, amused, offered to disguise the two as women and provide them with an escort back to the Gold Goblin, but Red refused. Instead, they paid two of the girls to carry messages for them, one to the rest of the party at the Goblin and one to Red's dwarf friends at the Gas Forges.
The rest of the PCs arrived at the temple of Calistria to find a dozen half-orcs milling around the building's three doors. A coterie of dwarves, in the meantime, was hastily put together from off-shift forge workers and led to the temple by Gravin Goldhammer. The dwarves offered to form a perimeter around the group and march them back to the Goblin, hoping that labor's association with Zincher would preclude Croat's men from attacking them but willing to fight if necessary, but Red didn't want to put his friends in harm's way, and Angar didn't want out without a fight. He ended up spending a lot of his money on protective spells from the clerics to ready the group to battle their way out, while Red asked the dwarves merely to step in to retrieve and protect any of the party that fell.
When they were ready, the PCs charged out to face the half-orcs. The bard played inspiring music and the rogue shot arrows from amongst the sturdy dwarves, and the PCs won the day. Their return to the casino was marred only by a strange occurrence during which every weathervane in town suddenly wrenched around with a screech of metal to point at the Blot in the sky. In the aftermath of such a public disturbance, however, the Overlord called a meeting of the crimelords (minus Vankaskerkin) and Red found that Croat put a bounty on his head for his part in instigating the battle. A trio of half-orcs later burst into the Gold Goblin in the early afternoon to try and claim the bounty, but it was they rather than Red that died.
Red did, however, allow the price on his head dissuade him from attending the fights in Zincher's Arena that Angar had. Akron let the half-orc know that the boss was taking a special interest in the opponents he faced -- and going to some expense to make them particularly dangerous. In his first battle, he easily defeated a swamp barracuda, but his second opponent was a manticore. Even with Gambit the bard playing in the stands, he only managed to battle it to a draw, thanks to his orc ferocity, both duelists going down at once. Gambit noticed that the arena attendant were much more solicitous toward the fallen manticore than to Angar, reviving it with potions, whereas the unconscious half-orc was merely dragged roughly off the fighting floor and bandaged. When he came to, Angar was furious to discover that he didn't receive any pay for that fight since he didn't technically win.
With Angar eager to schedule more arena fights and Riddleport about to boil over due to the rash actions of Vankaskerkin's new gang, Saul called the PCs together and told them that he had an old contact from his crimelord days, Beltias Kreun, who might have information about the people behind the raid on the Gold Goblin. He, like Saul, was out of the crime business now and had fallen on hard times, having to live in a mission to the destitute known as St. Casperian's Salvation; however, he still knew people in the game and might be able to give the party some valuable information. Beltias had been one of the few, Saul said, who knew about the loan he owed to Lymas Sweed, so he told the PCs to be sure and tell Beltias that Saul's debts were all paid off, so he wouldn't worry anymore.
The PCs headed to St. Casperian's Salvation to meet up with Saul's old friend Beltias but found him hard to find. When they asked about him, a resident of the mission directed them to a room inhabited by an old man and his pigeons -- but it wasn't Beltias. Coming out to discover why they had been misled, the PCs found themselves ambushed in the hallway by thugs attacking from several doorways. Having dispatched these threats and being directed to the correct room by a thug who surrendered, the first man in Beltias' room was sneak attacked from behind the door.
While Angar Zar was dealing with his attacker, "Nobody" caught a glimpse of a man fleeing down a hallway around the corner. Red gave chase and saw him entering the bell tower. He threw his non-throwing hammer in an attempt to hit him but instead buried it in the wall where it got stuck. While Red was tugging it out of the wall, the fleeing man climbed up a ladder to the top of the bell tower, set a grappling hook on the end of a long rope and began to make his escape by climbing down to the ground. Red followed him up the ladder and began down the rope but, seeing that his quarry could easily slip away and hide before he finished his careful descent decided to throw caution to the wind. He let go of the rope and fell on top of the fleeing man. They both took falling damage and ended up on the ground where the impact caused thunderstones in the man's pockets to go off. Both were deafened and hurt, but Red was able to take down the would-be escapee before he could get out of the courtyard.
Thanks for the continuing updates. It sounds like it was fun, and some of us are still out here reading even if we don't often say it. :)
I'm glad someone besides me is reading this! :)
Two more sessions will get me caught up to Real Time and the end of the first book.
I sometimes wondered if people read my journals, but occasionally I get comments in other threads where it's clear that there are folks who know what's happening in my campaign(s). Just because people don't comment doesn't mean they aren't reading. :)
Angar the cleric had followed the two into the belltower and attempted to climb down the rope after them, but he ended up falling as well. Red and Angar secured the unknown man before Angar channeled energy to heal the trio and, after the effects of the thunderstones wore off, found that this was the Beltias Kreun Saul had sent them to find. Oddly, however, he didn't seem to bear any particular affection toward Saul and, when told that Saul's debts were paid off and he was free and clear, claimed that Saul in fact owed money to him. In addition, he didn't have any specific information about the raid on the Gold Goblin, other than the general talk of the town that Zincher and Croat were behind it.
The PCs decided that Beltias should be taken back to the Goblin to face Saul, so they started in that direction when they heard a strange pinging clatter that turned out to be tiny rocks falling out of the clear blue sky. The rocks, however, began to grow in size, and they had to dodge them or be injured. Angar chose to break into the nearest house and get out of the rocks immediately, while the rest of the party ran for the shelter of the Gas Forges. Red, who was holding Beltias, was hit by a falling rock and momentarily lost his hold on his prisoner, who took the opportunity to escape. Red gave chase, but Beltias lost him by ducking into an empty house, opening the back door as if he had run out that way, and hiding.
When the strange rock fall had finished, Angar decided to make some money by going around and casting Mending on broken windows and such while the rest of the party returned to the Gold Goblin. When they arrived, they found Saul on the front steps, staring slack-jawed and pale-faced at the sky. When asked what was wrong, he tried to shake himself out of it and explain that he had never seen anything like it before. The PCs told him about the ambush they had walked into at the mission and about Beltias' unhelpfulness and escape, but Saul kept staring at the sky, distracted, and soon retreated to his office with a bottle of liquor.
Red went upstairs to check on his boss, and Saul once again refused to say what had affected him so strongly about the fall of rocks but said that since Beltias apparently wasn't as far out of crime as he had believed, he had one more contact who might have information about the raid. He told Red that they wouldn't open that night due to the rock damage and that he was going out alone and would be back later, but Red told the rest of the group what Saul had said and "Nobody" decided to follow him.
The elf rogue tailed Saul to the Boneyard. By the time they arrived, it was after sunset, and "Nobody" watched a humanoid figure detach itself from the shadow of a hulking ship and approach Saul, who held up his hands in unthreatening matter and asked to speak to someone named Ziphras. The elf saw Saul escorted deeper into the Boneyard where he briefly spoke with another shadowy figure, then brought back toward the road to Riddleport. At this point, Saul's escort caught a glimpse of movement as "Nobody" tried to move closer to eavesdrop and shouted a challenge. Seeing the jig was up, "Nobody" approached openly, and when Saul recognized him, he relaxed and assured the mangy-looking man he was with that it was only one of his boys.
Saul continued out of the Boneyard, clapping "Nobody" on the shoulder and telling him he would be glad of the company traveling back into town. When asked what he was doing in the Boneyard, Saul explained that Ziphras was an associate, albeit one he wasn't particularly proud of, but useful in this instance. He had discovered, he said, that Zincher and Croat had met in the Boneyard to plan the raid on the Gold Goblin, and Ziphras, the Boneyard being his and his boys' headquarters, had informed Saul that the two crimelord intended to meet there again the following night to plan a follow-up attack. This, Saul told "Nobody", might well be their chance to ambush the two and exact revenge on both.
The party, insanely overconfident and always ready for a fight, was thrilled at the prospect of attacking two crimelords and their bodyguards. Angar Zar took the opportunity, the following day, to use all his money (and some borrowed from a party member) to purchase a set of full plate he'd had his eye on, and the PCs decided to make their way to the Boneyard Cut well before dark to hide and plan an ambush on the crimelords' parties as they took the road to the Boneyard. They hid in the forest near where the road exited the Cut and began planning which spells, skills & potions they would use and in which order when Croat and Zincher came ambling along.
The party waited until dark, and then waited some more and some more, and no one came along the road. At this point, the DM pointed out that a more secretive route to the Boneyard rather than waltzing along a public road would be to take rowboats down the shore from the docks, so they decided to send "Nobody" in to see if the crimelords were already there. The elf sneaked in and saw a half-dozen or so figures standing beneath a hanging lantern and returned to fetch the rest of the PCs.
The party decided to adapt their previous plan as much as possible to the new situation, so Angar Zar drank a potion of invisibility and attempted to move close enough to the huddled figures to cast a spell. On his way, however, he rolled a negative number on a Stealth check, thanks to his new armor, stepped on a protruding spar under the water level, and triggered a loud, splashing landslide down one of the piles of refuse. The half-orc froze -- and then realized that the figures he was so carefully sneaking up on hadn't moved at all in reaction.
At this point, the players began to worry that the alleged meeting was a set-up just to get them out of the Gold Goblin and that Zincher's men were at the moment back at the casino murdering Saul. Angar moved closer to ascertain that the figures were, in fact, dummies and stepped off a drop-off into 10-foot water. About the same time, arrows began to fly from hidden assailants at the other party members, and a cockroach swarm poured out of a pile of garbage to hamper the PCs.
In the ensuing battle, "Nobody" was caught with a thrown tanglefoot bag; 3 PCs were bitten by wererats, 2 of them failing their saves and unknowingly contracting filth fever; Angar was hit squarely by an arrow despite being invisible, as he was in the direct line of fire between a wererat and his target ("They see me?!? How did they see me?!?"); Red was sickened when a cockroach crawled into his mouth; and Angar, trying desperately to get into the battle at his newly-slowed speed in his plate mail, lucked out when a wererat walked right past his invisible figure trying to get to the rest of the party and he got an attack of opportunity and a full attack. After taking down the unfortunate wererat, the half-orc tried to get to the other ones in melee with the rest of the party and once again stepped off into deep water. He spent the remaining rounds of the winding-down battle holding his breath and failing Swim checks. (Angar's player to the rest of the attacking/damaging crew: "While you're having fun over there, Angar is drowning! ...You're not supposed to laugh at that!")
The half-orc did manage to pull himself back up to shallow water as the rest of the PCs finished off the wererats. They were worried about what might be happening to Saul in their absence, but figuring that if his enemies had taken the opportunity to kill him he wasn't actually getting any deader, they looted the wererats' bodies. In the pocket of one, they found a note, written in some kind of theives' cant. Gambit and "Nobody" were able to discern the meaning of it, however, and found that it claimed that the writer's "ally" Saul Vancaskerkin had sent them into the ambush and that it was signed simply "Z."
Angar immediately assumed that Saul had set them up with his friend Ziphras, but wiser members of the party pointed out that Z stood for Zincher as well as Ziphras and that it was much more probable that Zincher had paid off Ziphras to feed Saul false information and to plant the note falsely fingering him. After all, what better way to get a rival killed than to mislead his closest associates, whom he wouldn't suspect, into doing it for you? They pointed to the opening of the letter as proof: "My ally Saul Vancaskerkin." It was obvious that Saul didn't have any allies in Riddleport besides themselves: every "friend" he ever sent them to see ended up trying to kill them!
(I love it when PCs think....)
Wow. Thank you for writing all of this down, I'm favoriting this straight away! I'll be keeping an eye on this campaign, you are doing a wonderful job of running it. I love all the little things you added/changed, like the fact that they met Braddikar several times before fighting him on the boat. It made him seem less of a random boss encounter.
Looking forward to the next entry! :D
Wow. Thank you for writing all of this down, I'm favoriting this straight away! I'll be keeping an eye on this campaign, you are doing a wonderful job of running it. I love all the little things you added/changed, like the fact that they met Braddikar several times before fighting him on the boat. It made him seem less of a random boss encounter.
Looking forward to the next entry! :D
Thanks for the kind words! For the most part, the first thing I did when getting ready to start the adventure was to read through all the NPCs in Riddleport and figure out ways for the PCs to meet them before they became plot-relevant; however, I can't take full credit for the previous acquaintance with Braddikar. The cleric of Gorum went to Zincher's tenement looking to pick a fight with someone and I was in the position of either having to make up an NPC on the fly or ... hey, look! There's Braddikar's stat block! Let's say he's there! That said, though, I did think it worked out wonderfully. Fights are always more interesting to the PCs when they have some emotions invested them and aren't just "hey, there's some guys with red circles around their feet, time for combat."
I have two more sessions to post to get caught up to my group. Unfortunately, it's a busy week for me, but I hope to get a post up on Friday. I don't know if we'll get to play this weekend or not, but I definitely don't want to fall farther behind!
The PCs left the Boneyard heading for the Gold Goblin, intending to ask Saul some very blunt questions and get answers any way they can. When they arrived, they found the casino all locked up, dark, silent, and apparently deserted. Gambit, the new floor manager, unlocked the front doors with his key but found that they were still barred from the inside. Half the group went around back to try the back door, while the others remained up front.
Gambit had no trouble unlocking the back door and noted with relief that there was no evidence of a forced entry. Going to unbar the front door and let the rest of the group in, the PCs avoided slipping in some unusual puddles on the casino floor. Their first fear was that the substance was blood, but upon examination, the puddles proved to be made of a clear, thick & slippery liguid which seemed to have dripped in several places from the fabric of the false ceiling. The PCs were not immediately able to identify this substance.
Once the group was reunited inside the Goblin, they went upstairs to Saul's rooms but found his office door locked. Knocking and calling his name met with no results, so "Nobody" set to picking the lock on the door. While he was doing this, Angar and Dax went through the secret door to the catwalks to investigate the liquid soaking the curtains.
Meanwhile, "Nobody" had succeeded in opening the door to Saul's office. The interior was dark and silent. Wielding a lantern, the PCs investigated. Nothing looked out of place, save that the high-backed swivelling chair behind Saul's desk was turned to the wall so that they could only see the back of it. Red strode in and turned the chair around, revealing Larur Feldin's badly-decomposed corpse seated in it. His beard had been brutally shorn away in large chunks, some of which took the flesh with them, and his left hand had been cut off and a large rusty skeleton key pushed into the stump.
Dax, on the catwalks above the casino floor, heard a sound coming from the kitchen area, followed by footsteps running down a set of stairs. Angar and Dax swung by Saul's office to collect the rest of the group, and all the PCs ran downstairs to find flames licking out of one of the kitchen fireplaces and across the floor. The door to the basement stairs hung open. While the rest of the group began to try to beat out the fire with towels they found around the kitchen, Dax ran down the stairs to discover the arsonist. Peeking into Bojask's room, the monk saw the usual empty wine bottles strewn across the floor and Saul's bodyguard's body prone in bed. Not judging his time well spent in trying to rouse him from his drunken stupor at this point, Dax continued to search the basement. While he didn't discover the culprit, he did peek down into the Octohedron and see that the sand that normally covered the floor had been swept away, revealing a trap door. Assuming that his quarry had gone that way but loath to leave his companions upstairs to fight the fire alone any longer, Dax returned to the kitchen.
The rest of the group had run back upstairs for a few large tapestries off the walls in order to beat the fire out more effectively, but every time they thought they had the upper hand, it kept spreading. They came to the conclusion that an accelerant had been used, and it was then that they realized that the substance soaking the gauzy curtains over the casino floor was oil. They managed to clear an exit out the back door, and Gambit ran out to rouse the neighbors and organize a bucket brigade. The PCs labored mightily, but when the fire reached the fireplace on the other side of the room, in which alchemist's fire was stashed, it exploded outward into flame. Eventually, the flames reached the doors to the casino floor, and the PCs heard a great whoosh as the oil ignited. Angar wanted to go down with the ship, as it were, but the other PCs convinced him to retreat out the back door to join Gambit's bucket brigade. Dax went back downstairs first to try to rouse Bojask and made the grisly discovery that his throat had been cut and Pigsaw was employed in eating his master's remains.
News of the fire had spread quickly through Riddleport. A cadre of dwarves arrived to try and rescue their favorite watering hole, and Samaritha ran up breathless from the Cypherlodge, relieved to see that Dax had escaped the inferno. Thanks to the efforts of the PCs and their allies, the Gold Goblin was not a total loss, although all that was left of the casino floor and guest rooms was smoking rubble. The Overlord's gendarmes didn't bother showing up until after the fire was out to examine the remains. Finding Larur's charred and mutilated corpse, they made the assumption that it was Saul's and questioned the PCs rather pointedly about where they were when the fire broke out. They left the premises with a warning that a permit to rebuild would be expensive and wouldn't be issued at all until an inquiry into Saul's (supposed) death was completed.
The Goblin's vault survived intact, and the PCs were able to use the keys found on Larur's belt to open it. They were dismayed to find that the many bags within held not coins but worthless scrap metal but pleased to find the deed granting its possessor legal ownership of the property in a locked box. Gambit, as the only one with ranks in Profession (gambler), took it. At this point, the PCs were of the opinion that this was Saul's retirement plan and the only way out of Riddleport for him: to fake his own death, leaving the casino to them. Otherwise, they assumed, his enemies would never stop pursuing him. They were impressed by his ruthless resolve and grateful for the gift of the Goblin.
Needing healing, rest, and someplace to stay, the PCs decided to take refuge in the Goblin's intact basement areas. From there, they went to the trap door Dax had seen in the Octohedron. "Nobody" was able to pick the lock, and they made their way through the smugglers' tunnels. They were a bit overconfident against the wight, and Angar took a negative level; the darkland sentinels and troglodytes held them up for a little while; but overall they traveled through the tunnels fairly easily.
They arrived in Depora's chambers to find Saul Vancaskerkin slumped against the wall. He seemed barely conscious, but when they shook him, he opened his eyes, saw who it was, and began feebly to laugh. He told them he had been poisoned and, knowing himself to be on his deathbed, made a full confession: He had hated them and been trying to kill them since their first meeting.
He had been the one behind the robbery they thwarted during the gambling tournament; he had planned to take the money and run away with Depora. When the PCs stepped in, he was forced to act grateful or fall under suspicion. He hired them on thinking it would be easier to kill them if they were working for him. While it was true that he was heavily in debt to several moneylenders, the money Larur had discovered missing hadn't gone in payments; he had been siphoning it to Depora. He had Bojask kill Larur to cover up his lie but framed Lymas Sweed hoping he and his pet would kill the PCs. When they survived that, he sent them to steal Clegg Zincher's wine from Braddikar Faje. He sent them into St. Casperian's Salvation, the headquarters of one of his biggest creditors, with a message indicating he didn't intend to pay. He even used his connections to instigate a raid on his own casino. Finally, he paid Ziphras to ambush them with his wererats on the very night he intended to fake his own death and flee with the last of the money, but he heard them once again come back alive while he was preparing to torch the Goblin. And then they even survived the fire!
Who was Depora, the PCs wanted to know. The most beautiful woman in the world, was all he would tell them. She needed money; he gave it to her. In return, she was going to get him his final revenge on Riddleport. When he had seen rocks falling from the clear sky like rain, he had known the time was near. The plan had been that the two of them would run away together before the final calamity would fall on Riddleport, leaving it a smoking hole of rubble. But when he had come to her, she had laughed at him and poisoned him. Even knowing what he knew now, however, he claimed, he would still do it all again for Depora, and even though he'd soon be dead, he would die knowing that the whole city of Riddleport that had so wronged him would soon follow him to hell, when Depora's plan came to fruition.
At this point, the PCs heard a sound from the next chamber and left Saul to run into a cavern revealing an underground portion of the Cyphergate with several runes chipped away. The only egress was a ladder leading upward, of which Dax quickly availed himself. He came up in an abandoned watchpost near the shore; outside, it was sunset. Running out, he saw some kind of commotion down by the docks, and he ran down to see what was happening. He found a group of dockworkers and sailors, standing and pointing up in the darkening sky toward the Cyphergate. Running lithely up the surface of the gate, as easily as if on firm ground, the silhouette of a female humanoid was visible. As he watched, the female reached the top of the gate and then jumped lightly off, floating down to land on a ship just sailing out of the harbor. Asking around quickly, he found that the name of the ship was the Teeth of Araska. Also notable: the Blot was gone from the sky.
Most of the rest of the group followed Dax up the ladder, and he told them what he had seen. While they were still standing near the harbor discussing what they had discovered, a streak of light appeared in the sky: a falling star. Rather than burn itself out, however, the light grew brighter and nearer, and a rumble filled the sky. Tiny rocks rained into the water, as the meteor roared overhead, seeming just to miss the Cyphergate as it streaked farther south, tumbling toward the sea. A moment later, a brilliant flash of light filled the southern horizon, resolving itself into a ball of fire rising into the sky and spreading into a mushroom-shaped cloud.
Most of the party stood in awe, watching the destruction which the money they helped Saul to earn had partially fueled. Angar Zar, however, declined to climb to the surface to witness the culmination of the plot points toward which everything had been so painstakingly building. In his defense, he did tend to fail Climb checks pretty regularly in his new full plate, but he mostly was concerned with not letting an ounce of treasure get away. He had seen copper coins scattered thickly beneath the surface of a pool inhabited until recently by aquatic gricks and intended to go back and dive for every darn near worthless penny, no matter how long it took. His experience of the next few hours, therefore, differed from the rest of the party.
Aboveground, the PCs were caught up in a mighty tsunami, which drove ships from the harbor up onto the streets of the city and wiped out most of Riddleport's structures nearest the water. They were pulled out into the harbor when the wave ebbed but managed to make it back to shore. They spent the next several minutes trying to rescue citizens who were struggling in the harbor.
Belowground, Angar Zar heard a great rushing sound from the tunnel beneath the harbor, but as there seemed to be no immediate danger, he kept on diving for pennies.
When all the victims of the tsunami were either rescued or irrevocably lost, the PCs aboveground examined the evidence they had found in the chamber below: stonecutting tools, diamond dust & a slim leatherbound book. When they opened it up, they found that many of its pages had been quickly torn out. A title page survived, as did the bottom corner at the back, and Dax had found a full page in the watchpost which the mysterious Depora had apparently dropped. The script was written in a flowing, elegant hand, but none of the PCs recognized the language. They decided to take it to Samaritha at the Cypherlodge and see if she or one of her colleagues could translate it.
Meanwhile, Angar, having retrieved every last copper piece he could, filled the platinum chest from Depora's chambers, lashed Saul's corpse to the top ("Someone will pay money for it!"), and prepared to drag his treasure back through the tunnel to the Gold Goblin. As he began to descend through the tunnel beneath the harbor, however, he discovered standing water; the tsunami had flooded the tidal pool beneath the Goblin, and the sea water had flowed down to fill the tunnel entirely. He fought off a few reefclaws before he was forced to turn back.
The PCs aboveground were originally stymied in their efforts to reach the Cypherlodge, as the tsunami had driven the ferry upriver and inland. At last, they liberated a dinghy from a grounded ship and used it to row across the harbor. As they made their way through the Windward district, they were distracted by screams of panic and discovered a pair of swamp barracudas washed inland attacking the citizenry. As one unfortunate man was torn asunder before their very eyes, they swung into action and defeated the monsters, earning the cheers and gratitude of the people.
Angar plodded back the way he came and tried to figure out how he was going to get his armored self and his few hundred pounds of encumbrance up the ladder to the watchpost. He tied a rope securely to his chest-and-Saul bundle and, falling only once, laboriously climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he gave a mighty yank to pull his treasure up behind him -- and snapped the rope.
The PCs arrived at the Cypherlodge buzzing with action despite the late hour and the fact that its high perch had kept it unscathed by the tsunami. Not only the falling star but also the sudden disappearance of the blot had the mages in full speculative mode, casting detects and divination spells left and right. Dax quickly found Samaritha and told her what the party had discovered under the surface of Riddleport. She was alarmed at the thought of damage to the Cyphergate but also obviously pleased that she was the first to hear of it; she was sure that being the one to deliver the news to her superior Fenella would earn her accolades and brownie points. She also didn't recognize the language on the papers the party had found but was sure someone in the Cypherlodge would be able to translate it for them. The PCs decided to return to the Gold Goblin to rest, with the exception of Dax who opted to camp out near the Cypherlodge to protect (and be near) Samaritha.
Meanwhile, Angar had climbed back down the ladder, mended his rope, and climbed back up. Having learned from his mistake, this time he pulled the rope slowly and steadily and was able to get his burden to the surface. He dragged the chest and stiffening corpse through Riddleport back to the Gold Goblin, and it was a measure of the state of chaos the town was in that he didn't draw any untoward attention.
In the morning, most of the party headed back to the Cypherlodge to see if Samaritha had found anyone to translate the evidence they had found. (Dax, of course, was already there.) Angar, however, took up Saul's corpse once again and headed to Zincher's Tenement, hoping to claim some kind of reward. He greeted the guard at the door with a demand to see Clegg Zincher to claim the bounty on Saul Vancaskerkin's head. The guard pointed out that Vancaskerkin would have been executed years ago if not for Clegg Zincher's particular plea for clemency; there was no bounty on his head. Nevertheless, Angar insisted on seeing Zincher. Even if he was inclined to let him in, the guard explained, Zincher wasn't there. He and many of his top men had taken off shortly after the star had fallen the previous night, and the guard had no idea when they'd be back. In frustration, Angar dumped Saul's corpse on Zincher's doorstep and returned to the Gold Goblin.
The rest of the party found the Cypherlodge in the same state of hectic activity it had been in the previous night. An unseemingly-triumphant Samaritha told them that she had gone with Fenella to be among the first to examine the damage to the Cyphergate beneath the watchpost. When asked about the papers they had left with her, she reported that one of her associates had recognized the language as Undercommon, a trade language used by subterranean races, and while he hadn't yet completed the translation, it should be finished by that night.
The day passed with Angar using mending to help repair some of the damage down at the wharves (for money, of course). The party returned to the Cypherlodge in the early evening to find a somewhat more organized level of activity, with porters carrying valises and crates of equipment down toward the water. They quickly located Samaritha, who seemed almost giddy with excitement. She rushed to Dax and told him that because she and Fenella had been the first to deliver the crucial news about the vandalism of the Cyphergate, Fenella had been put in charge of an important research voyage, and she was going as well. They were going to Devil's Elbow, an island south of Riddleport where they believed the falling star had landed, to perform experiments no one in generations had been able to. Dax asked about going along with her, but she told him that their passage had been purchased on a merchant boat since all the boats in harbor at the time of the tsunami had been heavily damaged and there was no more room. Telling him not to worry, she kissed him goodbye and blushed. Almost as an afterthought, she handed over their papers along with her colleague's translation and took her leave.
The title page remaining in the book read: The following pages represent a full and detailed accounting of the shipments which I have arranged to the party at Devil's Elbow, utilizing the ship Teeth of Araska. All moneys received from the human Saul Vancaskerkin have also been accounted for.
The full page of writing Dax had found dropped in the watchtower read: Since the initial charging of the glyphs beneath Devil's Elbow, strange and eldritch side effects have occurred at the Runelords' portal. The most persistent and notable is a constant shadow in the sky above what the current inhabitants call the "Cyphergate." As the glyphs have waxed in power, other eldritch effects have included a momentary magnetizing of metal objects, no doubt attracted in sympathy with the magnetizing effects of the glyphs drawing down the star; a localized purple mist associated with the casting of spells; a tidal surge in the harbor; an odd effect on the indigenous birds which caused them to destroy themselves against the portal; and a slight temblor which caused minor damage in the tunnels in which I am residing. It would do to further refine the glyphs to minimize such blatant displays lest the enemy receive further warning of the impending apocalypse than we wish to reveal. I believe that once the glyphs are fully activated and the star plucked, all side effects of our efforts should vanish immediately. When that time comes, I will make my escape to witness the fruit of our efforts more closely.
The torn corner remaining near the back of the book read:
Arm-
of our foot
Celwynian.
witness over and over
enemies! However,
the foot of the Thassilonian
great achievement of our race.
today, I know that our test nears
Soon, we will have the absolute proof
We can recreate Earthfall!!
The PCs found most of this writing obscure but were able to put it together with Saul's confidence of revenge against Riddleport to conclude that Depora was up to no good and needed to be stopped. Dax in particular was upset that Samaritha was headed to the very place this evil woman claimed to have gone, and the whole party decided they needed to get to Devil's Elbow to investigate. Going down to what remained of the docks to try to find a ship, they saw a group of dwarves, and Red was hailed by his friend Gravin Goldhammer. He explained that the Gas Forges was sending a group of them to Devil's Elbow in an attempt to retrieve Sky Metal from the fallen star. Seeing that Red didn't seem to be following him, the dwarf asked, "Ye've heard of adamantine? That's a Sky Metal." (At this point, you could hear the ch-ching as dollar signs rolled up into Angar Zar's eyes.) He went on to explain that all the adamantine in the world was left over from Earthfall, when a great star fell from the sky, creating the Inner Sea and causing a thousand years of darkness and misery to come over Golarion. The humans, halflings and orcs all but died out, as their civilizations fell; the dwarves retreated underground; and "the elves went off to wherever they go off to when there's trouble." The dwarves' passage had been purchased on a passing merchant ship, and they had no more room; but he urged Red to try and find a fast ship and get some sky metal for himself. He knew the party would be needing a lot of money to rebuild the Gold Goblin, and he promised the Gas Forges would buy whatever they could come back with at a more than fair price. They'd have to hurry, though: besides the dwarves themselves, it was rumored that Clegg Zincher and Avery Slyeg had both quickly seen the opportunity for profit and sent teams to the island, Zincher stealing a ship and going himself.
The party now had a plethora of reasons to get to Devil's Elbow -- profit, competition with Zincher, concern for Samaritha, and a new and horrible understanding of what exactly was at stake if Depora and her allies could "recreate Earthfall" -- but no way to get there. The mention of a fast ship, however, reminded them of their friend Josper Creesy and the Flying Cloud. Asking around, they found he hadn't been in harbor when the tsunami hit but was expected back in a few days. With no other undamaged transport available, the party was forced to wait until he returned, using the time to purchase some new gear. The elf "Nobody" had recognized the name "Celwynian" in the writings as the name of an ancient ruined elf city but hadn't said anything to the others. Unbeknownst to them, he was actually a junior agent of the Shin'Rakorath sent to Riddleport due to suspicion that a "rogue elf" was working with one of the crimelords. He sent a message to his superiors reporting what he had learned, and they responded telling him to continue to investigate, not to be alarmed by anything he might see, and to expect the arrival of another agent in about a week.
The PCs spent all the rest of their time waiting at the docks for Creesy's return, and when he tied up at the battered wharves wondering what had happened while he had been gone, they were there to hail him. Others, however, also quickly approached the undamaged ship offering up to 50 gold apiece for transport to Devil's Elbow. Grinning, the captain asked if the PCs could match the bid; when they agreed, he told them he had to unload some goods and resupply but could be underway by mid-afternoon and have them to the island by sunset.
While sailing, Captain Creesy regaled his passengers with the tragic history of Devil's Elbow and the rumors that it was haunted by the siren and her star-crossed lover. His easy grin faded, however, the nearer they got to the island, as the skies grew overcast and rainy; it seemed he put stock in the rumors. The Flying Cloud glided into the island's harbor around sunset, providing the whole ship with an excellent view of the huge, smoking crater where the star had fallen. As they were tying up, a voice hailed them from shore, and Gravin Goldhammer approached with a few dwarves, looking dirty and haggard. He reported that the island was infested with strange cat-like creatures that had attacked his men upon their arrival, and that the dwarves killed had later suffered slimy, tongue-like appendages bursting through their lower jaws as they rose again and turned against their friends. He begged Creesy for a return trip to Riddleport for him and his men.
About this time, a burst of pyrotechnics erupted from high up the ridge of the island, and Goldhammer opined that this was probably the party of Cyphermages on the island. He assumed that it was a distress call and had sent some of his dwarves to investigate, but none had returned. He urged Red to return to Riddleport ("No amount of sky metal is worth going like that!"), but Dax was determined to rescue Samaritha and Angar wasn't going to let any kind of creature stand between him and a full outfit of adamantine. Josper Creesy agreed to return the dwarf and what remained of his party to Riddleport and return for the PCs as soon as possible: the following night. The Flying Cloud sailed away to safety, leaving the party alone on the pier.
As the PCs stood alone on the pier at dusk, watching their only chance of escape sail away, a cold rain began to fall. Angar wanted to head straight to the crater to collect star metal, but Dax insisted on heading up to Witchlight to help Samaritha and the Cyphermages. Once it became clear that travel through the thick growth of the island would be prohibitively slow, the half-orc agreed to travel by trail and head toward Witchlight in the hope that the beaten path would eventually bring him near the fallen star.
By the time they climbed to the peak of the island, it was well dark. Angar went around casting light on stones to enhance visibility for the other party members. They found the remains of Goldhammer's dwarves, and the ensuing fight with the void zombies attracted Samaritha's attention inside the tower. She let them in and told them of Fenella's death and the survivors' dire situation. Angar channelled energy to return the injured Cyphermages to consciousness, and they were coming up with a plan to get the mages back to Riddleport when the Flying Cloud returned the next day when a warning was shouted down from the watch above that the akatas were returning.
Samaritha ran down to bar the door, but Angar insisted on being allowed out to fight them instead of holing up in the tower. In a hurry, Samaritha let him go but warned him that she wouldn't open the door again until the akatas were gone. The cleric was fortunate in that the first akatas found him while he was still in the building attached to the tower and space was limited so they couldn't surround him. He was able to kill 4 of the creatures one at a time by standing in the doorway.
The rest of the party fought with ranged weapons from the windows of the tower; Dax was able to take one of the cat-like creatures down with a single well-placed javelin. However, the party hadn't realized how much the meteorite's impact had weakened the ridge of the island; their first indication that the weight of the akatas thrown against the tower was putting them in danger was a violent tremor. The Cyphermages didn't want to leave the safety of the walls, but the PCs were eventually able to persuade them to abandon the tower. The group had just gotten down the stairs and unbarred the door when the tower fell.
Most of the Cyphermages were able to leap out the open door, but Samaritha and one other of their number were knocked down by the lurch of the falling tower. Dax refused to leave without Samaritha and passed up his chance to get out to go back and pick her up. So all the party but Angar were in the tower when it began rolling down the precipice. Red and Dax were able to brace themselves in the tower, Dax leaving a hand free to hold Samaritha, and the rogue "Nobody" gracefully rode the tower down like a hamster in a wheel. Gambit took the opportunity that presented itself to leap out and seized hold of an exposed root to stop his descent as the tower rolled down to the sea. The other Cyphermage was knocked unconscious by the rough ride; as he came flying past Dax, the monk roared to Samaritha to hold onto him, reached out and seized the limp body. Everyone but the unfortunate Cyphermage made it to the sea with a minimum of damage.
Angar Zar, in the meantime, had exited the tower's outbuilding to find more akatas. By the time he came around the corner of the building, the tower had fallen, and the akatas had gone down with it to die in the saltwater. Feeling suddenly very alone, he looked down the cliff and saw the halfling bard clinging to the side. He soon sent down a rope and pulled Gambit back up to solid ground.
The PCs at the bottom of the cliff were at a loss for a while how to try to get back up. Samaritha said there were a few healing kits and what little starmetal they had found inside the tower, so Dax and Red volunteered to go back in and dive for them; they found the starmetal and one healing kit. Finally, with some rope to tie the poorer climbers to the better and a levitate spell to float the unconscious Cyphermage up, they successfully reunited with Angar and Gambit, scouted the remaining buildings for structural integrity, and decided to hole up in an abandoned store until morning.
While "Nobody" was on watch, peering between the boarded-up front window, he was surprised to see a group of about 10 men dressed like sailors come up the trail from the east with lanterns. They approached cautiously, then, when no living creatures seemed evident, clustered around the crumbling cliff wall where the tower had fallen. There was some pointing and discussion; then, one of their number tied off a rope and made the descent to the narrow beach below while the rest stood a nervous guard. When he returned to the top several minutes later, "Nobody" heard him say that the tower seemed to have fallen naturally rather than due to the magic of any of the Cyphermages, that he had found no survivors, and that they could now return to report to the captain.
"Nobody," seeing a prime chance to get the nervous mages off the party's hands and on their way back to Riddleport, went out to speak to the sailors. They were startled to see him, ascertained that he had been with the Cyphermages and was not the sole survivor, and, with shifty glances, said he and the rest would have to come along with them. The elf, sensing that all was not rosy about their intentions, dashed back into the store to rouse the party.
The Cyphermages, when they heard that there might be a ship to rescue them from the island, didn't stop to listen to "Nobody"'s concerns but clamored to go right away. Red, Angar, and Dax went out to talk to the sailors and were ambushed. A few of the sailors pushed their way inside and demanded surrender; the timorous Cyphermages were quick to accede, but Samaritha fought back. It didn't take long for the PCs to prove their superior strength, and the remaining four sailors surrendered.
Tied up and questioned, they told the party they were from the ship Teeth of Araska, that the ship was moored in a sea cave below, and that they had been sent up to find out what happened at the fallen tower. When Dax asked them about the woman who had leapt onto their ship from the Cyphergate, the sailors exchanged uncomfortable glances and said they'd have to talk to the captain about that, that was his affair. They agreed to lead the party back to their ship. The Cyphermages, who had been clamoring to be taken to the camp of Clegg Zincher in the morning to beg protection, when they heard that a ship was in the offering, surrounded by the saltwater they had seen dissolve the akatas, were easily persuaded to head for it instead, provided the PCs promised to get them there safely.
The sailors led the group eastward along the trail. Before long, the glow of a bonfire became visible through the trees; the sailors shrugged that there was some kind of camp ahead, but they had been told to steer clear of it. Concluding that this must be Zincher's camp, the party sent the rogue "Nobody" ahead to scout it out. He found several tents partially surrounded by an uncompleted palisade and 2 men on guard by the fire. Skirting around the biggest tent, he discovered countless empty wooden cages and, sleeping in their midst, some kind of large birds. Avoiding the birds, he silently slit the tent fabric and investigated the inside. He picked the lock on a large chest and removed a scroll which proved to be a map of the island marked with places where starmetal had been recovered. Continuing into the other chamber of the tent, the elf found Clegg Zincher, sound asleep. Stealing a few potions, he returned the way he came and reported back to the rest of the party.
Angar Zar had been nursing a smoldering resentment toward Clegg Zincher that had proved entirely impervious to Saul's deathbed confession that it had been he, and not Zincher, who had repeatedly tried to kill the party. Upon hearing that his enemy was lying defenseless within a half a mile of him, the cleric immediately set off to exact his revenge, refusing to listen to the rest of the party members trying to make him see reason. Gambit, the halfling bard, feeling a loyalty toward his large companion, trotted along with him, thinking that his music might assist the half-orc in what he feared would be a difficult battle.
The rest of the party kept their promise to the Cyphermages to protect them and get them onto the ship where, surrounded by saltwater, they could hope to be safe from the akatas. The captured sailors were able to point out the hidden trailhead that led down the cliffs to the sea cave where the Teeth of Araska was moored. The trail looked as if it dead-ended, but when "Nobody" moved forward to scout it out, he found himself slipping around a ridge into a vast cave almost before he realized it. Below, a ship lay at anchor near a dark, rocky beach, a gangplank leading to the land. What ambient light the overcast night provided spilled in from an opening seaward. The elf rogue saw only a single figure in the crow's nest of the ship. Disguising himself with the clothing off a slain pirate in case he was discovered, "Nobody" slipped on board and took a quick look around.
In the meantime, Angar and Gambit had arrived at the outskirts of Zincher's camp. Seeing the many tents, Angar felt a pang of concern for his small companion; he was willing to die himself if he could kill Clegg Zincher, but he didn't want to put the bard in harm's way. He suggested that the bard go back and find the rest of the group, and Gambit readily acquiesced, tripping off blithely along, a halfling bard, into the dark night on an island filled with monsters.
"Nobody" returned to his companions at the hidden entrance to the seacave and let them know that he had found the ship sparsely populated. Questioning the captives revealed that most of the "grunts" of the crew had been sent up to investigate the fallen tower and that the figure in the crow's nest was a wizard. The group decided to approach the ship openly, most of them dressed in the sailors' clothing, hoping that the others would be taken for prisoners.
Meanwhile, Angar Zar cast darkness on a stone he held tightly in his hand, strode directly into the camp, ignoring the guards' hails, cut a slit in the side of Zincher's tent, and stepped through, dropping his stone. He murdered Clegg Zincher in his bed, as the guards felt around in the dark blindly for him, sounding the alarm. A moment later, Akron Erix came running into the tent, bearing a torch. Taking in the scene -- the bloody corpse in the bed and the half-orc cleric standing blankly over it, weapon in hand -- he sent the two guards back to their posts before asking Angar to explain himself. Nothing if not a practical man, Akron knew that nothing could save Zincher now -- and also that, with Zincher dead, he was now in charge of the crew on Devil's Elbow. He just had time to tell Angar that Zincher had been acting oddly since their arrival on the island before the call went up from without that the akatas were attacking again. Angar agreed to stand and fight with Akron.
Gambit, in the meantime, had wandered back and forth up the trail several times, unable to find the hidden place where the path down the cliffs split off. After a while, he was attacked by a stirge, which drank its fill before he could detach it; plus, he managed to do more damage to himself with his rapier than he did to the creature, trying to dislodge it.
In the sea cave below, the group walked nervously up the gangplank. As soon as they were on deck, all those dressed in sailor's clothes heard a disembodied voice whispering in their ears, "What happened at the tower?" Samaritha quickly grabbed Dax's arm: "It's a message spell. Any one of the sailors can whisper back to him!" But it was too late; already their captives' lips were moving, sending a warning up to the magic user, and the next moment, a sticky web exploded around them. The PCs all saved, however, and Dax quickly moved to the main mast, downing a potion of spiderclimb, and began to ascend toward the wizard, who was shouting to warn the captain of intruders. Another pirate climbed up through a trap door from a lower deck, and, after a moment, a woman opened a door from the cabin and summoned a monstrous spider, which bit and poisoned "Nobody."
Red hit the wizard in the crow's nest with a good shot from a crossbow and got a magic missile back for his pains. By that time, however, Dax had arrived in the crow's nest and beat Selis into unconsciousness. Captain "Grudge" arrived on deck and broke into a raucous sea chanty that inspired his allies while he moved to attack the rogue. Red moved on to confront Ishana, while Dax ran back down the mast to squish the spider. The weakened rogue was forced to spend all his energy dodging blows when he was trapped between the other pirate and the captain, and Ishana, although wounded by Red's hammers, channeled negative energy into him and escaped back into the cabin. Dax came to "Nobody"'s rescue, relieving him of the attentions of Captain "Grudge," and the rogue was able to defeat the other pirate in melee combat. The captain, seeing his allies failing, dove over the side of the ship and swam toward the far end of the cave. Dax ran down the rocky beach in pursuit, but the wily bard kept casting spells at him until he at last succumbed to hideous laughter. While the monk was disabled, the captain ran toward what appeared to be solid rock but which, when he knocked, proved to be a secret door which opened and let him in.
On the surface of the island, Angar and Akron were the only survivors of the akatas' raid. They took refuge in Zincher's pavilion while the alien creatures chased down the last of the panicked men who had run in terror and quickly packed up the skymetal and magical items that came to eye before heading back down the trail in hope of meeting up with the rest of the party. They found Gambit, wandering woozily and bloodily, and Akron was easily able to find the trail that had eluded the bard. They arrived at the sea cave to find the battle recently ended and the PCs securing their captives and ready to search the rest of the ship.
While "Nobody" and Red searched the rest of the ship, the Cyphermages, Gambit, and Angar settled down in the beds and hammocks to rest; Dax stood guard over the captured pirates on the deck. The elf and his back-up muscle discovered the former captain of the Teeth of Araska in the brig; he told them that Elreth Treeg and his cleric-girlfriend Ishana had led a mutiny against him and kept him alive only because he claimed he knew where a treasure was hidden. "Nobody" was ready to pick the lock and let him out, but the captain dissuaded him, telling him that the brig was trapped and if they tried to open the door without the key Treeg carried, the whole ceiling would fall in on him and kill him. After searching the captain's quarters again, "Nobody" determined that Treeg must have taken the brig key with him when he escaped; Red gave the imprisoned captain rations and rum and assured him that the party would retrieve the key and free him.
When the Cyphermages and Gambit had rested and retrieved their spells, Angar cast all the remove diseases and lesser restorations he had, and cure spells and potions got all the injured people feeling at least close to normal. The party decided that their first priority was to find a way through the secret door to get the key to free the captain. Akron Erix volunteered to stay on the ship to keep watch over the Cyphermages and guard the pirates.
Of course, prewarned by Treeg, all the inhabitants of the sea cave were aware of the party's presence, and Xakihn, watching from his observation post, knew exactly when they were coming. "Nobody" managed to disable the glyph on the door, but the party was met soon after their entry by the shadow demon Chmetugo. He held the PCs off long enough for the drow within to get into place to ambush them, then fled to Shindiira's side.
The battle in the sea cave was fought almost entirely in globes of darkness, countered by light spells cast on Angar's sword, and partially in silence, when Gambit the bard failed the save to keep his music out of the fight. (Of course, this also limited the drow's ability to cast in the area.) The party faced 6 drow guards, Depora, Xakihn and his summoning prowess, Shindiira, and the shadow demon all at once. Gambit and Red were taken out of the fight by the drow's sleep poison, and "Nobody" was dropped by "friendly fire" when Angar began desperately to channel negative energy to affect several enemies at once.
Shindiira had seen her six guards dropped fairly easily, and Xakihn had witnessed not only the destruction of his summoned creatures but the violent death of his animal companion; these two took the opportunity of fleeing under cover of darkness and silence, taking their skymetal with them and leaving Chmetugo to deal with the PCs still on their feet; Depora, witnessing their flight, dove into the water to try to swim away. Angar used his orc ferocity to take one last mighty swing at the demon; as he fell heavily to the platform, Chmetugo was vanquished and dispersed in agony. Dax looked around quickly for the remaining drow and saw her in the water as she swam beneath the magical glow of Angar's fallen sword. He dove in, grappled her, and brought her back to shore, clubbing her into unconsciousness.
As Gambit and Red began groggily to come to, Dax desperately bound "Nobody"'s wounds; Angar seemed to have stabilized on his own. The party members on their feet searched the drow's supplies and found some potions with which to restore their companions to consciousness. They also found rope with which to bind their unconscious prisoner, after stripping her of all her gear of value. On her, they found the missing pages from the journal they had discovered under Riddleport; they listed the supplies bought and sent to Devil's Elbow, along with the dates of the shipments, and they found the other part of the torn page they had recovered. Putting the pieces together, "Nobody" (who had put a skill point in Linguistics his last level, in order to learn Undercommon) was able to read:
There are those in Zirnakaynin, unimaginable as it may seem, who are unwilling to send their sons to serve our race in its glorious quest. When our work is complete and our enemies crushed to earth or reduced to frozen savages beneath skies of endless night, the shirkers will be justly condemned and enslaved, and House Azrinae, with its servant House Vonnarc, will be the unquestioned rulers of both the Darklands below and the new Darklands above! Then, those who puled and whined over the deaths of their worthless sons and slaves will be as the pale elves.
The information obtained by Nolveniss and his underlings from the construction and then the use of the Armageddon Echo fully justifies the deaths of any and all of our foot soldiers who have fallen in our attempts to hold Celwynvian. How I long to be there with him to witness over and over again the suffering and death of our enemies! However, I know that my part, too, here at the foot of the Thassilonian artifact, has contributed to the great achievement of our race. With the fall of rock today, I know that our test nears its successful culmination. Soon, we will have the absolute proof we have needed: We can recreate Earthfall!!
Just as the PCs had finished reading this ominous note, Ishana, the woman who had escaped them on the Teeth of Araska, ran into the cave. The party was startled, but she paid them no heed, instead running in the other direction toward the waterfall. Dax pursued her and found her on a ledge behind the falls, weeping and cradling the body of Elreth Treeg.
"They poisoned him," she cried. "They enchanted him and took him away from me and now they've killed him! I swear by Calistria, I will not rest until I have had my revenge on those dark-skinned elves!"
Dax, reasoning that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, told the cleric that they too sought the dark elves and that she could travel with them if she wanted revenge. She readily agreed, if the party could provide her with a ship to pursue them. A little awkwardly, Dax began to point out that they had just taken a ship from Ishana, but what she had to say next made his blood run cold.
She had been hidden in the sea cave, watching for the return of her captain, and had seen two dark-skinned elves, a male and a female, carrying a chest, run out of the secret door. They quickly subdued Akron Erix, freed the sailors and put them to work sailing the ship out of the cave and away. The drow had taken their ship -- and Samaritha!
The party was stranded on Devil's Elbow -- but only temporarily. Captain Creesy had promised to return in the Flying Cloud at sunset, which was now only a few hours away. The elf known only as "Nobody" was now faced with a dilemma. As a secret member of the Shin'Rakorath, he knew that he had to preserve the secret embodied in the drow Depora, whom they had captured. He couldn't allow the PCs to take her back to Riddleport for everyone to see, nor could they all get on the ship and leave a valuable prisoner behind, most likely to escape. Yet it was imperative that he return to the mainland to contact his superiors!
He decided to persuade the others it was in their own best interest not to let the drow be seen at this time. Plus, they still hadn't recovered any skymetal! He volunteered to go back to Riddleport on the Flying Cloud and return with a ship of the party's own, where they would have more privacy and control over their cargo than on Captain Creesy's vessel. The party was skeptical, but his enthusiasm won the day. Red recalled that Akron Erix had intended to return to Zincher's camp for valuables and decided to go with Nobody as far as the camp, while Dax stayed behind to guard the captive drow and the spell casters took up protected positions on the platforms to rest.
The pair reached the top of the hidden path and parted ways, "Nobody" heading toward Witchlight and the winding road down to the dock and Red entering the ruined camp. The place was eerily silent. Blood stains and abandoned weapons were everywhere, but there were no corpses to be seen. Red began searching in the collapsed and clawed remains of Clegg Zincher's pavilion and found, in an open chest, several bags of platinum coins and gems. It instantly occurred to him that the riches would be useful to "Nobody," if he was going to buy a boat, so he grabbed the bags and ran after him.
The elf was startled to hear footsteps approaching from behind, but he soon saw it was his companion and was happy to take the bags when Red explained what was in them. They bade each other farewell once again, and Red turned to return to Zincher's camp. On his way back, however, he was unhappy to see, emerging from the forest, three walking corpses with their lower jaws replaced by thick, twitching tongues. Not willing to engage them solo, he overran them, knocking one to the ground, and ran the rest of the way back to the camp, without stopping to see if they were following. Quickly, he searched the rest of the tents, taking some rations and supplies as well as a lockbox, before returning down the path to the sea cave.
Before rejoining the others, Red decided it would be only wise to search the rest of the cave complex to see if there were any other threats. He found a room hung with hammocks which would come in handy for future nights spent on the island and a wooden barricade covered in unintelligible writing sealing off a cave. He considered breaking it down but decided that might be unwise. Returning to the party, he told Dax about the writing. Dax showed Red the papers they had found on Depora and asked if it looked like that; when the answer was affirmative, Dax knew it must be Undercommon, a language he had begun studying with "Nobody."
In the meantime, the stealthy elf had managed to travel the island's road without attracting any notice and had arrived at the dock just before sunset. Captian Creesy arrived right on time and was concerned to find only one passenger waiting for him when he had expected a group. "Nobody" told him the others were fine but still searching for skymetal. The captain wasn't entirely convinced but, eager to get away from the eerie island, figured it wasn't any of his business. They set sail for Riddleport.
In the morning, when the spell casters had rested and studied and some more cure spells had been cast, Dax went to examine the writing on the wall and found it was a warning not to disturb the undead menace on the other side of the barricade. Well, what adventurer can resist that invitation? Red, who had been left watching Depora and had been trying to intimidate her into talking with no success, decided to bring her along and use whatever was on the other side of the door to threaten her with. She stayed at the end of the rope she was tied with, as far away as possible, but still wouldn't speak as the PCs broke down the barricade and entered, dragging her in.
Virashi's ghost, who otherwise wouldn't have been hostile, was enraged by the presence of the drow and attacked, utilising her song to try to use the PCs to kill her enemy for her. Gambit immediately began to countersong, negating her abilities, and Dax and Red attacked the incorporeal creature, disheartened by the fact that their attacks had no discerible effect on her ghostly form. She concentrated her attacks on Depora, who was barely in positive hit points in the first place and quickly fell to the floor unconscious. Ishana had no stomach for the fight in the first place and retreated back into the corridor, urging the others to abandon the fight and flee.
Had they only known it, Dax and Red had injured the ghost to within a few hit points of dismissal, when Gambit had the presence of mind to ask the siren what she wanted. Turning from the prone drow, she demanded to know what had happened to Yaris. Remembering the story told them by Captain Creesy, Gambit told her he had jumped from the tower and killed himself, but Virashi insisted that he must be laid to rest before she could depart this plane. Gathering up Depora, the party promised to find him and put him to rest.
In the meantime, "Nobody" had arrived back in Riddleport and rented a room. Returning to the ruins of the Gold Goblin, he found a hawk awaiting him, bearing a message for him to go to the forest beyond the Boneyard Cut. Obeying, he left the city and waiting until an elf stepped out of the trees and greeted him with the Shin'Rakorath passphrase, "A light against the darkness." "You are Tha'hallas?" the strange elf asked. "I am Kwava. Tell me what you have seen."
Having listened to Tha'hallas's story, Kwava questioned him minutely about who exactly had seen the drow and where they were now. Hearing that some of them were now the drow's prisoners and the rest were stranded on Devil's Elbow, he nodded his approval of Tha'hallas's plan. "It is imperative that we keep our race's dark secret. I will arrange for a ship to retrieve the drow prisoner and the others from the island. We will take them back to Celwynvian, where our soldiers have been fighting the dark elves. If they will help us in our struggle, that will be well. We will see if they can be trusted. If not ... all kinds of unfortunate accidents can happen in a combat zone." He told Tha'hallas he would send his animal companion in a few days when the ship had arrived. It would await them in the waters off the Boneyard at midnight, to evade prying eyes.
Back on Devil's Elbow, the party stabilized Depora once again and left Angar and Ishana to guard her; the rest set off for the Eastern Lighthouse to look for Yaris's remains. In the pale light of the morning sun filtering through the clouds, they found a skeleton in the tangled undergrowth south of the tower and immediately assumed it to be Yaris. They carefully retrieved every bone and all his belongings, dug a hole to inter him respectfully, and carried his rusted chainmail and longsword and the contents of his pouch back to the siren, where they solemnly laid it all out in front of her.
Virashi's Ghost: This is not Yaris's.
Party: ... Are you sure?
VG: (getting a bit aggrieved) Yaris was a merchant, not a soldier. He didn't wear armor!
Red: (stepping closer) Could you just give this all one more look and see if you recognize anything?
VG: (becoming perturbed) No! NO! NOOOOOO!
Red's player: (quickly) We run.
So, it was back to the drawing board. They returned to the Eastern Lighthouse and searched again, finding nothing but an aquatic troll that emerged from the waves to attack (and wasn't interested in answering their questions about whether he had seen any human remains under the sea.) Then they decided that maybe Captian Creesy had gotten the story wrong and walked all the way to the other end of the island to check out the Western Lighthouse, but all they found was a centipede swarm. They decided that it really must have been the Eastern Lighthouse after all, so, after fighting off an akata attack, they started back to the eastern side of the island to search once again.
Back at the Eastern Lighthouse, the party climbed down the cliff to search the rocky beach below for Yaris's remains. Remembering the supply tent at Zincher's camp, they returned for shovels and picks to dig through the sand, and Red swam out to the sandbar off the island's point, in case his skeleton could be found underwater. As the sun began to set, the PCs began to discuss returning to the sea cave when they heard a deep, hollow voice say, "You are on my island, and I will kill you."
An incorporeal black shape swept down the cliff from the lighthouse,. Gambit quickly tried to address it diplomatically, telling it they were looking for Virashi's lost love, but as soon as he spoke the siren's name, the wight became more agitated. "You killed my beloved, and now I will kill you!" The party desperately tried to tell the undead creature that, not only did they not kill her, they were trying to help her, but it was beyond reason. Dax's constitution was greivously drained by the wight's touch, but the PCs finally succeeded in destroying it.
They returned to the sea cave to sleep the rest of the night, but the morning found them loath to go back to Virashi's lair, afraid that she would attack them again for killing Yaris' wraith. Gambit and Dax decided to approach her, however, and found her peaceful and radiant. Thanking the party for freeing Yaris's soul from this plane -- and hers as well -- she directed them to a hidden treasure in her cave that had escaped looters all these years. After the ghost dissipated, the PCs dug under the rock she had indicated and uncovered a magical rapier, sized for a Small person. Its hilt was inscribed "Lady Luck," and when Gambit raised it, an orb in its handle began to turn and delicate music played.
With no sign of "Nobody" returning with a ship, the party on Devil's Elbow decided to trek to the crater to search for skymetal. Gambit was able to determine the point of impact and unearthed a single shard of noqual, one end crusted in a porous black rock which he recognized from the main room of the sea cave. Determining that the drow had removed the fallen star and harvested the skymetal, the group decided to look for possible smaller craters around the island. The next day, they found a harpy but no more noqual. They spent one more night in the sea cave and awoke the next morning to the sight of a stately elven warship gliding into the mooring the Teeth of Araska had used.
Nice to see updates continuing by the way.
The elven ship approached ominously, as the PCs noticed that all its crew wore forbidding oversized masks. As it moored and threw down its gangplank, however, the characters' trepidation was relieved by seeing their companion "Nobody" alongside an unmasked elf who introduced himself as Kwava. He urged them to hurry to get themselves and their prisoner on board: there would be time for questions when the ship was underway, and every moment they wasted on Devil's Elbow allowed the dark elves and their prisoners to get further ahead.
Once aboard, the party handed Depora over to the elves, and a cadre of masked crewmen took her below where, Kwava assured them, a secure hold awaited her. The masked crew, he told them, were elves of the Mordant Spire, a secure location specifically set up for interrogation. The drow would be transferred there when they rendezvoused with another ship, but they wouldn't turn out of their way in their pursuit of the Teeth of Araska. A cursory glance at the papers the party had recovered was enough to confirm to Kwava what he already suspected: that the dark elves were making for Celwynvian. He intends to take the ship around the Varisian peninsula and land north of the Mierani Forest.
Several months earlier...
A half-elf follower of Nethys named Ilyanas had arrived in Kyonin. Having been raised and trained in human lands, he now hoped to continue his training among the elves and learn the ways of the other half of his ethnicity. He settled among the half-elven community in Greengold, the official point of entry into Kyonin for those not of pure elven blood, for what he expected to be a temporary stay until he was approved; however, his "temporary" stay seemed likely to change into permanent residency, as no official word was ever returned to him about his entry. When he inquired, he was very politely assured that everything was in order and that these things just take some time, but he was quickly becoming frustrated with the delay. He continued his arcane studies, however, often utilizing the libraries and laboratories of Greengold during the evening hours to avoid the human crowds; starlight is sufficient for him to read and study comfortably.
One night, Ilyanas was seated near a window on an upper floor of an arcane library near the docks, where the stars and moon could illuminate the text he was perusing, when he heard quiet voices from the deserted street below. At first, the conversation was merely a distraction; then, he noticed that the voices kept repeating a word he had never heard before, despite all his study: the word "drow." Drawn by his curiousity, he peered out the window to see two elves dressed in forest garb. Just as Ilyanas looked down, however, one of the elves looked up, and their eyes momentarily locked. Uncomfortable at being caught overhearing the conversation, the half-elf quickly withdrew into the library interior.
The next day, however, a tapping came at Ilyanas' door. Answering it, he found the elf whom he had seen on the street the night before. With a disarming smile, the visitor spoke: "Greetings, cousin. I understand you are awaiting approval to enter Kyonin." He introduced himself as Kaer'ishiel and apologized for the delay. "You understand that we conceal many secrets within the forest which the other races might misuse. The queen has to be very careful that those she allows entry are trustworthy and will keep our secrets." He went on to explain that he was a representative of an entity called the Shin'Rakorath, an elite group in service to the queen's highest advisors. They were now involved in an operation in the Mierani Forest in Varisia, related to the preservation of the ruins of the ancient elven city of Celwynvian, a sacred site not open to those not of elven blood. He paused. "Your particular skills make you an excellent candidate to join us in our work there. Once we have finished with our preservation work, the Shin'Rakorath would be pleased to recommend you particularly to the queen's advisors for entry into Kyonin."
Upon assurance that accepting the position would be a virtual guarantee for entry to the interior of Kyonin afterwards -- and personally intrigued by the thought of exploring an ancient elven city and the secrets it might contain -- Ilyanas agreed to travel with Kaer'ishiel and his companions to Varisia. They arrived at a base camp in the forest known as Crying Leaf, but once there, the half-elf didn't find his position to be at all what he expected. He was never among the teams of elves travelling to Celwynvian itself, and the returning groups had injuries to be healed that didn't seem consistent with the sort of mishaps one would meet in the forest or excavating a ruin. Any questions he asked were politely deflected, and Kaer'ishiel, when Ilyanas was able to corner him, assured him that he would soon be allowed to travel to Celwynvian if he would only be patient. The half-elf began to suspect that he was in the same position as in Greengold; in a perpetual holding pattern.
When Kaer'ishiel finally offered him a chance to accompany him away from Crying Leaf, therefore, Ilyanas jumped at the chance, although their destination wasn't Celwynvian but the more distant sea coast. A small group of elves was going to meet a ship bringing information -- and new "guests."
The long voyage gave the PCs time to rest and recuperate from their travails on Devil's Elbow -- and then to get anxious once again about what might lie before them. When the forests of Varisia came into view, they rushed eagerly to the rails and, as the ship drew nearer, were troubled to see the hulk of a wrecked ship close into the shore they were approaching. It was soon evident that the ship was, indeed, the Teeth of Araska, its hull rolled over and torn open on sharp rocks. Kwava and a few of the Mordant Spire elves lowered rowboats to take the party to shore; at the PCs' request, the boats stopped alongside the wreck to allow them to search it. It was clear from the outside that the bottom decks were completely flooded, and the top deck yielded no evidence of its former inhabitants save the absence of one of the ship's longboats.
The party returned to the elven boats and continued to the shore where they noticed a party of several elves -- and a half-elf, standing slightly apart from the rest of the party. Kwava and Kaer'ishiel greeted each other with the Shin'Rakorath phrase "A light against the darkness," and Kwava handed over the papers the party had discovered. Ilyanas joined the rest of the PCs in searching the shore for evidence of the missing longboat. After a while, they found what might have been a trail where something heavy was dragged up into the forest; following it, Gambit spotted the bottom of the boat through the undergrowth. It had been turned upside down in a slight depression and leaves and vines thrown across it. As the party approached, they became aware of the stench of decay.
Steeling themselves, they quickly turned over the longboat to discover a rotting pile of corpses. Upon closer inspection, the dead bodies appeared to be those of the pirates; there was no sign of the dark elves, or of Akron and Samaritha.
The party was eager to try to track the drow and their prisoners through the forest, but the elves dissuaded them. "We know where they have gone," Kaer'ishiel told them but insisted that the drow's numbers were too great for the party to attempt a rescue themselves. If the PCs would come back to the camp of Crying Leaf, however, he promised they would get the chance to move against the drow alongside the elven troops.
Somewhat reluctantly, the party agreed and reached Crying Leaf in a few days' time having only encounted some forest drakes along the way. Kaer'ishiel took the papers the PCs had acquired to the camp's leader, Eviana Nirgassen, who called for a council the following night to which the PCs were invited as guests of honor.
When they entered the elven headquarters for the council, the human and halfling PCs found the low light dim. At the front of the room were Eviana and an unfamiliar elf she introduced as a bard from the court of the elven queen in Kyonin. With a nod to the new arrivals, she began by acknowledging that not everyone present was aware of the situation in Celwynvian: that it was, in fact, so secret that its history was not even written, lest it fall into the hands of outsiders. Instead, only a few of the highest-ranking bards in the elf queen's court committed the history to memory and were magically sworn to reveal it only at the orders of the queen or the Winter Council. Now, one of those bards had teleported from Kyonin at the queen's desire to tell this story.
The bard now stepped into the place of honor and, casting a cold eye on the non-elves present, said, "You understand, of course, that the lay is much more beautiful in the original Elven and that subtle intricacies are lost when it is translated into the Common tongue." With that caveat, he cleared his throat and began:
The Lay of the Secret War
Elven elders speak of the Time Before, when our race waxed supreme, before the rise of the barbaric humans. Almost overnight, the humans became civilized and founded empires, particularly on the continent of Azlant. As the cycles rolled on, our once-green fields and forests darkened, and we were forced swiftly to claim and to close the borders around the Mordant Spire and the Mierani Forest against the encroaching humans.
Near the end of the Age Before Ages, the Winter Council made a disturbing discovery -- the secret of the Azlanti’s swift rise to power lay with the aboleths. Whether Azlant had stolen aboleth magic or was merely an aboleth experiment was unclear, but what was obvious was that the aboleths grew weary of the Azlanti ego and elitism and set into motion a terrifying work of magic. They called down a star from the sky to destroy Azlant.
This cataclysmic event became known as Earthfall -- it shattered the continent of Azlant and murdered a race, triggered the fall of Thassilon, created the Inner Sea, and plunged the world into an age of darkness. Yet with the intelligence gathered by the Winter Council, the elves at least had a chance to prepare. The call went out to abandon Golarion, and the world’s elven nations fled through their aiudara, shutting down each one as they gathered in Kyonin around the Sovyrian Stone. On the eve of Earthfall, our race retreated through the portal to the world of Sovyrian.
Yet some elves did not abandon Golarion. They had grown too fond of their adopted home and chose to remain behind out of loyalty to the world itself. Of those who stayed, precious few were unchanged by their decision. Some became hermits, others became as savage as the humans. Still others, cursed to a dark fate, went underground and were irrevocably twisted. Locked behind their graceful walls, the Iadaran honor guard weathered the catastrophic birth of the Age of Darkness and watched in frustration as the abandoned elven communities were looted by vandals and bandits and their former homes overrun.
The most dangerous of these interlopers was the demon called Treerazer, Lord of the Blasted Tarn. Cast out of the Abyss by his master and set adrift on the Material Plane, Treerazer quickly embraced his exile, turning the Fierani Forest into his sordid den. The once verdant woods became twisted and dark under the demon’s ministrations. All living things became mockeries of their former glories, and the earth itself grew poisoned under his command.
Eventually, the demon learned of Iadara’s shrouded existence and felt the thrum of the Sovyrian Stone. True to his nature, Treerazer set about to pervert it, twisting its connection away from Sovyrian to point toward the Abyss. With it, he sought a means to bring a howling demon horde to Golarion, a triumph to win back his lord’s favor -- or a back door from which to take his revenge.
These machinations resounded in Sovyrian, and the elves marched in response. A procession of elven scouts, warriors, and spellcasters filed through the portal tied to the Sovyrian Stone to reinforce the weakened Iadaran caretakers and restore the brutalized forest.
Our return to Golarion reminded us of our lost connection with earth, forests, and fey. With Treerazer’s corruption pruned back, the triumphant warriors peered cautiously into their former world and were surprised at its beauty. Humanity had become the dominant people of the world, and while their ways were often warlike, they had, for the most part, become a peaceful and civilized people. They had become considerably more reasonable in their Age of Enthronement, and the elves elected to stay and become reacquainted with their home.
As our race spread out again through the world, reactivating lost aiudara and reclaiming ancient homes, we came at last to Celwynvian and were surprised to find evidence that our kinfolk had retreated beneath the ground with the city’s heirlooms and storehouses of knowledge. Scouts were sent into the Darklands to seek traces of these lost elves, and when they did not return, an army was sent. It was then that we first met the drow, and that first meeting was one of blood and ruin, for we were not prepared.
Thus began our bloody secret war. The elves were able to lay claim to the surface, where the light of the sun blessed us with an advantage, for the drow are blinded by its brilliance and many of their most powerful weapons and armor swiftly decayed in its light; the drow were forced to be satisfied with their realm under the earth. Celwynvian has become a no-man’s land, an endless battleground between the elves and the drow, each unable to fully claim the ruin of our mutual ancient home as their own.
The bard inclined his head in acknowledgement of the audience's murmur appreciation and stepped back to let Eviana reclaim the place of honor. "This has been the story of our secret war against the dark elves up until now. But we have now gained new intelligence which has convinced the queen and her advisers that we can continue in stalemate no longer. The time has come when we must commit our forces once and for all against the enemy and drive him out of our ancient homeland. Tomorrow, we will leave Crying Leaf and march for Celwynvian."
As the council dispersed, Kaer'ishiel approached the PCs and asked them if they were willing to fight alongside the elven forces: "I am sure your companions were taken to Celwynvian; if they are still alive, you must go there to rescue them." Naturally, the party agreed.
The next two days were taken up in the journey through the forest to Celwynvian. Shortly after coming across an ancient elven road leading to the city, the army set up camp, and Eviana summoned the PCs to her tent. Spreading out a map of Celwynvian, she informed the party that their assault was to be a surprise attack of several teams, all striking at dawn from all directions. The mission she gave the PCs was to take the old library overlooking the main road into the city, known to be the haunt of drow snipers; eliminating the threat at the city's entrance and being able to claim the structure as an outpost of their own would be vital to the elves' battleplan. Pointing out a path spurring off from the main road just within the city, she urged the PCs to avoid it if possible, there being signs of dark magic lingering in the area; the elves called it the Path of Fallen Shadows.
The following morning found the party nervously lingering in the undergrowth outside the city, waiting for the rising sun to strike the tallest spire of Celwynvian, the signal for the assault to begin. The bard Gambit began by sneaking near the library and distracting the drow on the roof with a ghost sound on the far side of the structure. Ilyanas levitated several party members to the roof while Dax simply ran up the wall with his slippers of spider climb. Having defeated the snipers, the party descended to infiltrate the library itself. Having destroyed spiders in a web-filled entry room, they continued on to fight dretches in a room filled with crystal globes. The battle over, they discovered one orb still operational -- a sort of informational kiosk filled with the image of a librarian from Celwynvian's past, who was able to tell them something about the layout of the city, particularly which building contained the elfgate which the papers Depora bore indicated had been perverted for the use of the drow, the entrance to their Armageddon Echo.
The PCs continued through to the other side of the library where they completed their mission by defeating a small group of drow who pushed bookshelves over on them. Before a group of elven scouts arrived to hold the building, freeing the party to return to Eviana for further instructions, Ilyanas discovered a blessed book among the ruins, which he hoped quickly to put to use.
Avoiding leftover spell effects from the skirmishing going on around Celwynvian, the party returned to camp to report back to Eviana and to rest and recuperate. While the spellcasters slept, Red, Thahallas and Dax took up protective positions around the elven camp with members of the Crying Leaf guard. Alerted by unstealthy crashing through the wood, the PCs were surprised to see a large stone golem stomping erratically toward the camp. Red and Dax thought to play hero and approached to melee range, whereupon they were mercilessly slammed by the construct. Yielding to the calls of the elves to fall back, they demonstrated the better part of valor in withdrawing from combat to live to fight another day while the elves cleared a path for the mindless creature away from the camp.
Once healed by the elven clerics and rejoined by Ilyanas, the party was tasked by Eviana to attack a ruined tower where a drow alchemist had set up shop, producing poisons, acid & alchemical fire for the use of the occupying force. (Gambit, the bard, was taken aside to be briefed on a future assignment. ) Re-entering Celwynvian, the PCs saw movement down the Path of Fallen Shadows but were spooked enough by the elves' warnings that they didn't investigate. They were able to free a group of elven prisoners escorted by troglodytes on their way to the alchemist's lair.
First, they had to get past a hideous mutation of drow and spider guarding the entrance to the tower. The drider was taken aback, however, by Dax's ability to scale the walls of the ruin as easily as he did, thanks to the slippers of spider climb taken from Depora, and Ilyanas was able to levitate Red into position to fight atop the wall as well; they made short work of the drider.
Replete with magic, the party decided to avoid the noxious pools at the entrance to the tower and instead mount an assault by entering through the hole at the top of the dome, from which billowing smoke was pouring. Ilverae Parastric's troglodyte slaves were set up to ambush a party coming through the front door and were taken by surprise by the PCs descending from above. Ilverae cloaked herself in darkness to strike at her attackers; Ilyanas threw a web spell in after her, and the remainder of the battle played out without anyone having a clear view of what was going on. Having defeated the alchemist, Ilyanas was able to use his arcane knowledge to discover a method to dispose of the dangerous chemicals within without harming the Mierani ecosystem.
The PCs returned to the camp to report success and met up with Gambit, freshly briefed on their next mission: an exploration of the ruins of Celwynvian's Coliseum of Mask and Lyre. Through use of the crystal globe the party retrieved from the library, the elves discovered that the Coliseum used to be inhabited by a friendly ghost, the spirit of a departed aasimir, who took it as her task to guard the repository of Celwynvian's greatest musical treasures. The party's task was to determine if Jochareil's spirit was still in the ruins and, if so, to enlist her cooperation against the drow.
Returning once again to the battlefield, the party was attacked by giant wasps, driven out of Verithes Park by the skirmishing. Continuing toward the Coliseum, they were then met by an elven scout rushing toward the camp: he told them that Kaer'ishiel and several other elves were pinned down and under severe attack by a group of drow firing a ballista from atop a tower. The PCs rushed to the rescue. Gambit was almost immediately downed by drow sleep poison; Ilyanas gathered him up at the base of the tower and out of range of the crossbows above. Then a spiderclimbing Dax and a levitated Red ascended the tower to take the fight to the drow. They soon subdued the dark elves and turned the tower-mounted ballista over to the use of the surface elves. Kaer'ishiel and the other wounded soldiers of Crying Leaf were rescued and returned to the safety of the camp.
Although detoured by their rescue of Kaer'ishiel, the PCs returned to Celwynvian to enter the Coliseum of Mask and Lyre. As they approached the entrance, however, the party was hailed by a group of elves to the south, asking if there was a cleric among them; their own cleric was injured and in need of healing. Ilyanas quickly went with the elves to assist; the rest of the party continued to the Coliseum.
They carefully approached the overgrown forecourt, and Thahallas examined the entrance. He found that there were signs around the doorway that something large had forced its way in. Inside, the flagstones and columns were overgrown with mold, fungus and vines and crawling with shocker lizards, with which the PCs had a few mildly unpleasant encounters as they explored.
The party entered the large central rotunda and found an apparatus which Gambit was able to identify as some sort of pipe-organ-like instrument, but they couldn't figure out how to make it work. They discerned several assassin vines in the room, which they were able to avoid. They also searched the Starry Hall and the Evening Auditorium without finding anything of value. (While they noticed the gems in the frescoes in the auditorium, they weren't interested in defacing the building and also noticed that the ceiling of the room was unstable and likely to collapse, so they cleared out quickly.)
Next, the party entered a small chamber with stone benches on either side. In the middle stood a stone pillar; next to it, was a circular mark on the floor, up to which the mold and fungus grew and then stopped abruptly, as if another pillar had stood here for many years and only recently been removed. Exiting the other side of the chamber, the PCs came face to face with the grey render which had taken up residence in the Coliseum. "Red" rushed into melee but was grievously injured by the monster. Dax also ran forward to engage with the creature and was able to cover "Red"'s limping retreat . Gambit had begun to play a rousing battle song to encourage his allies but was taken aback when a wailing gray figure floated through the wall next to him, drawn by the sound of instruments, and began to attack, wailing that someone had "stolen the Ode." Meanwhile, "Red" had collapsed to rest well out of melee where he felt safe, only to find himself within the energy field of several annoyed shocker lizards, whose jolt of electricity sent him into unconsciousness.
Fortunately, Dax had been able to finish off the grey render, and Gambit employed his considerable Charisma to persuade the wild ghost that this group wasn't the one who had stolen the Ode and would, in fact, aid her in getting it back. Having first taken the time to bring "Red" back to consciousness, the party was able to use their own observations coupled with the ghost's disconnected narrative to deduce that a famous elven folk song known as the "Heaven in Ode" had been carved on the pillar in the chamber they had just exited and that the drow had defeated Jochareil and removed the pillar before her spirit reformed.
Jochareil wanted them to hurry off and find the Ode immediately and was distressed that the party wanted to finish exploring the Coliseum first; after all, she knew that the Ode wasn't anywhere within the building. And in truth, the party found nothing of consequence in their explorations, apart from some yellow mold which they avoided. Thahallas and Dax were able to force open a secret door in a shrine to Findeladlara that allowed them to descend into an ossuary. At this, Jochareil got really incensed; it was her job, after all, to protect the resting place of the famous elven musicians. When Thahallas insisted on searching the burial place for anything the party might be able to use, the ghost attacked him with her corrupting gaze; before he could retreat out of the ossuary, he fell unconcious, and Dax had to carry him out. With "Red" injured, Gambit out of spells, and Thahallas unconscious, the party looked into one last room, the Morning Auditorium; seeing nothing but rotting plant material crawling with shocker lizards, which "Red" in particular wanted nothing to do with, they shut the door once again and exited the Coliseum.
Exiting the Coliseum near sunset, the party saw a large gathering of elves outside a building to the south. Dax, carrying the unconscious Thahallas, and Gambit decided to head directly back to camp to get Thahallas some clerical attention and report back to Eviana what they had learned, while "Red" took a short detour to find out what the elves were doing. He found them arranged in a perimeter around a building nestled into the trees. When asked what they were doing, one of the elves explained that this building, the former Academy of Arts in ancient Celwynvian, appeared to be the drow's headquarters in the city. They had seen several groups of dark elves retreating into the structure and had been ordered to keep a close watch on it, keeping the drow still outside from getting in and, more importantly, keeping those inside from coming back out; Eviana hopes to clear the rest of Celwynvian of drow parties before making an assault on their headquarters, lest the sieging elves be caught between two forces. "Red" went on to try to be helpful by asking if there was any message he could carry back to camp. The elf leapt on the opportunity, describing the tactical situation, the number of entrances to the structure, how the forces were deployed, etc., while "Red" did his best Homer Simpson slow blink while monkeys played in his head.
"Red" caught up with the rest of his party, who had stumbled upon some dead drow left in the street, and said he told them "everything the elves just told me," without getting into specifics. Then, at their arrival back in camp just before dark, he said he relayed the information to Eviana. Wanting to give him a hard time, I had Eviana question him a little as to the specific information, i.e., "How many entrances are there into the building?" "Three," one of the other players helpfully provided out-of-character, much to "Red"'s player's relief. Also conveyed was the information about Jochareil and the stolen Ode. Eviana was able to show the party which sections of Celwynvian had already been cleared by her scouts (and were Ode-less) and which had yet to be searched. While most of the large buildings in the city had been explored, the southeastern section, which had been largely residential, hadn't yet been penetrated by any extensive elven forces. The party decided to rest through the night and then focus their attentions on that part of the city the next day.
The following morning, the party returned to Celwynvian, determined to find the Ode and clear the southeastern quadrant of drow, clearing the way for the assault on the Academy of Arts. On their way, they found an elven scout, unconscious but stable; while the rest of the party continued on to check on the elves at the Academy, Dax carried the casualty back to camp. When he returned, he heard a godawful screeching from Verithes Park; looking for its source, he spied two harpies in the trees, one of whom laughed and invited him to approach her. Hating to leave the creatures behind but knowing he had to reunite the party, he dashed away with his monk speed; the harpy briefly gave chase, but he could run much faster than she could fly so she returned to the park.
After checking in with the elven perimeter, the PCs moved on to what they had learned from Eviana was rumored to be a haunted smithy, where they observed the ghost of an elven smith going through the motions of forging a half-made sword. Thahallas vowed to return when the city was cleared and try to finish the sword to put the spirit to rest. Travelling west along the city's main road, the party perceived a sudden shadow to cross over the sky; Gambit was swift enough to catch the silhouette of a dragon flying over the city. They proceeded to the Crystal Conservatory, an ancient greenhouse constructed around a huge oak tree. Thahallas went inside to search while Dax stood guard halfway up the stone steps outside and Gambit and "Red" waited on the ground. While the elf was still inside, Dax was surprised by a female drow emerging from some brush behind the building; she shot at him with her hand crossbow but missed as Dax leaped down to engage her in melee, shouting to alert the rest of the party. She withdrew into the bushes, and Dax followed, only to find her the leader of a party of a dozen elf and drow zombies. In the meantime, "Red" ran around the building and into the brush from the other side; between them, they were able to destroy the zombies and kill the drow.
Thence, the party proceeded to the ruins of an inn known as the Fluted Goblet. As they approached, an elf stepped out of the building and approached them, speaking in draconic, and warning that there were drow inside. The PCs moved forward to help; as they approached the doorway, they smelled the stench that meant troglodytes were or had been in the area. Dax and Thahallas stepped into the darkness, while "Red" and Gambit lingered outside to light a lantern, not having darkvision. Instantly upon their entrance, the elf and half-orc were struck by enervation and ray of enfeeblement, cast by two drow standing on a balcony within. Thahallas stumbled out, now too weak to even draw his bow, as "Red" rushed in with his lantern. Dax and "Red" ran up the staircase to confront the spellcasters, while Thahallas and Gambit on the doorstep were taken by surprise when the elf who had summoned them suddenly attacked the bard. The drow necromancers, Fisaria and her assistant Bixus, were quickly in danger as the PCs got into melee range, although both were well-prepared with false life and were losing only temporary hit points, when Fisaria successfully cast a fear spell that had both strong men running away as quickly as they could.
On the doorstep, Gambit killed the elf that had betrayed them. As the corpse fell to the ground, Thahallas and Gambit were horrified to observe the elven flesh bubble and slough away, leaving behind a dead troglodyte. Shortly thereafter, however, Dax and "Red" came tearing out the door, and the halfling and the weakened elf decided they would do better to follow their companions than to try to fight the spellcasters on their own. Reunited and free from the temporary spell effects, the party determined to return to the Fluted Goblet after the pair of drow, not least because "Red" had dropped the two hammers he fought with under the effects of the fear spell and was desperate to retrieve them. (Dax the monk was appreciative of the fact that he couldn't "drop" his fists.)
By the time the PCs got back to the Fluted Goblet, however, the drow were gone. A quick search of the building revealed "Red"'s masterwork hammer, but his +1 hammer had been taken by the drow. They also found various pieces of arcane equipment, indicating that the spellcasters had been staying there a while, and a scrap of paper written in Undercommon which read, "We have stolen this scroll from Tower Solacas. Refine it well that we may infiltrate the elven ranks."
Thahallas was able to track the necromancers into the Garden of Eternal Ease, Celwynvian's ancient graveyard, thick with weeds and vines. A few skeletal gazebos, used as open-air mausoleums, rose above the verdure; the party saw an elf in clerical garb approaching. "Red" and Gambit were immediately distrustful after what had happened with the disguised troglodyte and wanted to attack, but Thahallas insisted on talking to him first. The elf said he was a cleric with the attacking forces exploring the graveyard for anthropological purposes; when asked if he had seen two drow in the garden, he replied that he thought he had seen movement near one of the gazebos on the edge of the forest. Thahallas distrusted the elf's motives, however, and bade his companions to attack. As the elf's body fell, its appearance changed to that of an undead creature, and the eerie glow in the sunken eyes faded.
The drow's trail did, however, lead to the gazebo the heucuva had indicated, and the PCs found the spellcasters using a stone pillar for cover. The female stood and fought with all the arcane powers she had left; the male, however, ran for the forest. Leaving "Red" and Thahallas to deal with the female, Dax chased after the male, whom Gambit also targeted with a wand of magic missile. Just before he reached the cover of the forest, the male drow fell into the thick weeds. Dax arrived to find him disabled; he spoke a few words in elven. "What did you say?" Dax replied in Undercommon. The drow's eyes widened when he realized that the half-orc spoke Undercommon and said, in that language, "I surrender." "Good," Dax replied, before punching him into unconciousness .
"Red" and Thahallas's arrows finished off the female drow, "Red" retrieved his magical hammer, and Gambit soon realized that the intricately-carved stone pillar Fisaria had taken cover behind was, in fact, the Ode in Heaven. Gambit used a wand of levitate they found on the spellcasters to return the pillar to the Coliseum, and a grateful Jochareil, her balance restored, swore to clear the building of all further malign influence. Perhaps more important to the elven cause, however, was the prisoner the party was bringing back to camp for questioning -- and an arcane scroll they found on Fisaria's body, bearing an unfamiliar necromantic spell called recorporeal incarnation, a spell which allows a person to hide inside someone else's body.
Upon the party's return to camp with the unconscious Bixus, the elves quickly set up an interrogation tent with armed guards and the best of both physical and arcane restraints. The PCs also gave Eviana the recorporeal incarnation scroll and explained its effects that they had witnessed on the disguised troglodyte. Her eyes widened at the implications, and she immediately handed it off to an aide to transport back to the queen's mages in Kyonin for analysis. Once they deemed the drow adequately restrained, the elves revived him for questioning.
Dax immediately asked about Samaritha's whereabouts. The drow's face twisted in disgust, as he admitted to seeing the results of the surface elves' decadence in breeding with jenanquestrok, a word those familiar with Undercommon recognized as the drow word for other races, although literally it meant "those who are not yet slaves." He said that she and the large human anquestrok, or slave, to Shindiira Misraria had gone to Shindiira's consort and leader of the drow forces in Celwynvian, Nolveniss Azrinae, in the ruin of the Academy of Arts, and he had seen no more of them since they entered.
The party then asked about the recorporeal incarnation spell, but he would tell them only what the scrap of paper they had found had already indicated: that it had been stolen from Tower Solacas. He did elaborate that Tower Solacas was an academy of the arcane arts run by House Vonnarc and added in an undertone that though Vonnarc claimed to serve House Azrinae, the scroll still had to be stolen. "At the moment, Allevrah Azrinae's fungus grows taller than the rest," he commented, "but Alicavniss Vonnarc dreams of the day it will topple and her own will take its place." Thahallas, his gaze happening to fall on Kaer'ishiel during this utterance, noticed a brief wave of surprise or discomfort cross the other elf's face and made a mental note to investigate further after the interrogation.
Finally, the party wanted to know what the drow were doing in Celwynvian. At this, Bixus grew angry. "What are we doing in the city of our ancestors? Rather, what claim do you have to its treasures?" he responded, his fierce eyes focussed on the surface elves. "You abandoned this world. You ran, when even the dwarves remained. We remained. We survived, and we do not apologize for our survival. Then, when the dangers have passed, you decide to return and think to reclaim what you abandoned? Why does this city, which your ancestors abandoned while ours remained behind, belong to you more than to us? You are the invaders here."
Gambit had been watching the drow closely but, understanding neither Elven nor Undercommon, was unable to read Bixus' body language to determine whether he was believable or not. Thahallas, however, able to speak both languages, felt that while the drow firmly believed what he said, that Celwynvian belonged to the dark elves who had stayed on Golarion rather than to the surface elves who had fled, there was more to the drow's presence in the ancent city than he was telling them. "Red" tried to intimidate Bixus into being more forthcoming, but the drow only laughed. "I have no doubt that you hate me as much as you are capable of doing, but my own people have methods of torture which you could never even begin to imagine."
The PCs, with still half the day's daylight remaining to finish clearing the city, left Bixus to further interrogation by the elves, but Thahallas caught Kaer'ishiel's eyes while leaving the tent and asked for a moment's conversation in private. Kaer'ishiel paused but then agreed to step outside. Thahallas asked Kaer'ishiel about the emotion that he had momentarily betrayed when the drow spoke about Allevrah Azrinae and Alicavniss Vonnarc. "It's nothing," Kaer'ishiel deflected. "We share a common ancestry; it's only natural that some given names be the same in both our cultures." When pressed by Thahallas, Kaer'ishiel finally admitted that he knew an elf named Allevrah, though insisting that it must be only an ironic coincidence. "No one hates drow more than the Allevrah I know. She would do literally anything to destroy them." With fresh knowledge of the recorporeal incarnation spell pounding through his brain, Thahallas was alarmed, but Kaer'ishiel said he knew elves who could swear the Allevrah he knew was born a surface elf and, besides, her credentials were above reproach: lowering his voice, he told Thahallas that she was on the Winter Council. Thahallas was not soothed, however, and Kaer'ishiel admitted that no one in this part of the world had seen Allevrah in some time; it was said she was on a secret mission on the southern continent, investigating ways to combat the dark elves.
Despite their magic being all but depleted, the PCs were determined to finish clearing out the ruins of Celwynvian before nightfall so they headed back into the city. As they headed past Verithes Park, once more a shadow passed over their heads; this time, however, the shadow was larger and the rush of wind from the dragon's wings ruffled their gear. Everyone except "Red", who looked wildly in the wrong direction , saw a mighty green dragon diving toward the ground in the east; then arose a chorus of elven shouts and the twang of dozens of bow strings. Dax immediately took off running at full speed and soon left the rest of the party behind. He arrived at the Academy of Arts just in time to see a scaly green tail disappear between the shattered front doors of the entrance, covered by furious hand crossbow fire from drow soldiers retreating with him. The acrid smell of chlorine was in the air, and several elves lay on the ground with severe acid burns. Dax's first thought was to follow the dragon in, but the leader of the elven siege party was desperately shouting at his comrades to fall back: "Stay back! Hold the perimeter! If we move in now on their timetable, we forfeit our chance at a disciplined assault, and all our plans will be wasted! Fall back, I say!" Reluctantly acceding to the elf's wisdom, Dax fell back with the elves and waited for the rest of the party to catch up.
The PCs were eager to enter the Academy of Arts but knew that they would only get the go-ahead to do that once the rest of Celwynvian had been explored and cleared of drow so they headed south past the haunted smithy once again into the unexplored regions of the city. They came upon a partially collapsed building which Thahallas entered to examine. He found it full of dry leaves and a strange sobbing sound, like a young animal in distress. Investigating, he was attacked by a strange tiny skeletal creature he could not identify; it did him no harm, however, and didn't seem to be related to the drow so he left it behind, and the party moved on.
They had been forewarned that the drow commanded a high tower mounted with a war machine in the midst of the residential area, so when they spied movement atop a tower, they hid in the ruins to make a plan of attack. Thahallas, Gambit and Dax sneaked to within spell-casting range of the tower, while Red stayed behind to serve as a distraction. When Gambit used a scroll to summon a swarm of bats to the top of the tower, Red charged full-bore down the street, yelling threats. Meanwhile, Thahallas shot arrows at the drow outside the swarm while Dax ran up the tower with his slippers of spider climbing. Reaching through the parapets, he grabbed a drow, pulled him out and dropped him 10 feet to the ground, figuring that if the fall didn't kill him, his friends on the ground would.
In the meantime, "Red" had safely reached the base of the tower wall. Working his way around, he found the door; unfortunately, it was locked. While he prepared to bash the door down, Dax had run around the outside of the tower wall to grab another drow; this one fell right next to "Red." Still conscious after the fall, he tried to tumble away but failed his Acrobatics check and was felled by "Red"'s attack of opportunity. Having taken care of the drow on the ground, "Red" put his mighty shoulder to the door and succeeded in splintering it off its hinges. Gambit, seeing that Dax had dispatched the drow outside of his bat swarm, ceased his concentration on the spell and moved toward the door "Red" had just opened. Thahallas, figuring his companions had the drow inside in hand, moved forward to examine the drow that had been dropped from the tower, intending to finish them off if they were still alive.
Inside the tower, "Red" found himself facing two drow, one of whom had just finished casting from a scroll. Remembering how the drow necromancers had caused him to flee, he closed on the spellcaster quickly and had little difficulty in killing him. The other drow, a female, joined battle with the halfling Gambit and his musical rapier. Although she managed to retreat partway up the stairs and release a burst of negative energy to damage her attackers, "Red" and Gambit finished her off.
Meanwhile, atop the tower, a few of the drow freed from the magical swarm tried to retreat down the stairs, but Dax ran over quickly to block the trap door. Trying what had worked before, Dax grabbed the first drow and dropped him over the edge of the tower ... right onto a surprised Thahallas who had just coup-de-graced the first dropped drow. Both droppee and dropped-upon took damage, but it was enough to kill only the dark elf who had been caught in the bat swarm. Dax finished off the remaining drow on top of the tower, and the party reunited to loot the bodies.
Reviewing where they had been and where they had yet to go, the party realized that they had entered only one of several buildings back at the Fluted Goblet, where they had encountered Fisaria and Bixus, so they determined to go back. The first building they approached suddenly collapsed when Thahallas put his hand to the door to push it open; the PCs all took damage from falling rubble and retreated, coughing, from the cloud of dust. The next building contained a bebilith. The overconfident party, thinking it was just some kind of large spider, refused to retreat and draw it out in the open and almost didn't live to regret it, as "Red" confronted it in the confined spaces of its lair. He was reduced to unconciousness and his magical mithril armor torn to pieces in only a few rounds. Dax then moved forward to fight the creature while Gambit used several scrolls to restore "Red" to consciousness and cure some of his wounds; however, the demon, now focussed on Dax, shot a web at "Red" when he tried to re-enter the fray, and he spent the rest of the combat stuck to the wall. None of the party had good-aligned weapons to overcome the bebilith's DR, and they had no cleric to cast align weapon; Gambit was out of spells and ran out of rounds of bardic music before the encounter ended; and Dax used ki points to increase his armor class until he ran out of ki. Fortunately, however, Gambit had wands of magic missile to use, and Thahallas had a critical hit with an arrow that did more damage than any other attack the PCs managed to land. At long last, just when the GM was trying to figure out how to have an elven patrol show up to save the PCs' skins (and her campaign) without it being too obviously contrived, the party managed to fell the demon.
Having cut "Red" free from the bebilith's web, gathered up the shattered remains of his armor in the hopes the elves might have a high-enough level caster to make it whole, and helped him adjust the full plate the drow captain in the tower had been wearing to fit him, the suitably chastened party, completely out of resources and in need of healing, nervously decided to search the remaining buildings. As they approached the next one, they were met by a bloodcurdling bay, and everyone had to roll to save against fear. Everyone saved, however, and they took out the shadow mastiff within without too much difficulty. Another building collapsed on them, they did a quick sweep through the Garden of Eternal Ease and Miliaru Park, and they were happy to declare the job of clearing the city of drow influence done.
Upon returning to camp, after making use of the healing tent, the party reported back to Eviana that it was now safe to commence with the assault on the Academy of Arts. She told them that the assault would begin at dawn and that she planned to use three strike teams entering simultaneously through the three known entrances to the building; she would like for the PC's to make up one of those strike teams. Having detailed the intel they have about the three entrances -- the main doors where the dragon entered, well guarded by drow and deemed the most dangerous; a hole in the roof, guarded by drow and minor demons, which would require the party entering that way to have a way to ascend to the roof; and a hole in the wall to the north, guarded mostly by troglodytes and a few drow -- Eviana invited the party to choose which entrance they wished to attempt. She also shared the intelligence they had gotten back from Kyonin: that anyone using the recorporeal incarnation spell was detectable by using either detect undead or detect magic -- that while many of the elves in Crying Leaf may be wearing or carrying magical gear, recorporeal incarnation would cause the entire body of the impostor to detect as magical. Thus, she had asked everyone with the capability to keep those spells active at all times while in Celwynvian.
The party seized their opportunity to rest and heal up before heading back into Celwynvian in the dark predawn hours. Having chosen to beard the main entrance, the PCs took their places with the beseiging elves and tried to blend in until the signal for the simultaneous assaults; they could see several drow peering from behind the shattered front doors. As the first rays of sunlight lit the highest spires of Celwynvian, the surrounding elves began to lay down covering fire, and the tripartite strike began.
Apart from overheard shouts and the twang of bowstrings, the party had no idea how the other two strike teams were doing as they advanced toward the front doors, "Red" carrying the halfling Gambit so he could keep up with the rest of the group. Before they could reach the door, however, a wall of flame leapt up just before them, cutting them off from their goal and blistering their skin with the proximity of the heat. After momentarily faltering, the PCs decided to press forward through the wall and simply take the damage. His best defense foiled and the party closing to melee range, the drow arcanist took refuge in invisibility, leaving his retinue to be slaughtered by the invaders. A hideous flesh golem, stitched together from pieces of elven corpses, disgusted the party but did little to slow them down.
Opening the stone doors at the back of the entry hall, the PCs found themselves in a short hall with doors in 3 directions. Looking left, they found a bloody mess of elven bodies. The mutilated corpses on the floor left no doubt as to the source of the golem's components; manacled to the wall were fresher kills, prisoners whose throats had been slit no more than hours before to prevent their being rescued. Listening at the north and east doors, the party judged that their fellow strike teams were battling within. Although they would have liked to help, their orders were clear: whichever team won through first was to drive deeper into the complex after the drow.
Heading west, therefore, the PCs found themselves in an antechamber housing a black stone pillar, carved with runes and flickering with light; at the far end, double doors beckoned. Thahallas checked the area for traps but was too hurried or distracted; as he opened the doors and entered the next room, his comrades left behind in the antechamber were burned by magical purple flame which blasted through the chamber. Only Dax was dextrous enough to escape unscathed, while Gambit tumbled through with only minor burns, but "Red" was horribly burned by the drow's demonic magic.
Gambit did his best to tend to his companion's injuries, but the party was surprised to find themselves in a room that seemed untouched by the long passage of years. In a shallow pool, a beautiful elven maiden floated on a leaf -- or did she? The party had been burned too many times before by things which were not as they appeared and examined the area with suspicions aflame. Gambit realized that the pristine appearance of the room was only an illusion covering an area as much a ruin as the rest of the building; the severely-burned "Red," perhaps enjoying a moment of clarity after his brush with death, saw, after blinking hard several times, a hideous fishlike monster in place of the beautiful elf. Their testimony was enough for the party to attack; mortally wounded, the aboleth retreated deep into its underground spring to wish for better luck next time.
Pressing on, the party opened the doors opposite the aboleth's pool to discover a black archway with a cornerstone chipped from the foot of the Cyphergate. Between them and it, however, stood a muscular drow, his exposed flesh mutilated with dagger-like needles. "Master Nolveniss bade me give you his apologies," he whispered in a gravelly voice, "that he will not be present to see you die."
Unbeknownst to the party, due to the sound of battle and their general distraction, an invisible drow arcanist had been shadowing their footsteps in order to get to his escape route. Knowing about the trap at the altar to Abraxas, he had stayed safely away when the party triggered it, waiting for them to open his doors to safety. Now, just before he slipped through the gate to the Armageddon Echo, he played one last card against them, casting haste on the barbarian Kardrogas. His onslaught was savage, particularly since "Red" was still badly hurt from his tangle with the fireblast, but the party eventually prevailed, although "Red" fell unconscious.
Stepping forward to examine the gate, the PCs saw a shadowy elven city. They immediately assumed it was the drow's home city of Zirnakaynin. Gambit realized that the elfgate would soon close, and the party was faced with a decision: to jump in, not knowing where they would end up, badly injured and out of healing resources, or to let the gate close and hope that the elves would be able to re-open it. The party initially favored caution: "Red" needed healing, Gambit was out of spells, and surely the elves would be able to reopen the gate at their convenience.
As they stood on the precipice of the Echo, however, a single elf from one of the other strike teams stumbled into the room, badly wounded, and asked what the party had found. When they explained that the drow seemed to have escaped through a magical portal which was about to close, the elf told them they should follow if they wanted any hope of freeing the prisoners; the elves had no way to reopen the portal. That was enough to decide Dax, who was still searching for Samaritha; he scooped up "Red" and hopped through the portal. Thahallas, under orders from the Shin'Rakorath, followed, and Gambit, left alone, decided to plunge with his companions into the Echo.
The party was pleasantly relieved to find themselves not in the Darklands but in a shadowy version of Celwynvian Past. Above them, in a distant shadowy sky, a huge blot, dwarfing the one they saw in Riddleport, churns sickly. After administering a potion to bring "Red" around -- and explaining where he was and why -- the PCs met Ilamin Silverwind, who filled them in on Blot-related news: the sages who blamed it on the Azlanti, the evacuation of most of the city, and the availability of more information at the Library of Reenai. Thahallas opted to look into what the drow had been researching at the library, while the rest of the party went in search of a cleric at the Temple of Watchers.
Entering the temple, the PCs were greeted by a nervous and gloomy elf cleric named Vigonyis, who explained that someone had to have been chosen to remain behind to take care of the temple until the bitter end and that he had been the "lucky" one. When they asked for healing, he said that as a rule, one was expected to make a donation for the upkeep of the temple for such services, but since the whole place was going to be crushed by giant rocks from the sky at any minute, what would be the point? When he reached out to touch "Red," however, he simply blinked out of existence. The party deducted that they were unable to interact physically with anything in the Echo; while they were still standing in the temple discussing this, Vigonyis suddenly reappeared and greeted them once again, as if they had just entered the temple.
Thahallas rejoined his companions, reporting that the librarian said strange, dark-skinned elves had been looking at books about the shadow realm, as well as tomes about manipulting objects in the heavens. Reasoning that the Academy of Arts was the drow's headquarters in Celwynvian Present, they decided it was their likely headquarters in Celwynvian Past as well. On their way to the Academy, they passed by some elves chanting mournful dirges in an open-air pavilion and claiming that the dark fate of Golarion was all the fault of the humans.
Arriving at the Academy of Arts, the PCs found the whole complex in the same pristine state that the aboleth's magic had mimicked in Celwynvian Present. It was largely deserted, however, and the few elves they ran across as they wandered through the complex were packing up what equipment remained. Seeing the strangers, they directed them to the portal room and urged them to use it to escape to Kyonin. When questioned about the dark elves, they admitted there had been some strange, rude elves about -- from the southern continent, they presumed -- but that they had refused to go through the portal to flee to Sovyrian. They told the party that the dark elves seemed to flock around the abandoned observatory in the southwest part of the city.
Reassured that the drow were still in Celwynvian and had not gone through the portal to Kyonin, the PCs decided to look for someplace to rest so Gambit could relearn his spells before going looking for the enemy. Having been informed that the Fluted Goblet was deserted, they decided to let him rest in one of its guest rooms. As they headed toward the inn, Thahallas split apart from the party to investigate the smithy. Seeing the shadow-realm version of the ghostly smith he observed in Celwynvian Present, he entered the building and struck up a conversation with Annin Raivanyiel. The smith explained that his family had been smiths in Celwynvian for generations and that his son was to have taken up the profession after him; however, his son had died young recently. Annin chose to remain on Golarion with the graves of his wife and son despite the coming cataclysm; his only hope was to finish the curved blade he had intended for his son's birthday and lay it on his grave before the end. Thahallas stayed with him for several hours, watching him work and learning from him; when he bade him farewell, he went to the Garden of Eternal Ease to pinpoint the location of the grave of Raivanyiel the Younger, hoping to complete the sword and place it where his father intended when he returned to Celwynvian Present and thus let the ghostly smith go to his rest.
Back at the Fluted Goblet, Gambit rested in one of the guest rooms (although the party wanted nothing to do with the one where they were to meet the bebilith in the future); Dax stood watch over his sleeping friend, while "Red" went looking for the winecellar. He was disappointed, however, to find that the wine tasted as weak and insubstantial as the denizens of the Armageddon Echo looked and sounded; there was no way he could get a buzz from this intoxicant. When the party had reunited, they rested until what passed for morning in this shadowy realm.
Gambit administered what healing he had regained to "Red," but the big man was still injured from the multiple encounters he had endured since he had last been to the healing tent in the elven camp. Then the party set out to look for the Observatory and the drow. They were walking along the deserted Vista of Visions, enjoying the beauty of the not-yet-ruined city and just discussing how pleasant it was after being in a battlezone so long and how safe they felt here -- when they were accosted by blast shadows. They weren't overly concerned until they destroyed the first one and suffered the effects of his explosive death burst. They opted to run away from the other two and not take the punishment their destruction would entail. One of the shadows laughed in a horrible, cracked voice and taunted the PCs with the news that when Earthfall hit shadow-Celwynvian they would join them in fiery undeath. This infuriated Thahallas enough that he detonated the trash-talking blast shadow with an arrow from outside the blast zone.
The PCs continued toward the part of the city with which they were unfamiliar -- the part that was soon to be left a smoking crater by Earthfall. They approached a tall, imposing building of black and white marble; outside were two shadowy elf guards . When the party approached, the guards stepped forward to block their way, saying their masters were engrossed in study and were not to be disturbed. When asked about dark elves, the guards said that there had been strange elves hanging about there but that the masters had sent them away; now, they were said to be occupying an abandoned alchemy shop in the northern markets.
Taking their word for it, the party left the Observatory behind. They took the opportunity to do a little more sightseeing as they walked, visibly moved by the sight of the sapling that would become the huge tree at the center of the Crystal Conservatory. Entering the Constellar Gallery, they heard a sound from an upper floor; going up, they found a cheerful young elf maiden removing works of art from the walls. She introduced herself as Tessara Vonnarc. Apologetically, she said she knew what she was doing looked bad, but most of the elves were abandoning Golarion and everything tied to it, including the works of art created there; her family and a few others, however, were unwilling simply to abandon the world that had been their home and were willing to try to survive the impact underground and preserve the culture the others were abandoning to destruction. She asked for the party's help in carrying the works of art to the entrance to the cavern system. Hoping to pinpoint the entrance to the Darklands in relation to Celwynvian Present, but when they attempted to follow her into the forest at the edge of the city, they found themselves re-entering Celwynvian from the way they had been trying to exit, their arms empty and the doomed Tessara vanished.
The PCs continued toward the northern markets. When they arrived, they found numerous abandoned storefronts and some particularly aggressive Doomsayers who approached the humans in the party and began loudly accusing them of arrogance and corruption leading to the destruction of the world. "Red" took particular pleasure in deliberately reaching out and touching the belligerent shadow-elves and watching them pop like soapbubbles. However, they found neither drow nor an alchemist's shop. Reasoning that perhaps they had misunderstood the directions and the alchemist's shop was actually in the southern markets, they turned and retraced their steps.
Arriving in the southeastern corner of the city, the party once again failed to locate either drow or alchemist's shop. They did, however, spy an elegant estate with invitingly open front doors. Entering, they found the Azlanti Talgoren reclining on a couch with a book; rising, he bade them welcome. Asked about an alchemy shop, he said that there wasn't one in the neighborhood; asked about the dark elves, he said they were most often seen at the abandoned Observatory. When told about the "elven" guards and their claims that the astrologers were working inside, Talgoren thought that was odd since the astrologers had been among the first to flee to Kyonin and the Observatory had been abandoned for weeks.
Realizing that the Observatory guards had misled them and were most likely drow in disguise, the PCs returned to confront them. "Red" approached under friendly guise, but when he laid a hand on one of the elves and his flesh remained firm and material under his touch, the group attacked. Having eliminated the guards at the door, the PCs stood ready to enter the Observatory.
Thanks for the continuing updates here. I like the way you've re-engineered how the recorporeal incarnation spell comes into proceedings.
Thank you. Nice to know someone's still reading. :)
I prefer to introduce key elements and NPCs a bit ahead of time so that they don't just suddenly appear when they become central to the plot. It feels more realistic to me and ties the parts of the AP together as a whole more than is generally feasible when they're written in 6 installments by 6 different authors.
It induces a bit more paranoia to the PCs when they think any elf could be a drow inside -- which ties in well with the big reveal. Plus, it explains how Alicavniss Vonnarc knows their secret: "You fools! Don't you know I invented that spell?" ;)
Suitably chastened, the PCs decided to scout out any other entrances to the Observatory before just walking through the front door. The only other possible entry point they found, however, was a set of large plate glass windows high across the back wall. Gambit was excited about the possibility of using his wand of shatter to get in the back way ... until Dax climbed up with his slippers of spider climb and peered in to find himself looking down at the sleeping body of a green dragon just beneath the windows.
Back to the front doors it was, then, where the group spent a long period of debate over what the plan should be. At last, they decided that Tha'hallas should use his cloak and the gear off the drow guards they had killed to disguise himself as one of them and bring Gambit in the guise of a prisoner; from there, Gambit was counting on his fast talking to protect himself -- and, in case of emergency, the quick reactions of "Red" and Dax listening outside and ready to burst in.
Disguised as a drow, Tha'hallas nervously escorted Gambit into the Observatory's entry hall. At the far end, Shindiira Misraria reclined on a chaise longue; Akron Erix hovered protectively above her, feeding her mushrooms that grew in a cluster like grapes. After ferociously berating the "drow guard" for entering without permission, Shindiira recognized the halfling from all the way back on Devil's Elbow. "My shadow demon was supposed to finish you off," she recalled. "No wonder he never returned to me. No matter: you've come all this way to die anyway. This whole half of the city is due to be smashed by a stone from the heavens; I'll leave you behind, so the last thing you see is the same thing all you surface dwellers will soon see: a rock hurtling down toward you, bespeaking your utter doom and annihilation."
Gambit whirled into diplomatic action, flattering and cajoling the vain dark elf, and she relented. "Very well. Perhaps I was too hasty. When Nolveniss takes me away from this demiplane, I will take you with me, and you can serve me as my slave in Zirnakaynin. Akron, put him with the other prisoners." As the large man moved obediently at her command, Gambit once again set his tongue to work, insisting that he could entertain her by playing a song if she would allow him to stay. With a motion of her hand, Shindiira halted Akron in his tracks. "Very well, then. Come close and play your instrument for me."
Gambit began performing as he inched v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y closer to the drow. Using his supernatural talent, he fascinated both Shindiira and Akron with his song. Still performing, he began to question the drow about the Observatory and what other servants she had there. Lackadaisically, she told him that there were demons through the western door and the dragon Razorhorn guarded the stairs to the tower where Nolveniss was. Then, as he continued to perform, he suggested that his friends enter the room so that they could serve Shindiira as well. Having obtained permission for them to enter, he next suggested that they be shown the supply room so that they would know where to go to fetch things for their mistress. Absently, Shindiira directed Akron to take the key and show them.
Dax followed Akron into the storage room and quietly shut the door behind them. Out of the drow's presence, Akron happily recognized his old friend from Riddleport and ran on and on about how beautiful Shindiira was and how he never thought a girl like that would look twice at him. "Sorry about this," Dax replied just before he struck Akron from behind with a stunning fist. Before Akron could recover to sound the alarm, Dax finished up with a nonlethal flurry of blows that sent the charmed man into unconciousness. Dax quickly gathered up all the potions he could, slipped out of the room and locked the door behind him.
Having successfully neutralized Akron without having to hurt him permanently, the party decided they had gotten all they could out of Shindiira. Approaching her while she was still fascinated by Gambit's performance, they got within striking distance -- and then struck! There was only time for rage and anger to cross her face at the betrayal before her skull was crushed by "Red"'s hammer and her blood splattered across the chaise and against the wall.
The party was on edge at first, afraid that the demons in the next room had heard the ruckus and would come out to attack, but when a few seconds went by uneventfully, they relaxed. Using the potions Dax had liberated, they healed themselves and then settled down to decide their next course of action. Not interested in entering the room with the demons (still remembering their encounter with a single bebilith back in Celwynvian), they searched the other tower room opposite the drow's supply closet and found it full of bedrolls but free of enemies. Hiding Shindiira's body and the bloodstained chaise longue there, they decided to try the eastern room, which Shindiira had told them was unoccupied. Just as she said, all they found were star maps and notes on the shadow in the sky, strange arcane emanations which were all too familiar to them from their time in Riddleport, and the coming apocalypse.
They knew they had to get past Razorhorn to get to Nolveniss but decided there was no reason they had to fight the demons as well, since they already knew where the dragon was. Going back out the front door, the party returned to the windows in the rear wall; Gambit employed his shattering wand; and Dax climbed up to the open window, not sure how the dragon would react.
He found himself nose-to-horned-nose with a glum-looking Razorhorn. "You'd better come on in if you're going to," the dragon told him. "The glass repairs itself. I crashed through the whole length of that window when I got here, and it just went back to the way it was in a few minutes." Lowering a rope, Dax helped the rest of the party to climb in, and they stood looking at the dragon nervously. "You're real, not shadows," Razorhorn noted with interest. "I could eat you."
Gambit quickly set to work to turn the dragon's mind from that course of action by inquiring about his complaints against his employer. Razorhorn replied that he had signed on to help the drow because they had told him they could drive the elves out of the Mierani, but now that the dark elves had been defeated at Celwynvian, they would retreat underground and leave him worse off than he had been before. On top of that, he had been forced to retreat to this unreal demiplane where he couldn't eat anyone or even smash anything so it would stay smashed. However, he had given his word to help Nolveniss and couldn't go back on that now.
"But you," he went on craftily, "you want to kill Nolveniss, don't you? If you were to kill him, then my duty to the drow would be finished." Gambit assured the dragon that that was the very course of action they had in mind. "He has the key to the portal out of here," Razorhorn told them. "Once you have killed him, bring it to me; I know how to use it."
A quick conferral among the party confirmed that in addition to killing Nolveniss and getting back to Celwynvian, their other goal was to rescue Samaritha. Gambit asked Razorhorn about any prisoners the drow were holding. "Oh, yes," he responded, nodding to a door to the west. "There are a couple of prisoners in that tower room. They're not my responsibility, though. There's a troglodyte in there guarding them, but he's too afraid of me to come out." He considers. "I'll let you go in there and get the prisoners if you let me eat one of them." When the PCs quickly demurred, he continued, "Oh, all right, I'll let you release the prisoners if you let me eat the trog. How about that?"
The party had no problem with this proposal, so Tha'hallas quickly picked the lock and Dax stepped up to throw out the trog and rescue Samaritha. Lagrozan, however, had been listening at the door and was ready to fight to stay alive. As the door opened, he positioned his mace above the skull of the barely-conscious Samaritha and hissed, "If you come any closer, I'll kill her!"
Dax didn't speak Draconic, but the trog's body language was clear enough; he backed off in a panic. Gambit did speak Draconic and stepped forward to try to negotiate, but his bluffs didn't convince the panicked trog. The halfling bard strummed his instrument as he spoke and used his music to calm, then fascinate the creature. When the arm holding the mace to threaten Samaritha drooped, Dax used his monk speed to rush in and grapple the trog. He dragged him, howling in fury and fear, out of the cell and tossed him to the dragon, who quickly crunched down on his hapless victim. "Blech, trog flesh tastes terrible," he complained. "It's the stench glands."
Samaritha was too weak and disoriented from her long imprisonment and torture to be overly aware of what was going on; she must have dreamed of rescue every day and wasn't sure that this wasn't another dream. The other captive in the cell, though dirty and bruised, growled, "Nice rescue operation." He introduced himself as a cleric with the Shin'Rakorath, Caladrel, and began assessing the party's odds of success against the drow wizard. "I've been imprisoned with nothing to do but pray for spells to kill these guys, but they took my holy symbol. There's a temple out there in shadow Celwynvian, isn't there? I'm in no shape to fight, but take me there to get a holy symbol of Yuelral and I'll help out from the back lines."
Razorhorn insisted that Gambit remain with him as a hostage to ensure that the rest of the party would return, and everyone else went back out the window and across town to the Temple of Watchers. Once again, shadow-Vigonyis was surprised at their patronage and launched into his litany of complaints about being the unlucky one chosen to remain behind and die with the temple. "Yeah, sucks to be you," Caladrel replied. "You got a holy symbol of Yuelral around here?"
His holy symbol acquired, Caladrel returned with the PCs to the Observatory. Stopping to bring along the still-unconcious Akron, they went back through the window to rejoin Gambit. Dax carried Samaritha with him while "Red" slung Akron over his shoulders; secretly, Gambit never planned to return to keep his word to the dragon. "You're sure it'll be okay for us to go up the stairs?" the halfling asked.
"Let's see:" Razorhorn stretched luxuriously, "I believe Nolveniss' exact words were 'Guard the staircase.' As long as you can promise me that you'll take extra care not to scuff the stairs or do any harm to them in any way, I think I'm good."
A pair of drow arcanists guarding the stairs proved to be a minor speedbump to the party, although one managed to escape by flying up the outside of the tower to warn Nolveniss. When Tha'hallas crept up to peek at the rooftop, Nolveniss had already cast mislead to misdirect the party's resources. His illusory double drew off Gambit's scroll of flaming sphere before Caladrel cast invisibility purge to reveal their true target. As the battle raged on the rooftop, small stones began to rain from the sky and the roar of the approaching meteor rumbled from the sky; Earthfall was about to occur! As Nolveniss fell, Gambit rushed to find the portal key, which was already starting to glow.
As everyone gathered around, they had one last unpleasant surprise: over the edge of the tower flapped Razorhorn, who hadn't trusted the PCs to keep their word and return for him. (Of course, he had planned to escape by himself and leave the PCs behind if they had proved trustworthy.) "Razorhorn, buddy," Gambit called with fake enthusiasm, "we were just about to come get you. Hurry up."
Razorhorn wasn't fooled by the halfling's bluff, but the demiplane was already fading away around the PCs as they were drawn back into the real world. They found themselves back in the Academy of Arts in front of the elfgate; simultaneously, from outside, they heard twanging bowstrings and shouts to beware the dragon: Razorhorn had been drawn back into the real world as well. He quickly flew away from the stinging arrows of the elves, living to fight another day -- and with a grudge against a certain lying halfling.
The PCs, in the meantime, were welcomed as heroes. Caladrel, Samaritha, and Akron were hurried to the healers while the PCs gave Kaer'ishiel and Eviana the information they had gathered to be rushed back to Kyonin. The elves urged them to take some downtime to rest and recuperate in the camp and reclaimed city while they waited for word from the queen about the next step. After several days, a victory banquet was held, at which the PCs were officially thanked for their service in the battle for Celwynvian and given gifts.
Tha'hallas took advantage of his downtime to revisit the haunted smithy. Using the training he had gotten from Annin Raivanyiel in shadow Celwynvian, he completed crafting the elven curved blade the smith had wanted to finish for his son and placed it on the younger Raivanyiel's grave in the Garden of Eternal Ease. As his millennia-old task was finally finished, the ghost of the smith appeared to the elf to thank him for his compassion and ask him to carry the blade to defend his race as he would have wished his son to do. As the ghost touched the sword and faded away, a portion of his spirit remained behind with the blade he had labored over so many years, making it a ghost touch weapon.
Good stuff. I always thought Razorhorn was better than a stupid fight to the death scene. This is reassuring me about running this AP after all the bad press on other forae about this AP. Good luck with the next chapter.
Cheers
Mark
Good stuff. I always thought Razorhorn was better than a stupid fight to the death scene. This is reassuring me about running this AP after all the bad press on other forae about this AP. Good luck with the next chapter.
Cheers
Mark
Thanks for reading all this! I try to battle the "Second Darkness is teh suck" press whenever I can. I haven't read through any of the other APs so I can't make any strong comparative statements, but we've had a great time with this campaign!
As to Razorhorn, I thought it was completely out of character for a lawful evil dragon to attack immediately and fight to the death, as called for in the text. (A hot-tempered red, maybe, but a green? No, he's going to be looking out for his own interests in the situation.) I'm pretty sure it was a word-count situation that led to the way it was laid out in the adventure: it's a lot quicker to say "He attacks and fights to the death" than to list suggestions for dialogue and negotiation.
A few days after finishing his new blade, Tha'hallas noticed Caladrel on the edge of the camp, giving him a significant look before heading into the forest. Waiting a few minutes before slipping away himself, the elf walked into the forest for about 10 minutes before hearing the passphrase "A light against the darkness." He replied in kind, and Caladrel and Kaer'ishiel stepped out from the foliage.
Kaer'ishiel got right to the point. "We're sending you on a mission, you and your companions. We'll be telling them something about it in a day or two, but you deserve to know the truth."
"Ever since you discovered that scroll of recorporeal incarnation, we've had our people working on it. That is," he goes on, "a copy went to the queen and her advisors, but we made a copy that went straight to the Shin'Rakorath. It was too great an opportunity not to make use of: a weapon the drow intended to use against us, we get a chance to use against them. Our agents went through Celwynvian under cover of night gathering drow bodies to preserve. One of our greatest necromancers has been at work refining the spell, closing the loopholes and improving on the drow's work, and now he believes he has succeeded in creating a version of the spell which will bypass the usual means of detection."
Kaer'ishiel continued. "The aiudara above the pool in the Academy of Arts, the one that used to lead to Kyonin: Eviana and her people have discovered that the drow have perverted it to lead to their city of Zirnakaynin. We should be able to force it open briefly -- long enough for a small party to go through."
The ranger glanced at Caladrel and went on. "We want your group to be the ones to go through. Eviana and her people answer to the queen, and you know politics: by the time, Telandia and her advisors are able to reach a consensus on the issue, it will be too late to strike, and that's if she can convince enough of them to take any action at all. Eviana and all those from Crying Leaf are duty-bound to stand down until such time as they receive orders. You and your party," he said, "are wild cards. If you were to decide to go in on your own, the queen would have complete deniability."
"But here's what you have to understand," he continued. "Once you're in, you're going to be completely on your own. This is a black ops mission. If you run into trouble, there will be no rescue operation, and if we're questioned, we'll have to deny all foreknowledge of your actions. This could end very badly for you," he said flatly, "but if you succeed in gathering any information that could aid us in the war, it could be invaluable, even if no one but Caladrel and I ever know that you were a hero."
Kaer'ishiel and Caladrel seemed to relax. "It will be in the next day or so. Our necromancer Giseil has just arrived on site and is making preparations. We're cross-referencing with the material you've captured from the drow, trying to find corpses wearing the runes of one of the houses mentioned as being foremost in the war effort; that should get you near some drow with valuable intel. Once we've identified the bodies we'll be using, we'll approach your party; from there, we'll move you immediately to the aiudara. We can't have your companions letting any information about the operation slip."
He paused. "Obviously, we won't be letting the rest of your party know that this is an unofficial mission. They wouldn't understand elven politics, and frankly, it's none of their business. Also, you need to make them think that you have had no prior knowledge of the mission: when we pitch it to them, that has to be the first time you've heard of it as well, as far as they know. And honestly, we're going to paint a little rosier picture for them than we have for you. They're on a need-to-know basis, and they don't need to know exactly how dangerous this is going to be."
Caladrel spoke up now for the first time. "I want you to know, I volunteered to go in with you, but it was decided I would pose too much of a risk to the mission carrying a holy symbol of Yuelral and bearing an aura of good. I'll be contacting you daily with sending, so you'll be able to get out short messages. If you find out anything of value, you'll have to try to communicate it to me, in case you don't make it out. If I contact you and you can't risk responding at the time, I'll try again in an hour. And one more thing:" He pulls a black wand out of his pack. "I'm not leaving you to the tender mercies of those black bastards if you get hurt. You should be able to use this wand to heal yourself or your party once you're underground."
Kaer'ishiel spoke again. "I'll give you the full details of your insertion when I address your whole party. May the gods grant that our whole nation can be cognizant of your heroism, once our victory is won, but even if you fall unsung in the bowels of the earth, among the Shin'Rakorath at least, your sacrifice will be honored."
After enjoying several weeks of downtime, relaxing on the outskirts of Celwynvian, buying and selling gear via teleporting merchants from Iadara, and generally enjoying being heroes, the party was approached by Kaer'ishiel bearing news of a new mission. The PCs swiftly volunteered, and the elf told them to rest up, get ready, and meet him at the Academy of Arts at sundown.
Most of the reclaimed city had returned to a peaceful footing, with scholars replacing warriors among the ruins, but the Academy of Arts was the one building still under martial guard and completely in the keeping of the Shin'Rakorath. Kaer'ishiel's people surrounded the area at all times, keeping everyone else out, due to the dangerous gate within, but as the PCs approached, they were nodded inside, clearly expected. They met Kaer'ishiel and Caladrel in the entry hall.
Kaer'ishiel explained to the party the basics of their mission: to use the recorporeal incarnation spell the drow had devised against them by going undercover into their city in the Darklands. Nolveniss Azrinae and the drow in Celwynvian may have been defeated, but the elves were now aware of their plan to recreate Earthfall; unfortunately, they had no clues where the drow masterminds were or how to stop them. The Shin'Rakorath wanted to send the PCs into one of the drow houses involved in the plot and try to uncover some information that would help foil the dark elves' scheme.
He went on to explain that, since the recovery of the recorporal incarnation scroll, Shin'Rakorath agents in Celwynvian had been taking and preserving the corpses of drow slain in the city, preparing to put this plan into operation. The information already uncovered by the PCs indicated that Houses Azrinae and Vonnarc were most involved in the drow's campaign; having examined the marks worn by the dead drow, they had selected 4 likely bodies bearing the rune of House Vonnarc. Interrogation of the drow necromancer Bixus had revealed that most of the footsoldiers in Celwynvian weren't actual members of the Houses that claimed them, but were slaves and conscripts taken from the streets of Zirnakaynin, so no one in House Vonnarc should have personally known the dead drow the PCs would be impersonating. Oddly, there had been no Azrinae runes found among the Celwynvian dead; Kaer'ishiel hoped that if the PCs were able to discover where House Azrinae's forces were deployed, that would also reveal the locus of the origination of the magic pulling down the great stone from the heavens.
When the PCs had agreed to the basic outline of the plan, Kaer'ishiel went on to describe the method of their insertion. Once the spell had taken effect, the elfgate would be opened, and the party would pass through as if in desperate retreat. Volunteer Shin'Rakorath agents would pursue. Kaer'ishiel assured the party that his men would, under no circumstances, harm the PCs; they all understood that this was, if necessary, a suicide mission. He urged the PCs, if they needed to do so to sell their identities to whomever might be waiting on the other side, not to hesitate to attack the elves. Their cover was to be maintained at all costs.
Sobered by the elves' willingness to sacrifice themselves for the mission, the party was then led into the suite of rooms containing the aiudara and the gate to the demiplane, which now looked very different than the last time they had seen them; the aboleth's illusions were dispelled, and the other room was now lined with 8 cots, half of which supported drow corpses. Kaer'ishiel introduced Giseil Voslil, a necromancer in the service of the Shin'Rakorath. After explaining his own brilliance in refining the drow's spell by using a focus item, thus confining the detectable magic to a ring which would also give them drow-like abilities to help them in their disguise, he asked the PCs to strip down and lie on the empty cots.
As the party was thus occupied, Caladrel approached Thahallas. Without looking directly at him, he murmured, "You can't come back this way. Eviana has just received orders to disconnect the aiudara to prevent the drow from re-invading Celwynvian. By tomorrow, the portal back here will be offline. You'll have to find another way out. No need to tell your friends until after you're through. If they wonder how you know, just tell them I told you in a sending that the drow shut it down from their side."
When the spell was cast, the PCs looked at each other with new, light-sensitive eyes. Even Kaer'ishiel and Caladrel seemed a little uncomfortable among them. They re-equipped with the drow's clothing but most of their own gear. Passing through into the room with the elfgate, the PCs mingled with the elven scouts who were about to pursue them through. "Red" took the opportunity to go around and shake their hands to thank them for their sacrifice. Then Kaer'ishiel used Nolveniss' portal key to open the aiudara, and the PCs ran through.
They found themselves in a large open cavern, facing a surprised group of drow who became even more surprised when the elves came through firing arrows a few seconds later. They and some driders joined in the fight, as did the PCs half-heartedly. The Shin'Rakorath agents fought hand-to-hand for a few rounds and then retreated; to the PCs' relief, they all made it back through the gate, although some had to be carried by their fellows. As the drow commander berated his inferiors for letting the elves retreat, a lone figure emerged from behind an iron cart pulled by a large lizard. Spying the PCs' Vonnarc runes, he introduced himself as Gadak Simiryin, displayed a matching rune sewn into his clothing, and offered them a ride back to Zirnakaynin proper.
Having arrived at House Vonnarc, the party was left alone briefly in the courtyard while Gadac went to tell the Slavemother that some of the House's footsoldiers had returned from Celwynvian. They decided to play on the rivalry between Azrinae and Vonnarc alluded to by the necromancer Bixus by blaming defeat in Celwynvian on Nolveniss Azrinae's incompetence. After surviving a harsh interrogation by the Slavemother as to why they failed on the surface and why they should be allowed to serve inside the House itself, Elvtlar Zarira ("Red"), Maaoltra (Gambit), Chalith (Dax), and Thahallas (who got to keep his own elven name) were accepted into service.
Good to see another update. I've been getting impatient for the next chapter - Play More!! Have fun putting them though some morally tough times.
Cheers
Mark