Outside, Skjorn cracks his knuckles. "Now we're getting somewhere. Obviously he's been planning this move for some time, and it seems like this 'Yi-Juan' person is his silent partner. I think it's time for a meeting with Dirk Thrandarl -- it's only fair to tell him I'm coming."
Lydia and Jak both protest the wisdom of this decision, but they cannot sway him. Skjorn explains that he has enough friends at the Guild headquarters that he'll be in no real danger there.
Arriving, he shows his certificates and demands an appointment with the Guildmaster, expecting to be put on a waiting list. Somehow his message is relayed, and the answer comes back in minutes: "He'll see you now, sir."
Dirk Thrandarl proves to be a very athletic-looking Northwinder, human, with red hair and a short red beard much like Skjorn's. He has great personal magnetism, and wears a heavy flail at his belt -- an unusual weapon for a landlubber, but more common as a shipboard "fighting iron." He shakes Skjorn's hand firmly, then motions for him to sit. "No hard feelings, I trust? Rhenquist's ability to lead had been slipping for years; he'd been missing opportunities best seized. I had to let you go until I knew where you stood, but I could use a lieutenant as able as yourself."
Skjorn smiles. "Actually, I'd insist on being an equal Guildmaster. You and I own the same number of shares, after all."
Thrandarl's eyes narrow, and he says, flatly, "Impossible. But just to settle it, let's have a contest." Motioning to a pair of crossbows in a display case -- beautiful masterwork hunting weapons from Wilden County in Northwind -- he says, "Let's shoot some pheasant. At, say, a 1% interest per bird. Assuming you have all of Rhenquist's shares and no one else's -- and I think that's all you have -- you'll need to beat me by 7 birds. Shall we release a dozen, to keep things interesting?"
Skjorn, knowing he's potentially in over his head, attempts a bluff. "Six birds total will be enough," he replies.
As it is, Thrandarl kills three of the birds to Skjorn's two, and the last one gets away. Ruefully, Skjorn hands over his loss, disturbed by the accuracy of Thrandarl's marksmanship.
"My offer of a lieutenancy stands," says Dirk.
"As to that, what happens in a week when you can't repay the loan? The whole guild collapses. I'll just found my own, and I think I can build it faster than you took over this one."
At this, Thrandarl smiles openly in his beard. "Then I'll just call a meeting and extend the loan. But that won't be necessary: the Flying Tiger will be back before then, carrying a million silver. Good day, Skjorn."
Meeting the others, Skjorn says, "I think we need to be quick now. Jak, please go to this address" (scribbles on paper), "and tell the two half-elves there that we need them. They're my half-siblings, so no worries on that account. Have them get my ship ready and meet us there. Lydia, Dirk said something about ordering the bank to extend the loan. That seems slightly awkward to me -- can you find out what he was talking about? Let Jak and I know when we get back, hopefully in a couple of days."
Jak stutters, "Your ship?"
"Well, technically the Guild's, but I doubt they know I've been using it, and probably haven't confiscated it yet. But, yeah, we can't be pirates without a ship."
"Pirates?!"
"Trust me."
Before long, Jak and Skjorn are out in the Gulf of the Winds, sailing for the main sea lane leading from Bailan City to Hylore. Skjorn's half-sister prays for good winds for them, and his half-brother handles the rigging and so on, while singing sad songs and lusty ballads. On reaching the sea-lane, they cut back and forth across it, scanning the horizon for the Flying Tiger's flag.
Unfortunately, they also catch the attention of a pair of sea-drakes, aquatic dragons nearly 15 feet long, that emerge up out of the sea and actually fly above the ship, strafing the deck with balls of lightning that strike and glow like St. Elmo's fire. As Skjorn attempts to fend them off with his bow, the Flying Tiger comes into view, moving quickly under full sail. Skjorn's crew maneuvers closer; Jak launches bolts of fire from Skellem's wand, catching the sails on fire and igniting the deck, slowing the bullion ship's progress. Skjorn rams their quarry head-on, and the dragons, seeing the skurrying prey on the deck, begin carrying off people there, still emitting ball lightning -- each ball drifts around the deck, killing a number of sailors.
Jack and Skjorn quickly board; avoiding the dragons, they go belowdecks and slaughter everyone there after a horrific fight. Then they allow the ship to sink, after disentangling their vessel from the wreckage. Charting the location carefully, they return to Hylore, striving to arrive there before the loan comes due.
Arriving back in Hylore, the heroes go to meet with Lydia, who seems quite dejected. "There hasn't been a call for loan repayment. There won't be. The Hylore branch of the Palladium Bank isn't actually part of the Palladium Bank. A year ago it was divested by the main bank over fiduciary irregularties and acquired for coppers on the livre by Pole Star, a Northwind holding company that was recently merged with the Hylore Guild of Shippers, Traders, and Longshoremen. In short, Thrandarl owes the money to himself."
Skjorn nods grimly. "I know where I can get my hands on a million silver pieces," he says. "We'll just have to buy the rest of the Guild shares from these other shareholders."
Lydia says, "As to that, I acquired another 4% while you were gone. The other shareholders have been tipped off, however, and are demanding much higher prices. Only one more holder is potentially willing to sell, and only in person."
"We have an appointment, I presume?"
"In an hour; you and one other person only. At the Calabash Casino. The shareholder is Lady Faiella Catschild, so you'd best dress appropriately. But the casino itself is a mob front..."
Skjorn smiles. "I've been there, to meet a mobster named Cadogan, in fact. Jak, do you play cards? No? No matter; I do. Let's go!"
On the way to the casino, Jak says, "Up ahead, in the doorways, either side of the alley." Skjorn nods and draws his sword, and a quartet of hooligans, having been discovered, step out onto the cobbles and attack openly; they wield exotic whip-chains, the tips of which glisten with the sheen of poison.
Skjorn says, "Take the ones on the right!" but Jak has already jumped past Skjorn to the left, avoiding the whip-chains coming at them from that side and striking a stunning blow to one of the thugs. Skjorn, shaking his head, severs a chain coming at him from the right. A few more moments see three dead assailants, and a fourth being pummeled repeatedly by Jak.
Skjorn says, "Your kidneys won't work anymore, but you can save your life. Who sent you?"
The man, an immigrant from Kara-Tur, spits. "Foreign dogs! We are street fighters for the Seaborn Wu. My brothers will be avenged!"
Skjorn kills him offhandedly, and Jak chuckles. "Did you hear that, Skjorn? He called you a foreign dog!"
Skjorn replies, "I think he meant both of us, Jak. But you know, I seem to remember that an 'Uncle Wu' owns a whole bunch of shares. Maybe he's in the game now for himself? I think we need to see him next."
Jak says, "Well, okay, but I don't want to be hit with poison dagger-chain-whip things anymore."
Skjorn picks one up and, after one abortive try, begins whirling it with professional skill, sending it whistling in orbits of varying radii. Then he tosses it in the gutter. "Meh. A sword is better," he says, and they move on to the meeting.
At the casino, they sit down at the baccarat table next to a brown-haired female elf, dressed simply, whom Skjorn suddenly realizes is beautiful in a very low-key way. Without looking over, she announces, "La banque est deux mille."
Skjorn replies, "Banco," and puts down his last 200 Northwind krakens. No matter, he thinks. As soon as I get the chance, I'll go recover another ten thousand of them in silver.
He wins the hand, however, passes the bank, and asks the lady to have lunch with he and Jak in the dining room. Jak asks her, "Why did you switch the cards?" and Skjorn kicks him under the table.
"I understand you have something you might wish to sell?"
She nods and replies in Common, "Potentially. I have a great distrust of Northwind adventurers, however."
Switching to flawless High Elvish, Skjorn says, "I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the empire."
Lady Faiella smiles. "What I have to sell isn't really worth much to me anyway -- asking 2,000 livres for it would be an insult. Six percent of cat vomit is still cat vomit."
Skjorn nods understanding, and slides over his winnings. "You must really dislike Northwind adventurers," he says.
"Dirk Thrandarl's father was Bleys Thrandarl, the pirate. At the height of his success, he became a member of the Seven Lords, who attempted to overthrow the monarchy. After their failed coup, he disappeared; that was 19 years, eleven months ago. In one more month he will be declared legally dead, and Dirk will inherit all of his father's wealth. I'd hate to think of what uses he'll put it to."
Skjorn nods and pays the check. "None, I suspect," he says. "I predict his fortunes will suffer a setback before the month is out."
Before departing the casino, Skjorn inquires about "Unle Wu." After assuring Mr. C's people that no harm is meant and great profit (of which Mr. C will of course receive a cut) might result, he eventually learns that "Uncle Wu" is indeed a crime boss, who pretends to be a kindly old man living on a houseboat anchored in the Lyorn River.
Uncle Wu does not hide that he sent the fighters to ambush Skjorn, and indeed apologizes for the laziness and incompetence of his henchmen. "They are the nephews of my brother's cousin, so of course I was forced to hire their unworthy hides to run errands. Had I known that it was you, O chief of all warriors, I would never have presumed to offer you such a poor excuse for entertainment."
Skjorn tries to cut through the nonsense. "I understand you have shares of the Hylore Shipping Guild. I wondered if you might be willing to sell them."
"Having no truck with the elfin devils and their foreign devil enterprises, I own no such accoutrements, O great one. Even if I had the misfortune to be burdened with such a responsibility, I could not sell them for fear of my old friend Yi-Juan, who is a wizard of the fourteenth rank and can command powerful demons."
"I see. Of course, I have nothing to offer for them, either. If I happened to know that one million pieces of silver were at the bottom of the sea at a certain location... well, I am very forgetful. If I told you that location, so as not to burden my poor memory with their existence... well, sadly, we deal in dreams and nonsense."
Wu's eyes narrow. "Would these coins belong to the blue-eyed devil?"
"And if they did, what of it?"
"It would no doubt anger his half-brother Yi-Juan. No, I cannot countenance such a thought."
"Of course not. In fact, why don't you remove Yi-Juan from your memory, just as I have wiped the silver from mine."
Wu stares openly at that.
"You do not have such power."
"Let that be my problem."
Wu speaks slowly: "One week hence is the Festival of the Moon, which is the time when foolish young people wait for their wishes to come true. As an old man, I am too wise now to believe in wishes. But if on that day I had a million silver pieces in my pocket and a promise fulfilled, I might regain my youth after all -- at least, regain it enough to want to rid myself of the heavy burden of ownership of part of a foreign devil company."
Skjorn bows solemnly, hands Wu a chart, and leaves the ship. Jak, having been playing Mah Jongg with Wu's sons, quickly wraps up his game and comes along, saying, "Um, Skjorn, I think those guys are crooks."
Meeting with Lydia, Skjorn says, "Don't bother acquiring any more shares. It's all over -- Yi-Juan is Dirk's half-brother, and together they have a majority no matter what we do. Even if I somehow kill Yi-Juan like I promised, his shares will just go directly to Dirk, and vice versa."
Lydia says, "Well, what happens if they both die within a 30-day period?"
"If they have no other heirs, the shares would go back to the Guild itself, to be split among the members based on their rank."
"And how many members does the Guild have?"
"No idea. Thousands, probably. I have to assume that Dirk has replaced most of them with his own men, though."
"Yes, but if he's not alive for them to serve..."
"Yes, of course. But here it is: I've seen Dirk shoot. He's a better fighter than I am. I'm told Yi-Juan is a wizard of the fourteenth rank, whatever that means. Lydia, may I be so forward as to ask yours?"
She pales and looks at the floor. "More like half that," she admits.
"So we have no chance at all of killing either of them alone, much less the two of them together."
"We need help, then. Do you know anyone?"
Unfortunately, when they go to ask Rhenquist who he might be able to contact, they find that he has been killed. The pond in his garden has been drained, and the bottom dug up; a strongbox is lying on the bank, broken open. In it are some coins, but nothing else of interest.
Jak says, "Someone who didn't know you already had his shares must have been trying to get them. Maybe some crooks. Maybe we should ask some crooks for help."
Skjorn looks at him bleakly. "I promised Wu we'd do it ourselves."
Jak says, "Not those crooks -- don't we know other ones?"
So they return to the casino.
When Skjorn and Jak step into the casino, they are immediately spotted and all hell breaks loose. A vulture-like demon appears and shrieks; most of the nearby patrons are stunned. Skjorn and Jak attack, and are quickly joined by Cadogan, who is the casino bouncer that day. Although damaged by the thing's talons and the parasitic vines it tries to extend through their bodies, the three heroes manage to defeat the thing and send it back to the Abyss in pieces.
Cadogan immediately signs on to help kill whomever sent the thing, as it is extremely bad for business to have demons killing the customers. He contacts Agun, who quickly shows up, and Skjorn and Jak bring them up to speed. Dealing with Yi-Juan can no longer be put off, and a plan is quickly hatched.
Skjorn goes to the bank and, as a concerned shareholder, demands an immediate meeting of the other shareholders, to be held at the bank. Sending spells are sent out; minor shareholders largely ignore the message, as does Uncle Wu. Dirk Thrandarl tries to put off the meeting, but Yi-Juan replies that an immediate meeting is amenable to him; he appears outside the bank in a huff of displaced air; walking in, he sits down at the table opposite Skjorn and Lydia -- a man with a long black braid and features like those of immigrants from Kara-Tur, but with piercing blue eyes nearly identical to Dirk's. He creates a zone of magical protection from scrying, then speaks:
"You are a most troublesome minority shareholder." When Skjorn attempts to reply, he is magically paralyzed; Yi-Juan continues: "In less than a month the loan will be repaid with interest. The shipping guild can only prosper; your shares will make you wealthy. If you wish to start a competing company with those profits, that is nothing to me. But do not annoy me any further; I can swat you, and your friend (whatever personality he is wearing), like bugs. The only reason I do not send you to the deepest pits of Hell right now, as we sit here, is because my cousin Wu would be inconvenienced if your friend Mr. C were to become annoyed. Your friendship with the Lady Catschild offers you little protection, so do not count on that, either. I trust I am understood."
Yi-Juan walks outside, onto the crowded downtown sidewalk, and concentrates for a moment, preparing to teleport himself back to wherever he was. At that moment Cadogan walks up and stabs him in the back with a rapier, disrupting the spell. Jak comes in with a running tackle, attempting to grapple Yi-Juan and prevent him from using other magic; Skjorn, freed from his paralysis, rushes outside and brings his sword to play. Yi-Juan is butchered in the street, in full view of hundreds of onlookers.
The City Watch is quick to arrive; Cadogan, Jak, Skjorn, and Agun are taken into custody and magically interrogated. While technically guilty of violation of the dueling code, their actions cannot be considered legal murder unless it can be demonstrated that the demon that attacked them in the casino was summoned by someone other than Yi-Juan.
Dirk Thrandarl arrives at the Watch station as they are being released, and hands Skjorn a heavy flail. "I'd normally just wait and let you fail, but in this case, you killed my brother. I intend to beat you to death."
Skjorn hefts the flail. He is proficient with it, as he is with any weapon he can handle for a few moments, but in this case he wants to following the dueling code strictly to the letter. "As the challenged party, Dirk, the terms are mine to set. Here they are: single combat, free choice of weapons, with passive magical support available; no healer present, as we fight to the death. As Rhenquist is dead, Jak here is my witness. Agun will stand as my second and magical support. Are these terms agreeable?"
Dirk sneers. "You are a coward for insisting on weapons, but that's of no moment. You also know that I have no magical support now, although I hardly think I need it. Remember, I've seen you shoot. I'll still kill you."
All other things being equal, Dirk is a much better fighter, but Agun, using all of his arts, renders Skjorn stronger, faster, and better-protected than his opponent. The duel itself lasts less than a minute; Skjorn wipes his sword carefully and walks away from the improvised circle without a backwards glance, and Agun skulks off, hoping no one notices his contributions to the fight.
DM's Notes: This adventure nicely highlights a number of design goals in the Aviona house rules, and in my personal adventure design preferences (which the rules are intended to facilitate).
1. Skjorn was a 7th level fighter; Dirk Thrandarl was 10th. However, with Agun's support, there was absolutely no contest. Thanks to the houserules for casting in combat, had Agun participated face-to-face, Dirk would have easily been able to disrupt his casting and still attack Skjorn -- he'd have stood at least an even chance of winning (I'd pegged him at CR 9 vs. two 7th level PCs, for a 50/50 encounter). However, when a caster provides support from outside of the fight, his ability to tip the scales is multiplied dramatically. In this case, I wasn't sorry to see the BBEG fail to even noticeably wound his opponents. Dirk's Int was too low to function, long-term, against high-Int opponents!
2. Yi-Juan was quite intentionally not a level-appropriate encounter. He was assumed to be spending most of his time on metaphysical pursuits, intervening directly only when Dirk was clearly in over his head. At any time, he could easily have destroyed the entire party, if he had known who all was opposing him, and if he'd bothered setting his mind to it or been even minimally aggressive about it. However, when jacked in the street, unprepared, he still went down like a chump, and his loss of course led directly to Thrandarl's defeat as well. (In the words of Steven Brust, "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.")
3. By conventional wisdom, 100,000 gp is too much treasure to hand out to a 7th level party, even in the form of a million s.p. In our houserules, however, wealth-by-level limits for magical gear are intrinsic to the character, regardless of how much money is available. So the PCs can own ships and castles and even guilds, and I can hand out enough wealth to support these things, without making them super-powered in terms of gear.
P.S. As a point of trivia, Bleys Thrandarl, Dirk's missing father, was a former PC of mine. In the old days, we never shied away from PC vs. PC animosity, and one day he and his partner Immar caught the wrong end of a prismatic spray.
The ship-board duel was my first night back after taking a break from my son being born. I had no idea as to the context of this fight until I just read your campaign journal for those adventures. All I knew was that Agun was building up favor-capital by buffing Skjorn.
Unfortunately, not long thereafter Psychicmachinery was on break for the birth of his baby, so Skjorn was out of action like Agun.
Frickin' babies, man!
You said it, mang.
Skjorn addresses the assembled men of the Shipping Guild, who have recently found themselves shareholders, and explains that he is the largest shareholder and also the new Guildmaster, subject to their approval. A few denounce him and quit on the spot, but most are happy to serve him.
The Hylore Branch of the Palladium Bank is divested from Pole Star and by extension the Guild, and begins cleaning up its act; Lydia is put in charge of these efforts, and of the bank itself.
DM's Note: Skjorn had the Leadership feat, with his sister (an incarnate) and brother (a bard) as chohorts. After this adventure, he had enough potential to acquire an army, and assigned the Guild members to that role. Lydia, as an NPC, was no longer needed with Agun back in play (even if only temporarily), so she was assigned to the bank to explain her absence thereafter.
Mr. C., impressed with how quickly the summoned demon was dealt with, approaches Cadogan: "Cadogan, my boy, we got a piece of, uh, 'merchandise' in which I am led to believe you would potentially have a particular innerest. The thing is, the price tag is a bit high -- more than I pay you, and more than you skim on the side with your other operations (and don't think for a second I don't know about 'em, kid). Still, I'd like to offer you, uh, let's call it 'first refusal.' The market value of the object in question is 82,000 sterling -- a bit of a joke, seeing as the guy I acquired it from was using it as a garbage disposal, until I fed him to it. Now, it could be that I know where you can get the money. Naturally I'd expect my usual cut. So whaddya say -- you innerested? If not, I got others who are."
Cadogan guesses as to the item in question, and replies with a guarded positive, and an oblique question regarding the source of the money, and what he needs to do for it.
"Heh, the only place outsida the Royal Treasury for that kind of silver -- and no, we ain't robbing the treasury (at this time) -- the only other place is Benambra's horde. One of those secret underworld-god cults; they worship death or something. Yeah, I know, it's stupid, to hold something so cheap in such high regard, but people do not always act in their best innerest, you unnerstand? The thing is, a cult to Nerull or Hades or whatever, it's not a legitimate temple, which means there's no heat if we pull off the operation. No political consequences; no legal complications of any kind -- a clean score, except of course for the, uh, former owners. But that's the thing. A god with no worshipers, I'm thinking, inn't much of a god."
"But there's a catch..."
"Of course there's a catch. Secret cults are secret. People have been looking for Benambra's Gold for decades, and ain't found it. Listen to me carefully, Cadogan. We have ways of knowing things, and getting things done, that most people do not. You want to remember that. We have a guy in the temple. You want to ask me if he's 'trustworthy'? No, of course not, with that amount of money at stake. So we're going to send someone else in, to realize our investment, so to speak. You want to be that guy. You clean the place out, even the light fixtures. You bring it all back here. Your share of the operation is 82,000 sterling. So, whadda you say, kid?"
Cadogan says, "I'll need to bring in help, on a job that big."
Mr. C nods. "I ain't gonna micromanage the thing, just get it done. But the main thing is, make sure the loot gets here. Whoever else knows, best not try to be cutting in other parties. And nobody better think about running off -- you wanna remind them that finding a missing person is one hell of a lot easier than finding this hoard, if it comes to that..."
Cadogan nods. "There is no potential conflict of interest here, boss. Five minutes ago I didn't know the money existed; after this is over, I'll forget it ever did. I just want the doodad. This thing is a win/win for us. I'm in."
Learning that it will be a month or two before their contact in the temple alerts them that it's safe to proceed, Cadogan is restless with impatience. However, his experiences (read: failures) with disarming traps leads him to believe that, if he doesn't brush up on those skills, he'll likely die.
He also knows approximately nothing about secret temples. In the past he would have asked Rim, but with that not possible, he approaches Agun at the university and inquires as to whether he knows anyone there who is an expert.
Agun smokes a cigar and thinks a bit. "There's a guest presentation being given tomorrow," he says, "By someone from Bailakash or somewhere. Apparently they're excavating an old pyramid there, and he's talking about metaphysical repercussions or something. Might be worth attending, if only to talk to the attendees afterward. Outside of that, I've got nothing."
The presentation is being given by one Jazeed Fyqar bin Mohatma al-Sayed, a guest lecturer who is an expert on death cults. Jazeed explains that cults of fell gods like Nerull (on the Continent) and Norgorber (from his homeland) and so on generally build underground temples when possible, or from stone otherwise, to avoid scrying on their nefarious rites. In the present case, the tip of a large pyramid has been found in the desert; the sandstone blocks it is built of are massive enough to block all attempts to scry on the interior or teleport in, so a physical entrance is being serached for. Its burial suggests that the builders are long dead, and the style dates it to some dynasty of some empire Cadogan never heard of and doesn't particularly care about.
After the talk, he mingles and asks why anyone is interested. "Treasure, of course! These cults tend to hoard treasure." But they usually rely on elaborate traps (magical and mechanical) and deathless guardians (undead and constructs) to guard it. Cadogan presses for details, but learns nothing that would seem to be immediately applicable -- most people ventuiring into trapped temples don't come out again, so details are scarce. He decides to sneak into this pyramid and get a feel for things himself. Agun, curious as to what kind of old magic he might learn, agrees to help; the two invite Auris and Shaleh, the former for his fighting skills, and the latter for her superior skills with traps.
DM's Note: Jazeed was another PC played by Andostre; he was an archivist who worshipped Norborger (Sp? We all disliked that name) out of fear rather than adulation. On alternate sessions from Cadogan's group, Jazeed and his party had had a series of adventures not chronicled here. Their experience with "dungeon crawls" is more extensive than that of Cadogan's party, but minor cross-overs in terms of plot and location occasionally occurred.
The "Moht." is an abbreviation for Mohatma. Paizo limits the number characters in usernames. The only reasonable conclusion: Paizo doesn't care about roleplay!
The "Moht." is an abbreviation for Mohatma. Paizo limits the number characters in usernames. The only reasonable conclusion: Paizo doesn't care about roleplay!
Thanks -- edited!
The party arrives at the excavation site, to find an Avionan overseer already present: a female half-elf, visibly a member of the former Chancellor's Battalion, who receives the visitors with little warmth and denies them entry to the excavation area, where an entrance has almost been breached. A local Bailakashi swami, a wizard known only as the Sand Sage, is handling security, keeping close surveillance on the site using a multitude of flying eyes that constantly scour the area.
Agun explains that the use of prying eyes marks the Sand Sage as a wizard of slightly greater competence than his, and that he probably cannot dispel the flying eyes. Cadogan is fine with this; during a lull in the activity, he steathily enters the Sand Sage's tent and assassinates him in his sleep. Meanwhile, the others uncapacitate the mundane guards and enter the pyramid, disguised as laborers, with Cadogan quickly joining them. By the time the murders are detected, the party is inside the pyramid itself.
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Well, we hadn't actually found a way into the pyramid, and I wasn't about to waste anyone's time trying to convince Cadogan to lift a pick, so I used a Stone Shape spell to dig a tunnel into the pyramid that just managed to meet up with a hallway inside. There was something stupid and violent waiting for us at the other end, but Cadogan didn't need much convincing to exert himself, then.
I totally forgot about that! Nice one.
It seemed like one of the few times Agun used a spell that wasn't about de/buffing or doing moderate direct damage.
Although I will always love casting Grease and then setting it on fire.
Agun's stone shape spell creates the entrance the party needs in order to evade the shaven-headed Bailakashi monk enforcers of the dig site. Inside, they almost immediately encounter a 4-armed ape, covered in glowing hieroglyphs, which bellows and charges; slaying the beast without being grappled and dismembered requires nice timing and deadly aim on their part. Less than half a minute later, the party is partway down the corridor and hears a roar from behind them; where the 4-armed corpse was, now a gigantic lion, also covered in the same glowing hieroglyphs, readies itself to pounce. Agun, recognizing the thing at last as a curse rather than a real monster, dispels it, and the group continues on their way.
The first room they come to appears to be empty except for four pillars, carved with screaming faces. As they enter the room, Cadogan and Auris are suddenly covered in plagues of devouring beetles, somehow invisible and silent, that have swarmed out of the carven mouths. Most people would be stripped to the bone in seconds, but both Cadogan and Auris have reflexes far beyond the normal, and are able to miraculously twist, leap, and evade free from the worst of the onslaught, while Agun and Shelah use flaming oil to destroy the beetles (again trusting their companions' reflexes to spare them from the flames).
Shaleh apologizes, offering to go ahead from then on in order to search for traps, and the others happily agree.
Agh, the beetles. I had forgotten about the beetles. Why did I have to be reminded?
Ignoring the three other short side-corridors, the party instead elects to open a great set of bronze double doors, after Shaleh ascertains that they are not trapped and succeeds in picking the lock. Past them is a room containing a shallow, misty pool; it's unclear how the liquid, over millenia in such a dry climate, has not evaporated (Agun, smirking, says, "It's magic, dummy!").
Cadogan, with his positive experiences with magic pools and fountains, is quick to suggest they drink. Shaleh is a bit hesitant, and Agun is adamantly against this idea, not wanting his leg to turn back into a crocodile. Auris, after his experience with the beetles, is anxious to avoid any side corridors; he also knows he is more resistant to most poisons and curses than most men. Nodding to Cadogan, he boldly strides up to the pool and takes a drink, before Shaleh can stop him.
He is about to shrug and remark on the lack of effects when his form swirls and his body turns to mist, which is quickly sucked into a small hole in the wall and vanishes from sight...
While the others stand aghast, wondering if Auris has been destroyed, Cadogan snaps, "Don't just stand there! Come on!" and drinks the water himself, also turning to smoke and being sucked into the tube. Shaleh thinks this may be a another deathtrap, but Agun, thinking fast, says, "No, I think they're simply gaseous. Even if they're trapped somewhere else, it's probably better if we stick together." He quickly fills his canteen, then, with a resigned sigh, he drinks the water as well and follows, as does Shaleh.
Passing in gaseous form through a narrow tube, the party can faintly hear an eerie tune, produced by their passage. There are one or two branches; Cadogan and Auris, in the lead, sense a bluff -- the side-paths at the entrance were all death traps, so Cadogan assumes the straight path here will be the same, with one of the side paths open (Cadogan is too vain to think that the builders would out-think him with a double-bluff). Accordingly, they follow one of the side tubes, with their two companions nervously following.
They re-coalsce into their solid forms in a hallway. Ignoring a small room to the side that appears to contain boats, they walk straight ahead into a hude central chamber with four exits. The mosaic tiling on the floor gives way to a great circle of pale white stone. Agun, having grown up underground, senses that this white stone is part of a larger rock underlying the pyramid himself. Walking up to the stone, motions the others back and lays a hand on it, concentrating; he is stunned for a moment, reeling, then speaks:
"Let's not walk on this, okay? It has powerful magic, and it's probably best not to activate it until we know what it does."
Stepping carefully around it, Cadogan says, "Straight - side - straight... time for another side path?" With no way of knowing if this "logic" makes any sense (even Agun is stumped), the others follow.
They enter a hall, with four darkwood staves, studded with onyx and bloodstones, jutting from the walls. Shaleh is aware that these must serve some purpose, but is unable to deduce what kind of trap they may represent -- or what danger there is in leaving them alone. Shrugging, she removes one from the wall, noting as she does so that the far end is sharpened to a point. Nothing happens; the party proceeds down the hall, to a great carving of a winged beetle; a cylindrical shaft ascends into the darkness above it.
Avoiding the carving, the party continues on but are stopped when a gaseous cloud overtakes them and coalesces into four undead forms, grinning through fang-filled mouths. All of them have holes in their chests of approximately the right size to accommodate a darkwood stake. The party doesn't hesitate or kick themselves; rather, they instantly act. Cadogan and Auris reduce the lead pair into smoke again almost before they solidify; the second two don't last much longer. Trooping back down the hall, Shaleh puts her stake back into place, and, picking up the other three stakes from the floor, pushes them back into place as well.
The heroes make it into the treasure room and find an "anything box," that contains any one magic item worth up to "x" gp when opened. Cadogan gets very excited, until he realizes, with Agun's help, that the dimension-hopper he's after is way outside of the box's price range.
There is a guardian devil, but they give it the slip in the gaseous form tubes, and make their getaway from the pyramid. Aside from the box, the take-away lessons about secret temples and pyramids were these:
1. Don't investigate any side rooms unless you absolutely have to.
2. Don't interact with any furnishings or structural features unless you absolutely have to.
3. Think in three dimensions, not just two.
4. Don't get suckered by obvious patterns.
5. Make sure you have a lot of utility spells handy.
For his part, Cadogan assumes he can get by in the future with pure panache -- and with the anything box as a backup, he might be right. But Agun takes these lessons to heart, and begins to think about carrying a wider variety of spells -- buffing fighting companions is all you need to do to fight ogres, but when it comes to dungeon delving, there are challenges that swords won't overcome.
Eventually, Cadogan gets the "green light" from Mr. C and is told where to find the Blue Temple, where the side door is, and who to meet. He attempts to assemble a team, but Sheraviel and Rim are dead, Skjorn is busy running the Shipping Guild, and Agun is convinced that he lacks sufficient spells to tackle something of that scale. Shelah is always up for a looting expedition, however, and Auris agrees to go as well after Cadogan promises there will be no more invisible beetle swarms.
Rather than hiking through the Andoor Mountains and risk meeting Monk, summoned demons, or crossbow-toting rednecks, the party elects to take a ship up the Corundum River -- a series of dams and locks enables them to get all the way to the city of Rainville that way. From there, they catch a caravan west across the mountains, and onto the High Zothique Plain.
Approaching the purported site of the temple, there is a large chasm in the earth. Skirting it, they encounter a huge, red-scaled dragon-like monster, which bellows at them and breathes flame, then charges them. Auris heroically gets in front of the group and bears the brunt of the monster's charge. Shaleh's arrows and Cadogan's rapier fail to penetrate the beast's scales; with no real hope of beating it, the three escape by leaping into the ravine, the river in the bottom of it being just deep enough that they survive the fall. Carried downstream, they drag themselves from the river at the next village and begin the long trip back to Hylore.
Auris is apologetic: "I'm not really in the dragon-slaying business," and his injuries are severe enough that he elects to stay in Hylore to recuperate. Cadogan, feeling time pressure now, realizes he needs to get back to the temple before Mr. C realizes he's in Hylore again. With little chance of success on his own, he goes to the university to beg Agun for assistance -- an act he little relishes.
DM's Note: I think Jak and an ally played by Ross might have been in on the initial (abortive) raid, too, but my memory is too hazy to be sure. I'm still bummed we didn't get to finish the psychotic Wizard of Oz adventure I had planned next!
More recently, the city of Rainville ended up being the site of a very short-lived (3 adventure) but very highly-enjoyable campaign played with JAM412 while I was in Pittsburgh. We wound back the timeline slightly, so that the main PC (JAM's aasimar cop) was able to become aware of Dirk Thrandarl's rapid and ruthless rise to power in the background.
Cadogan meets Agun and says, "Look, I saved your life when we met -- you owe me one!"
Agun, of course, rebuts that his life would not have been at risk if Cadogan hadn't stabbed him in the first place. Which is true, but isn't what Cadogan wants to hear. Eventually, the young rogue is forced to agree to allow Agun to study the object he's coveting, and ride along when it's used.
He has an easier time with Sjorn. When he approaches him, the Northman replies, "I never did recover all of Dirk's silver that I sent to the bottom (don't ask!), and that debt is unfortunately mine now. So, yes, I need a lot of money -- cut me in for an equal share, and I'm in." Cadogan remembers that Mr. C explicitly told him not to do this, but he rationalizes that it's better to give Mr. C all of the money less another share, than it is to give him no money at all. Still, he begins scheming on how to keep the total amount of loot a secret.
Skjorn also brings his half-siblings, and Jak is willing to go along just for the fun of it.
When he finds out that a rival temple will be looted, Joaquim insists on accompanying them as well -- the Olidammarites live for that sort of thing.
When Cadogan approaches the canyon again, he has three equal companions and a like number of cohorts at his back. Jak distracts the dragon and Skjorn makes short work of it, and the group proceeds to the temple entrance, where Cadogan uses the secret knock he'd been given.
The knock is not immediately answered. Cadogan suffers a pang of anxiety, then realizes that it would look pretty suspicious if the inside man simply sat inside the back door for a week or more. He resolves to knock once every couple of hours, on the hour, for at least another day before giving up. A few tries later, the door is opened by a man in full armor, who sees Cadogan's companions and says, "There weren't supposed to be so many of you!"
Cadogan answers, "Pack-bearers. You didn't expect me to carry everything myself, did you?"
The man nods, "I'm Radulescu. You are...?"
"A friend of Mr. C." Without waiting for an invitation, Cadogan pushes past the man into the building, followed by the others.
In the room with Radulescu are two zombies with dead-white skin; their hands are enormously oversized. Radulescu's eyes narrow as he notes Skjorn's armor and sword, and he seems suspicious of Agun as well. Gesturing slightly at them, he says to the zombies, "Kill those two!" With the same breath, he draws a flail and attacks Cadogan with it.
Cadogan was already half-expecting some kind of double-cross, and Skjorn is a veteran of hundreds of fights; neither is caught off-guard. Within seconds, both zombies, and Radulescu himself, are inert heaps on the floor, and Cadogan says, "Great. I have no idea how to get to the treasure room now."
DM's Note: Afficianados of Fred Saberhagen will have recognized the Second Book of Swords by now.
I recall none of this. What imposter are you tale spinning about?
(And, there was a treasure room in the second Book of Swords? Man, I need to reread Saberhagen…)
I recall none of this. What imposter are you tale spinning about?
Schedules were really tight at the end there, and Andostre had to "come out of retirement" as it were, so we did the whole adventure in one session (most of which was the fight against Benambra). So, yeah, it got pretty rushed. You were not happy about the yochlol at the end, either...
Oh, yeah, that one. Ugh, I hate those things.
There is a trapdoor in the floor; other than the hidden door you came in, there appear to be no other entrances or exits here. Agun waves his cigar, as if to halt Cadogan, and then speaks. "Look, this so-called 'entrance' just looked like a pile of boulders, right? I mean, no one actually saw a temple when we were approaching... unless it was invisible (which I already checked for and discounted). So it must be underground." He puffs and smiles -- the prospect of getting back beneath the earth seems to please him. "Back in the pyramid, we learned not to take side paths. I think this will be the same -- but the direct paths will be down. So we ignore everything except downward stairs or elevators or gaseous tubes or whatever."
Joaquim had been busily looting Radulescu's body, and holds up a scroll. "This looks like a letter!"
Excellency,
These intruders were killed by me within the temple itself. Although it is unclear how they penetrated the First and Second Sealings, they appear to have had no other companions. Still, I would like to borrow a squad of White-Hands and search the remainder of the temple, including the lower levels. I await your permission.
Regards,
Col. Radulescu.
Cadogan nods. "Yep -- he turns in our bodies, grabs the loot under the pretext of searching the treasure room, and uses the squad of zombies to carry it out. Cheeky bastard!"
Jak frowns. "What's that about the ceilings?"
Agun grabs the scroll, looks at it, and sighs. "Sealings -- like seals."
"You mean, sea lions?"
"No. Wardings, or layers of protection. We mountain dwarves always used seven of them, when we had a treasure we really, really wanted to guard well. And of course it would be located in an underground complex... I think one of my kinsmen helped design this place."
Cadogan opens the trapdoor, which reveals a ladder heading downward. The group descends into a circular room, with one doorway seeming to lead into a dark corridor, and eleven other evenly-spaced doorways that seem to have been filled in -- twelve total, like the numbers on a clock. As they watch, the open doorway gradually fills in with wall, and, after a time, one of the adjacent doorways gradually opens up; the full transition takes an hour.
Agun checks for magic and says, "Yeah, I was afraid of that. The doors aren't magic. We're in a stationary room. The whole temple is rotating around us."
Jak expresses concern: "How do we find our way around, with no way to use compass directions?"
Skjorn is more pragmatic. "We just have to remember how to get back here. The trick is to make sure we're not being chased, so that pursuers don't mob us while we're waiting for the door to open again. That's what this is for -- to delay escape. So we need to kill everything we meet, or, if we do run, turn around and ambush our pursuers before we get back this far."
Cadogan wants to know which tunnel to pick, and Skjorn recommends they simply go down whichever one opens next. Agun agrees, and adds, "Hold on -- I have a cantrip that tells the time." Concentrating for a moment, he learns the current hour, then scratches that number on the inside and outside of the open doorway. He marks the insides of the remaining doorways in order. "Now we'll always know which one is open, or due to open next."
The group then steps through the now-closing doorway.
Down a short corridor with a bend, they come across a cave; Skjorn's stepsister, silent up until then, suddenly blurts out, "Wait!"
Pointing to the growths on the walls and floor, she explains, "I'm an herbalist. This room is infested with yellow mold. If you poke around looking for doors or whatever, you'll die of poison."
Cadogan and Agun look at each other. "Don't ever explore side rooms?"
"Check!"
The group turns around and returns to the central hub, sets up camp in corridor, and goes to sleep while they wait for the door to open again, in 11 hours or so.
But it doesn't take 11 hours, of course; it takes only one hour for the corridor they're in to rotate around to the next doorway. The other corridors simply have false wall mock-ups at the entrances, making it look as if only one of the hub room's doorways is open at a time -- but these are easily removed.
Having gotten the trick and the timing down, they can explore the other passages fairly quickly, and find that most dead-end into a variety of rooms and caves of various sizes, all of them infested with unsavory mold and fungi of various types. One corridor, however, leads to a staircase instead. leading further down into the complex.
Skjorn is the first to descend, taking the lead. His descent is unremarkable, but when Cadogan steps on the second stair, it drops open, nearly plummeting him into the depths of the earth; he can hear the grinding of gears below him. Thankfully, Cadogan's hair-trigger reflexes allow him to quickly skip down to the next stair, startling Skjorn but sparing him a fatal fall. The others carefully step over the second stair after that, and they reach the second level unscathed.
Agun says, "If we somehow got past two Sealings just to get in the door, I'm guessing the rotating building and multiple trap arrangements must be the third. That leaves four to go."
Cadogan nods. "Nobody knew where this place even was -- that's number one, I think. And number two must have been the dragon or whatever it was. But I don't think we should count on seven; if I were designing the place, I'd put an eighth one to sucker the people who thought they were home free. And that eighth one would be really nasty."
The stars lead down to a maze of corridors, with a lot of doors -- every one of which the party ignores -- and a lot of right-angle turns in the corridors, seemingly designed to further confuse directions.
At one point they meet a guard patrol of four Amazons: seriously ferocious-looking women in light armor. Two crouch and hold up tower shields, blocking the hall, while the other two throw javelins from behind them. Skjorn and Jak immediately charge, the former cleaving apart a shield with his adamantine sword, the latter jumping over the other shield to attack the spear thrower. In short order, the four Amazons have been disposed of, and the party reluctantly opens a nearby door; rather than containing a deathtrap of some kind, it opens to an office. The party enters the office quickly and slays a clerk within, along with another of the "White-Hands" zombies. Then they drag the Amazons' bodies in, close the door and jam it shut, and continue exploring.
Soon thereafter, they find another stairway leading down, and waste no time descending -- this time checking the stairs for traps.
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Well, shoot, two years have gone by since the last post. Real life is a b&$~+. With that passage of time, I have little hope of remembering the details, even looking at the adventure write-up, so I'll try and hit the high points I do remember.
There was a magical anti-wizard trap on the next level that temporarily incapacitated Agun. Also, the whole level was concealed by an illusion to look like an endless forest, and space was warped. I vaguely recall Jak coming up with some kind of very clever way to find the exit, but I can't remember now how. Anyway, they managed to restore Agun's wits, too, and press on.
The party reached the next level down, where a substantial undead army jumped up out of coffins at them; these monsters were commanded by a bard/marshal. This is one of the few fights I drew a battle mat for, but we hardly needed it; the swordwraiths were no match for the party, even buffed.
At the lowest level, the founder of the temple, ancient Benambra himself (now a juju zombie) confronted them with a pair of the White-Hands. This turned out to be the biggest, most complicated fight of the campaign, and we ended up drawing improvised battle mats in the middle of it. Skjorn engaged Benambra while Cadogan tried to get past the bodyguards; Skjorn unfortunately got hit with a slay living spell, nearly killing him (it deals handfuls of Con damage, in our houserules). Luckily, his step-siblings were there to administer spells to remove enough of his attribute damage to enable him to keep fighting long enough for Jak, Agun, and the others to finish the bodyguards. With Cadogan in flanking position, the fight (which had been at a standstill) ended quickly.
From another thread:
Ran through an entire dungeon yesterday, based on the Blue Temple from Saberhagan's Second Book of Swords. The big fight pitted four 8th level PCs + cohorts against an undead evil high priest (Clr 11) and two bodyguards. It was everything I had hoped it would be, with various forms of energy damage all over the place and a fair amount of attribute damage; the fighter stayed up only through the virtue of a favored soul/incarnate cohort spamming lesser restoration. 8th-10th level seems to be at a cusp when immunities haven't quite caught up with attack potential, so a lot of carnage is possible in a very short amount of time. I think the entire combat took 5 rounds, most of which the rogue spent trying to get into position.
The party accessed the treasure room, which contained a surprise in the form of a Huge yochlol demon, whose gaseous form half-filled the chamber. Somehow they managed to kill this thing (I think Cadogan reached into the box for an arrow of slaying or something), and loot the gold. Yay, team!
...and that's the last time I got to play with Houstonderek, Andostre, Psychicmachinery, TOZ, and cyzzane. Mundane, Ross, and I started a demented version of the Wizard of Oz but, sadly, only got one session in before I moved. On my return to Houston three years later, I was in a different part of town and the group was scattered; I ended up running a Skull & Shackles game for another group, and am currently between games, except for my PBP.