Date:
Lunday, 12th of Dikaios through Lunday 19th of Dikaios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Cold, partly cloudy
Player Characters:
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Significant NPCs:
Onyx, cat
Unidentified dead human thief
Lyssandra, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club
Pelteon, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club
Many Disciplined
Several trained large albino baboons
Tikun Thane, wizard, slaver, and baboon kidnapper
Eustathios Skleros, Drome investigator
Barnaby Goodbarrel, lawyer
Sakeon, horse dealer
Ravi, groom and teamster
Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons
Aelfred, enslaved Thorcin man
Ragnar, enslaved Wiskin man
Basil, enslaved Archontean man
The Plan:
- Rescue Bobo and Bifki from Tikun Thane
What Happened:
While the rest of the Right for Riches company was invading the Tower of the Ape, Uvash was in the House of the Gods in Gosterwick, discussing Zodarrim with his small group of mostly dwarven faithful. He was surprisingly interrupted by Onyx the cat, who ran into the House at full speed, meowing at Uvash like someone was standing on his tail. He grabbed the hem of Uvash's mail vestments and started tugging, until Uvash excused himself and followed the cat to the south. Onyx led Uvash to the Arcane Practitioner's Club, where many people were standing outside, watching a fire on the top floor. They saw Lyssandra through the top floor windows, using spells to put out the fire.
With the fire out, Lyssandra came out and saw Uvash. She said the fire had started in one of their apartments and asked if he knew what was going on. He did not. She asked if he knew where the others were, and he said they had gone to Arden Vul without him because he had church. She asked about the crispy dead guy in their apartment, and Uvash had no idea what she was talking about, and went up with her to look. There was a horribly burned body in their apartment, with a backpack full of their stuff, and their other things scattered all over the room, some of them intact, some destroyed. The statue head they had recovered from the Great Cavern under Arden Vul sat alone in the closet, grinning malevolently. A knife Uvash did not recognize sat next to the statue.
Lyssandra asked Uvash to stick around to answer questions from The Drome's investigators. She left, and Uvash started tidying up the room. He put the slightly burned Rug of Instant Access back in the center of the room, and started separating the broken and intact items.
Meanwhile Vael and Vallium stepped back through the teleportation portal from the Tower of the Ape back to the ruins of Arden Vul to join Ioannes, who was just waking up after being horribly wounded by a Disciplined's scimitar and then being force-fed a Great Healing potion. All three were exhausted: Vael from spellcasting, Vallium from fighting under the influence of Great Haste, and Ioannes from being stabbed. All three rested for a few minutes, then Ioannes started using Recover Energy to help the others recover, while Vallium watched the portal in case anyone followed them through it. Nobody did, so Vael eventually tried the Rug of Instant Access again, and ended up back in the apartment in Gosterwick, where Uvash was still cleaning up.
After an explanation of the mess and the dead guy from Uvash, Vael went downstairs to talk to Lyssandra and Pelteon and try to get them to recharge his power item. They asked him to stay around to talk to the Drome, but he said his friends were in mortal danger and he'd be back later. He and Uvash then went back through the Rug to Arden Vul to join Vallium and Ioannes. All four then used the portal to the Tower of the Ape.
The level of the tower with the teleporter was empty. They went down a couple of levels and found three Disciplined waiting in formation, with a couple of baboons with spears behind them. Tikun Thane was not in sight.
Another combat against the Disciplined began. Vael cast Blur on both Vallium and Uvash. Uvash used Divine Grace, then stepped into combat beside Vallium. Vallium and Uvash injured all three Disciplined, but one of them landed a fatal blow on Uvash in reply. Vael and Ioannes dragged Uvash's body up the stairs, while Vallium kept fighting the Disciplined and baboons. He critically injured one and disarmed another, but hurt his weapon arm to the point where he could no longer fight effectively. He tried a couple of shield bashes, and Vael dropped a Smoke spell to distract the baboons. Vallium eventually decided he could not defeat the Disciplined without his sword, and they all retreated back up the stairs and back through the portal. The surviving Disciplined and baboons did not pursue.
Ioannes took Uvash's body back through the Rug to Gosterwick, then dragged him to the Church of Mitra, as he knew Jador the Just was capable of Resurrection. Jador needed a very large donation, plus the help of all the clerics of both Mitra and Demma in town (including Ioannes) to perform the ritual. After a few hours of holy ritual, Uvash rose from the dead, exhausted. Ioannes got one of the lesser clerics of Demma to cast a Major Healing on Uvash, and then they went back to their apartment and through the Rug back to Arden Vul.
Vael and Vallium were watching the portal there. Vael went back through the Rug to get his recharged power item, and ran into the Drome's investigators. After answering a bunch of questions about the thief and how he ended up burned to death, the investigators let him go. He went back through the Rug. They then tried going back through the portal, but it failed to activate. Vael looked it it closely and said he thought the portal on this side looked the same, but theorized that the one on the other side had been disabled.
Not wanting to give up on catching Tikun Thane and rescuing Bobo and Bifki, the party went back to the Beacon, then used the Rug to teleport to Gosterwick. First they went to their lawyer, Barnaby Goodbarrel, and explained what had happened in their apartment. He said he didn't think they'd done anything illegal, and advised telling the truth to the Drome. He went with them to the House of Sight, where they gave a statement to the investigator. Not wanting to walk the three days to Newmarket if they could help it, they then went to Sakeon the Horse Whisperer to hire a carriage. Sakeon said there was no regularly scheduled carriage service, but he did have a carriage and some horses and could spare a man to drive them to Newmarket. They paid Sakeon and took a long, cold, boring carriage ride to Newmarket. When they arrived, Vael conspicuously went shopping, and actually found some Giant Spider Silk. Then they rented a room and ate dinner. Late that night, the other three stepped through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael turned invisible with Larel's Cloak and Levitated over to the Tower of the Ape. He flew around the tower, didn't see anyone through the windows, but detected a low-mana zone around the tower. He flew through it to the balcony, spread out the Rug, stepped through to alert the others, then they all went back to the Tower.
The doors from the balcony to the middle tower level were barred, but Vael used Lockmaster to break in. They searched the top two levels of the tower and didn't find anyone. They went downstairs and didn't find anyone there either. They looked at the teleporter, and Vael confirmed that it had somehow been deactivated but not destroyed. They searched the library and saw that about half the books were gone. They went through some doors they had not previously opened and found some barracks, a storeroom, and a magical cold storage room full of fresh meat. Having found no sign of the wizard or any captured baboons, they started looking for secret doors. Ioannes eventually found one, but it was locked. Vael magically unlocked it, revealing stairs down to a basement.
The basement looked like a wizard's lab, but it had clearly been mostly emptied. There was some lab equipment remaining, along with a few broken pieces of magical items. There was a locked door, as well as some stairs down. The door resisted Vael's Lockmaster spell, so they went down the stairs. There they saw 2 cells, one with 3 men, the other with 2 baboons. The men asked for water, and then the baboons gestured for the same. Vallium gave food and water to both groups through the bars, then went looking for keys, while Vael talked to the men. All three had been captured by Settite slavers, then sold to Tikun Thane at the slave market in the Forum of Set. They had been fed a diet of mostly raw meat and forced to perform exercises and fight each other with sticks while one of the Disciplined had given combat instructions and whipped the losers. Then, about three days ago, their guard had run upstairs to deal with some emergency, and since then nobody had returned to feed them.
Vallium found a key and unlocked both cells. Vael searched both cells and surprisingly found a no-mana zone in one corner of the baboons' cell, but nothing else interesting.
Asking the prisoners to wait, the group went up a floor and Vael used Shape Earth to punch a hole in the wall next to the door he could not open. Beyond was a large storeroom full of shelves. It had been mostly emptied of valuables, but Ioannes grabbed a bunch of mushrooms, and Vael took some empty chests. Before leaving, Vael cast Seeker on Tikun Thane, and got a vision of him in a windowless room, surrounded by piles of wizardly stuff. He followed up with Trace and found that Tikun Thane was in Narsileon, meaning he'd made a three-week trip in three days. They assumed he'd used some kind of teleportation.
Vael talked to the three men, saying they were free and could stay here in Newmarket, or come back in the carriage to Gosterwick, or that they'd be interested in hiring one of them if any of them could read. None claimed to be able to read, but Basil said he'd be willing to learn, so Vael hired him to turn pages for Akla-Chah and Stamelis in the Beacon. Ioannes used his Animal Handling skill to convince the baboons to let Vallium lift them through the Rug back to the Beacon, where Vael used Blink Other to pop them through the roof to the surface ruins of Arden Vul. From there, both ran over the bridge and back toward the cliff face. Seeing that the baboons knew the way back to the Howling Caves, Vael and Vallium went back to the Tower, took Basil through the Rug to introduce him to Akla-Chah and Stamelis, then went back through the Rug one more time to the Tower. They detached the non-functioning teleportation portal from the wall, trying not to destroy it, and Vallium carried the heavy thing back to their carriage. They then took the three-day carriage ride back to Gosterwick, along with the other two prisoners. When they reached Gosterwick, Vallium gave both men some money for supplies, and they thanked their rescuers and left for their respective farms.
GM's Comments:
Uvash was the first PC to die in Arden Vul. Fortunately for him, his body was recovered and there was enough money and goodwill for a Resurrection.
The PCs were unlucky to have their apartment burgled. The thief was unlucky to touch the wrong statue's eyes and experience a 9d Explosive Fireball at point-blank range. The PCs were lucky to have their Rug of Instant Access survive the fireball, though they lost a lot of other stuff. (Never in my life have I rolled so many item survival rolls.)
Basil is the Right for Riches Company's first employee.
XP:
- Exploration: 63 new locations across 3 sessions, 2 XP for most of the party, 1 XP for Uvash
- Loot: They found quite a bit. Not sure what they'll sell or how they'll split it.
- Achievements: The Rescuers, 1 XP for rescuing 3 human and 2 baboon prisoner
Next Week:
They plan to go back to Goblintown to get their map from Temrin and have Vael invisibly explore the secret door they found high on the wall of the Goblin Market. Then they plan to go to Upper Goblintown and ask Thoth for one of his secret names, then investigate the bronze floating head, then explore the glowing room in the northwestern part of the Halls of Thoth, then check out the unexplored parts of the northeastern parts of the Halls of Thoth mentioned on a map they found.
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