Session 14

The night was restful, for once. Upon waking, the group discovered three immediate changes to their environment. First, they all realized that they now appeared to each other in far more clarity.[1] Second, Lorien was missing, his bags and weapons gone without so much as a note. Third, everyone else’s bags had been opened. Nothing appeared to be missing from their own personal supplies, but in the corner of the room Vireya spied a small tube of Antivenom. She snatched it off the ground and placed it in her satchel next to the one she already held. After a final quick scan around the room, the remaining members of the YFPB made their way out of the room.

Outside the room, the group was stopped short by the presence of a small creature - Peebles! Attached to Peebles was a hastily scrawled note, though much of its contents had been rendered unreadable due to small but persistent droplets of acid leaking out of the potion bottle’s top. Harlan attempted to parse the ruined paper’s message while Vireya began cooing over her new best friend. The note, signed by Helen, referred to YFPB as “Keyseekers”, a term they’d heard only twice before and only once remembered. The entry guards at the Kalzaharn gate had required either a writ of sponsorship (which was provided to the group by Lady Gwendolyn through a Mail Raven) or proof of Keyseeker registration. The group still didn’t know what a Keyseeker was, but for some reason Helen believed they were one. After some reading between the (burned) lines, Harlan deduced that Helen had fled the city, leaving Peebles in their possession. She recommended that they leave too, through either the docks with a certain “Captain Varis” or under the city through the sewers. There was a final warning that seemed important, but the acid had burned away too much of the writing to be interpretable.

Vireya took immediate ownership of Peebles, wrapping him in Chastity’s sock to prevent rapid degradation of her other supplies. She then questioned several of the inn’s patrons, including the bartender and the musician. They both gave similar answers, namely that Lorien had been spotted leaving the inn at dawn with neither stealth nor pretense. The group emerged into a bright, sunny day and found that the streets were once again teeming with citizenry; it appeared that the novelty of a besieging army lasted less than a full day when nobody believed that the walls could be breached. In any case, the group waded through the crowd to explore the parts of the city that they had heretofore left untouched. The inn’s musician had guessed that Lorien had made his way towards the city center, so the group slowly directed their wanderings towards the massive, fortified spire that marked the city’s brain and government.

The Wizard King’s Tower (shortened colloquially to just “The Wizard Tower”) was a massive stone tower that loomed far above even the tallest building in the surrounding urban center. The tower was ringed with several pristine white walls and connecting watchtowers, all surrounded by thick, magically-reinforced battlements and a moat drawn from the neighboring river’s runoff. YFPB wasn’t capable of breaching even the first layer of protection, so it was unlikely that Lorien had gone any further. In a helpful coincidence, Irene spotted the fluttering golden coattails of a slender figure entering a nearby building. The building appeared like any other near the city center, a squat stone presence carved with intricate symbols. This building in particular did seem special, though, for two reasons. The first was that the entranceway was blocked by a polished, gold-fringed obsidian door that seemed to be stained with the image of a ghostly figure. The second was a familiar symbol above the door that seemed to be an exact carving of the symbol Lorien had seen inside Astrid’s journal.

Vireya strode up to the door with confidence, knocking loudly on the glossy surface. The ghostly stain reacted, animating before returning to its original semblance. After some sounds, both sets of doors were opened at once. Vireya had to nearly crane her crane to look at the massive, hulking figure that stood before her. The man (if one could call someone 12 feet tall and as wide as the entire hallway behind him a mere “man”) was dressed in a smart suit and rippled with muscle. His rolled-up sleeves exposed various glowing tattoos that drew the eye, but it was his eyes that caused Vireya to hesitate. He looked down at her with irritation, and by name called her out for her debts and her plundering before she joined YFPB. The Debt Collector slammed the door in her face despite her attempts to show off Peebles, and she returned chagrined to her team. Irene formulated a scheme using Chastity’s clothing, so Vireya meandered down the street in an attempt to pretend that wasn’t associated with the new solicitors. Harlan was doubtful that the plan would be successful, but knocked three times on the door in hopes of eliciting a response. The door opened again, but the Debt Collector did not even allow the pair to speak before telling them to clear their debts before returning again.

The trio didn’t want to leave Lorien behind, but saw no other option given the impending battle. Vireya used the drawing supplies she had acquired for drawing Wizlings to write Lorien a note explaining their intentions and where to meet them once he emerged from his task. She left a copy outside the strange door and a copy in their inn room. They then headed south to the city docks, hoping to acquire charter south down the river and out into the Serulean Sea. Unfortunately, the docks were flooded with like-minded people, mostly those with enough money and sense to escape but not enough of either to have done it sooner. There was only a single boat floating in the docks, manned by a rambunctious captain trying to soothe the rapidly panicking crowd. Harlan and Irene pushed through the mass of people offering money and IOUs to the captain, and made their own inquiry. The captain charged 1000g, but warned that the reason why his boat hadn’t already debarked was due to a strange toxin in the water. He pointed to a nearby sewer pipe that intermittently belched iridescent oils into the dock water, and appeared to melt nearly any material it encountered. Several smaller sloops could be seen at the bottom of the marina, sunk.

The ship captain (who indeed was the referenced Captain Varis) promised that if the group could clear the toxic sludge from the sewer, he would allow them to sail on his ship for 100g instead of 1000g, but Irene, still in priestly garb, convinced him to waive the fee entirely. Their mission declared, the trio descended into the sewers via a nearby duct. It was clear from the flowing water that the source of the toxin was somewhere deeper in the sewer caverns, but the heady fumes from the sludge caused no small amount of nausea for the group, and made Vireya in particular quite woozy. As they proceeded deeper into the cavern, the lack of natural lighting became quite apparent and (though it may not have been wise given the potent fumes), Vireya lit her lamp. When they reached a fork in the tunnel, they decided to pursue the sound of what sounded like an argument down the right path. Indeed, they discovered that two factions were bickering fiercely over their place in the sewers and their part in the pollution. The first group was a collection of bandits and thugs, asserting their native right to the caves, and the other was that of large armed and armored mole rats who were professing their intent merely to settle and protect their own territory.

After a short attempt to play both sides, the group decided to side with the mole rats and would kill the bandits after the pollution was dealt with. They did not change their minds even after the bandit leader revealed that the ex-leader of the mole rats, a Ratling Mage, was responsible for the toxins. In any case, professing a desire to collaborate with both factions for the time being, the group was escorted southwards by Kenta, a teenage boy cursed with a strange carapace that grew over his body. Using his cursed arm, Kenta lifted the massive boulder separating the “living” quarters of the bandits from the infested tunnels. Inside, the group discovered a bandit being attacked and eaten by a Pole Clinger. After robbing the bandit of his two gold coins, the group left the man to his fate and ignored his screams as he was eaten by the creature. Harlan was aghast, but Kenta’s apathy coupled with the girls’ greed pushed other issues to the forefront of his mind.

One such issue surfaced immediately: a slimy ooze monster emerged from the darkness and attempted to absorb the group and their materials. As the two girls began peppering the creature with magical blasts and clouds of daggers, the ooze monster began rapidly growing in size, quickly filling the tunnels and splitting the group into two pairs. Harlan was unfortunately useless in the fight, capable of only melee attacks with a weapon he would preferably remain un-melted. Kenta, too, deigned not to help during the fight until the ooze became so big as to threaten the entire underground cavern. While Kenta used his protective carapace to breach the slime and retrieve one of its eyeballs, Irene on its other side had lured the slime into the toxic water. These efforts shrunk the ooze to a far more manageable size, and Vireya ended the creature with a final magical blast. Throughout the fight, Vireya and Kenta grappled with two other Pole Clingers which they finished off afterwards, disgusted but unthreatened.

Further into the cave, they heard the tortured screams of another bandit. This time the culprit was a tall, lean Ratling draped in voodoo symbols and a dark cloak. The mage was levitating a bandit thug over the river, and as the group watched melted the man into the rainbow goop that was ruining the waters. Nearby, they saw the acid melt the small rowboats that they ostensibly could have used to escape from the sewers without Captain Varis. The mage seemed to consume the Essence leftover from its melting process and grow stronger; evidently, the bandits weren’t lying about the source of the toxic sludge. Kenta took his place nonchalantly against a nearby rock wall, and gestured for YFPB to do their work.

And do their work they did. Harlan began the fight with a brutal shoulder bash against the frail mage, slamming it against the wall and breaking ribs. Irene and Vireya coordinated hexes and heavy destructive magic to break down the mage, and even Peebles began cheering. The mage feebly pushed Harlan away and shrieked into his face, brutalizing his ears. The aural attack disoriented him to the point that he missed with his mace, which opened himself up to a further thunderous counterattack by the mage that blasted him into Irene’s arms. The girls continued to break down the mage’s defenses, and Harlan, incensed by the mage’s retaliations, charged in a second time. He struck upwards with his mace and, glowing with divine might, shattered the mask and skull of the mage, and it felt dead and crumpled to the ground. The battle had taken less than 30 seconds in total.

Looting the body yielded two spell scrolls, one that enhanced a melee weapon and one that imbued an ally with the ability to spew fire. Vireya, struck with visions of a flaming Peebles, claimed the latter scroll for herself. They found the body of a different bandit in a nearby den, and looted the camp’s shortswords and a potion of water breathing. Farther along the waterline, they noticed that the water was clearing now that it was free of the mage’s influence. Hidden amongst the rocks were a multitude of crates, all filled with foreign wines. None of the group were expert sommeliers or capable of evaluating the value of the wine, but Irene grabbed a full crate nonetheless. She pawned it off on Harlan, and the poor man spent the rest of the day carrying a full crate in his arms.

While this occurred, Vireya had spotted her sworn foe: a Wizling was gazing back at her from mere feet away. When she darted forward and summoned her Scythe, the Wizling didn’t react. The creature didn’t even squirm as Harlan dropped his crate at Vireya’s command and grabbed it in both arms. The Wizling was calm, and as the most articulate one the group had met thus far asked quite clearly for death by the tiefling’s scythe. Vireya quickly decided to cut his foot off rather than kill him, in hopes of draining the blood onto her mirror. However, as she sliced the Wizling, it burst into raw Essence with the sound of a popping balloon. The Wizling’s “death” produced no blood, but Vireya’s scythe greedily absorbed the raw Essence, pulsing with life and strengthening Vireya’s body. She then spoke the code word to her mirror (which she named Valerie) and tapped her scythe to it. The mirror showed her several flashing images of Wizlings she knew and Wizlings she had yet to meet. Realizing that she had been giving a hitlist of victims that made her stronger when she killed them, Vireya embraced the bloodlust and began detailing plans to her friends.

Having witnessed this mental transformation, Irene and Harlan exchanged uneasy glances before sitting Vireya down and finally asking her about who she really was and what her scythe really did. After some deflecting, Vireya admitted that she found her scythe in the woods with no understanding of its origins. When the scythe began speaking to her and warning her about the Wizling, she decided not to question it. Upon finding out that Chastity’s insinuation about Vireya’s scythe had been correct, Harlan and Irene became even more uneasy about her potential. Vireya assured the pair that she intended violence only towards the Wizlings and only sought a fun and interesting life. Their wariness not fully assuaged, the other two YFPB members nonetheless decided to trust the wayward tiefling given her acceptance of their own secrecy. The trio discussed changing their name to The Wary to represent their hesitant trust in each other, but they likely had already become well known for their acronym.

Our heroes rushed past Kenta and the bandit-molerat conflict to seek safe passage out of the city. They would have spent more time mediating and participating in the fight, but as the sun began to set they decided that escaping the city took priority. They could always return and engage with them later. The group safely reached Captain Varis’ boat, and he debarked as soon as they were on board. Their decision was correct; mere moments after the boat began drifting down the river, clashes and sounds of fierce battle emanated from the western gate. In short time the ground rumbled and, with the sky darkening and everyone’s ears popping, a massive pillar of light burst from the walls and pierced the sky. It appeared that Roland had indeed figured out how to bring forth Durandal’s potential.

As Irene started sorting her new wine, Harlan watched the far waterline for foes. Even wary as he was, he almost missed the small figure rising into the sky from the Torvani encampment. His first thought was about the incongruence of a mage working with the Asendancy. His second wasn’t a thought at all, but a desperate lunge towards Vireya and Irene to shield them from the massive arc of pure Essence that exploded the city wall next to them. But he was too late. The explosion obliterated the wall, and with the resulting concussive blast all the remaining members of YFPB were lost to blackness.