SESSION 48B: THE FALL OF TEPAL
January 9th, 2010
The 26th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
With the negotiations finished at long last – and satisfied that they had made a good deal (while doing their best to protect the Hunters from the horrors of the Labyrinth and vice versa) – they headed downstairs and grabbed some newssheets.
The news was actually in the middle of a sharp shift: The biggest story of the morning hours had been a mysterious fire in the Guildsmans’ District – an apartment building on Storm Street had burned to the ground in flames that witnesses reported to be a bright, phosphorescent blue (leading authorities to suspect magical arsonry).
But that news was being rapidly forgotten by the larger story sweeping across the city: An army had marched out of the Southern Desert, taken the city-state of Tepal by surprise, and sacked it.
Nasira was taken aback by the news. Learning that the news had arrived in Ptolus on three refugee ships she headed towards the docks. Speaking with passengers from the ships, however, she could discover little in the way of detail: The ships had sailed free just as the city was falling, and they could tell her nothing about the fate of her temple or the city itself once it had been taken. Worse yet, the descriptions of the army made it clear that it was the Atapi who were responsible.
In confusion, Nasira retired to her room at the Ghostly Minstrel to meditate and pray, finding nothing in her thoughts to reconcile the sudden war-like change in the Atapi.
THE TALE OF GISSZAGGAT
Tee and Agnarr, meanwhile, were taking the crates from Mahdoth’s to the disposal site in the Temple District. Then they dumped the drakken’s body and fenced the loot they had collected from Mahdoth’s and the would-be assassins.
Ranthir, of course, spent the day studying (as was his wont).
Tor took Blue down to the Wings Falls. Riding down the long, mossy slant of Blue Street he quickly learned where it had gotten the name: The thick, watery mist cast up by the raging falls filled the air and turned it blue – in fact, blue rainbows were cast prismatically through the air.
Wings Falls itself proved to be a six-tiered step falls where the King’s Gorge narrowed into the ravine which carried the river between Midtown and the Temple District. The water sped up through the narrow pass and almost leapt over the steps of the falls. The falls took their name particularly from the uppermost step, where the water divided itself around an obelisk of harder, uneroded stone – leaping up and around it the water arched to form two “wings” that seemed to beat and dance through the air as if they would lift the entire river in flight.
While Tor frolicked in the mists, Elestra was trying to find some hint of the Haven of Gisszaggat. Following the Voice of the City she was guided to a small, worn-down shrine tucked into a nook of the Temple District.
Within the shrine she found an elderly, robed priest sitting in cross-legged prayer before a meditation flame. When she asked him of Gisszaggat, his eyes widened. “The tale of the demon Gisszaggat has been long forgotten save in a single tome.”
He told her the story: More than 700 years ago, in the days before the city had descended down from the cliffs of Oldtown, the demon Gisszaggat had risen from the caverns beneath the city. It had plagued the city and single-handedly laid siege to it. “It was written that Gisszaggat had never truly been defeated, but in pain and suffering he retreated back into the caverns beneath the Plain of Ptolus.”
“The Plain of Ptolus?”
“The vast expanse of grassland between the cliffs of the old city and the Docks by the sea.”
In other words, the area now inhabited by the Midtown and the markets and the Temple District.
Elestra thanked him, tipped him a gold, and then returned to her room. There, putting Gisszaggat far from her mind, she set herself to the task of studying an anti-poison spell from the Masks of Death that she hoped would prove effective against the corpse flowers or other deadly vegetation to be found in Alchestrin’s Tomb.
ENTERING THE TOMB OF ALCHESTRIN
They met outside the gates of the Necropolis about an hour before sunset. They were met with some suspicion by the Keepers of the Veil, but eventually allowed entry. (Although they were sternly cautioned that no one would be allowed to leave the Necropolis after sunset.)
They reached Darklock Hill and Alchestrin’s Tomb without difficulty, but as the sun set spectral howls echoed from the northern end of the Necropolis. These grew closer and more frequent as they worked, and shortly after the second moon rose they saw a torchlit procession some distance away to the west.
The plug itself turned relatively easily, but leveraging it out proved quite time-consuming. It took them the better part of half an hour to finally breach the Tomb. A twisting stair of stone curled its way down through the iron shaft into which the plug had been set.
They followed Tee down into the stygian gloom, which seemed to encroach unnaturally upon their lights.
Running the Campaign: Laying Groundwork – Campaign Journal: Session 48C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
