SESSION 47A: THE MASTER OF TWO SERVANTS
December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
There were still a couple of hours before the shipment was due to arrive. Having found a place to conceal themselves while watching Mahdoth’s front door, they continued their discussion. It wasn’t long before they had once again talked themselves out of waiting: They would obviously have an easier time of it if they tackled Mahdoth and the cultists separately (rather than all at once as the transfer was made), and in re-reading the letters they weren’t even sure that their doubts about Mahdoth being the ultimate source of the suppressive fields in the asylum were well-founded.
“Although,” Tee said, reminding them again, “Whether the suppression fields drop or not, we’re still leaving an asylum full of inmates with no one to watch them.”
“Well… we can always just tell the city watch what happened,” Elestra said.
“Except they might not be happy with us killing everybody inside,” Nasira pointed out.
“Mahdoth is wearing a bone ring,” Elestra countered. “That means he’s a cultist. And we’ve been deputized to take care of the cultist problem.”
Whatever the ultimate solution to the “madhouse full of unwatched inmates” problem proved to be, they headed back into Mahdoth’s with murder on their mind.
THE WESTERN CELLS
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed and it was clear no alarm had been raised. They headed back to the office they had left perhaps a quarter of an hour before and then headed through the next door.
This brought them to a T-intersection. To the west a flight of stairs dropped away. To the east, the hall ended abruptly in a door of solid-looking iron.
Tee, who was habitually taking the lead, briefly debated with herself about which way she should go. She had just decided to check out the door when she heard a soft, light-hearted humming coming from somewhere down the stairs. Turning aside from the door, she headed down the stairs.
The stairs were stark and steep. After a couple dozen feet they bottomed out into a cell block lined with close-set doors, each barred with a heavy slat of iron. A swarthy-looking man was lounging against the wall near the far end of the cell block, humming the guileless tune that had attracted Tee’s attention while spinning a ring of keys on his finger.
The ring of keys made the decision easy for Tee. She planted three arrows in the man before he had a chance to stop humming. He dropped with a soft, almost noiseless gurgle.
Tee quickly scouted the room. There were no other threats. She noted that the door at the opposite end of the cell block was considerably less used than the similar doors lining each wall. There was also a small passage winding away from the cell block.
Tee, suspecting that this was the “western cell block” Zairic’s corpse had told them about, was tempted to explore the passageway. She suspected it might lead to Mahdoth’s quarters.
But instead she went back upstairs and got the others. While talking their options over, they decided to go the opposite direction instead and make sure the locked door at the top of the stairs wasn’t perilous.
“If those are the western cells down there—“
“And they are the western-most cells we’ve seen.”
“—then whatever’s behind that door is pretty close to the western cells, too. It might be Mahdoth.”
MAHDOTH
Tor was something of an incorrigible noise-maker in his clanking armor, and the suppression fields prevented them from creating a zone of magical silence to cover for him. Therefore, in an effort to maintain the element of their surprise, they positioned themselves in such a way that Tee could open the door; Agnarr could see her opening the door; and the others could see Agnarr (but not Tee). This kept Tor’s clanking as far as possible from the scene of stealth.
Tee unlocked the door and swung it open. Beyond was a large, roughly-spherical room of angular depressions and vaulting roofs. Strange, yet comfortable-looking cushions and pieces of furniture were scattered across the chamber at multiple levels.
And rising from one of these was the bulbous body of Mahdoth.
“Zairic! What is all of that racket out—“
Tee shot an arrow at him, but it went wide. Mahdoth’s eyestalks swung around and beams of energy lanced out – Tee was knocked unconscious and then levitated into the air. She was slowly being tugged through the door and wholly into Mahdoth’s chamber.
Agnarr, seeing her go, roared in rage and rushed forward. As he came through the door he was struck by another beam of energy… and suddenly thought of Mahdoth as his best friend in the entire world.
“Why don’t we all calm down, my friend?” Mahdoth said with a smile. Agnarr felt his rage oozing away.
The others were caught slightly off-guard by Agnarr’s precipitous (and unexplained) charge. Tor was the first to rush forward. Entering the room he saw Agnarr smiling up at Mahdoth while Tee’s limp body was slowly lowered into a divan with an oddly-shaped divot in the middle of it.
Tor circled quickly but warily around Mahdoth, looking to distance himself from Agnarr (who he was afraid might turn on him under Mahdoth’s influence) while still putting himself in a position to strike.
But Mahdoth, mindful of losing his influence over Agnarr, floated between the two of them… thus blocking Agnarr’s view of him blasting Tor with a beam of energy.
Which also turned Tor into Mahdoth’s best friend.
Agnarr, meanwhile, was rushing to Tee’s side as she was lowered into the divan. He was anxious to see if she was all right. His jostling woke her up as Agnarr turned a worried eye to Mahdoth, “Is she going to be all right?”
Mahdoth seized the opportunity. “You’re right to be concerned, my friend. Give me some room to pass a healing beam over her.”
And so Mahdoth charmed Tee, too.
The others entered the room… and were befuddled by the sudden love-in.
Mahdoth recycled his “healing beam” explanation and hit Ranthir with the same effect. Ranthir resisted it, but realizing it for what it was he chose to bluff his way through it. Elestra and Nasira, meanwhile, nervously hung back by the door.
Tee, in her charmed state, felt compelled to burble out a confession to Mahdoth: She had killed Zairic! She couldn’t imagine now why she had done anything like that, but she thought he ought to know.
Mahdoth turned suddenly cold. “Why have you done this?”
Tee babbled something about a letter and the shipment that Wuntad was delivering to Mahdoth. “And since Wuntad is a bad man, we just assumed that you must be—“
“Who the devil is Wuntad?”
“You don’t know who he is?” Tee, in her charmed state, was honestly befuddled. But those in their right wits were beginning to figure it out.
“Let me see this letter,” Mahdoth demanded.
Tee dug it out of her bag of holding. Mahdoth grabbed it with his telekinetic eyestalk and perused it with half a dozen eyes at once.
“Where is that traitorous halfling?”
Sheepishly Tee pulled Zairic’s corpse out of her bag of holding. Mahdoth quickly inspected it. “You’ve cast speak with dead on it?”
At this point, Agnarr felt compelled (quite literally) to mention that Mahdoth’s second servant had also been killed.
“Urak? Excellent,” Mahdoth said. “Follow me.”
Nasira and Ranthir were, at this point, tentatively committed to coming along. (Although Ranthir made a point of “playing with his magic dagger” in Mahdoth’s anti-magic zone just to give him an excuse to get a knife close to the beholder.) Elestra was still bitterly paranoid, but in lieu of a non-suicidal option, tagged along for the moment.
On the way out of his room, Mahdoth’s telekinetic eye opened a drawer on a nearby cabinet, took out a ring, and lowered it onto another of his eyestalks.
“What’s that?” Tee asked.
“I want to have a few words with my late servant.”
“A ring of speak with dead?!” Ranthir mouthed to Nasira. He was impressed. And perhaps a little covetous.
As they headed down the stairs, Tee broached a subject within the reach of her friendly compulsion. “Can you tell us about the Pactlords of the Quaan?”
Mahdoth turned cold again. “I haven’t crossed their path in many years. It is a chapter of my life that I do not open.”
A nervous tension filled the air for a moment, but then they arrived at Urak’s corpse. Floating to the corpse’s side, Mahdoth activated his ring and Urak’s body jerked into the air as if suspended by invisible strings.
“Who suborned you?”
Urak’s voice rattled through the chamber. “Zairic. His employers pay me well.” He finished with a hideous, cackling laugh.
“What was your plan for tonight?”
“I was to watch the stairs. Zairic would bring them down to the western cells. The others would arrive from the caverns. Then Zairic would cast a scroll to breach the wall into the sewers.”
“How many are coming?”
“Usually a dozen of the cultists. I don’t know how many of the Children of Mrathrach.”
There was a final, cackling laugh and then the body collapsed in a broken heap on the floor.
The unanswered question that flitted across all their minds was simple: Who were the Children of Mrathrach?
Running the Campaign: False Assumptions – Campaign Journal: Session 47B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
