SESSION 47C: HOME SUITE HOME

December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They started towards the Temple District with the crates, intending to dispose of the chaositech as quickly as possible. But on the way, Ranthir convinced the others to let him take the crates back to the Ghostly Minstrel so that he could study them: He was fascinated by what he had read of the technomantic arts of chaositech in some of the lorebooks they had recovered from the cultists and wanted to apply those skills with actual examples of the same. Moreover, even if the material proved useless to them (due to its taint), knowing exactly what these items were capable of might give them some clue as to how the cultists had intended to use them.

When they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, they found that their new suite of rooms was almost finished: The window wards hadn’t been raised, the secret door leading from the false front room to their actual quarters wasn’t completed, and the reinforced inner door between their quarters wasn’t installed yet, but the rooms themselves were livable and it was clear the work would be easily finished on the morrow.

Ranthir set up his research area in the outer room of the suite (with Tee sleeping on a nearby bed to help keep a watch on the crates). Agnarr, for similar reasons, took Seeaeti to one of the beds in the next room. The others, however, scattered to their old rooms.

Ranthir used several spells to examine the various items in the crates, trying to intuit their purpose. He succeeded with none of them, although he was able to determine that the filigreed manacles could be activated by stroking the oblong device attached to them and the small silver balls could be twisted around their circumference. He also recognized the cord-and-plug attached to the noduled harness as being similar to the one they had found plugged into Shilukar’s neck, suggesting some sort of physio-mental control.

He also discovered, much to his own disquiet, that the floating brain would follow the person closest to it. (On the other hand, it seemed harmless.)

THE SPINESEEKER

Several hours into Ranthir’s candlelit researches, something sinister slithered under the door. Ranthir, intent on the strange intricacies of technomancy, noticed it not as it slipped across the room and attached itself to Tee.

Its first touch was so gentle that Tee didn’t even feel it. And when its voracious, lamprey-like mouths fastened onto multiple points along her spine it was too late… it had taken control of her body. As it drained her lifeblood, she twitched violently on the bed.

Ranthir, unfortunately, remained oblivious.

Tee, waking to find herself trapped in what felt like an endless life-or-death struggle for the control of her own body, felt the creature take her to the very cusp of death before she finally managed to seize a moment of self-control.

“It’s biting me! On the back of my neck! It’s controlling me and I don’t—“

The creature re-asserted its vice-like grip over her body. Tee’s mouth snapped shut.

Ranthir called out for Agnarr while backing nervously away from Tee, who rose from the bed and headed towards the door. Agnarr snorted himself awake and came into the outer room. “What’s wrong?”

“Tee’s acting strangely.”

By this time Tee had reached the door. As she opened it, Agnarr crossed to her. “Tee? What’s wrong?”

Tee smiled up at him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

But something was definitely wrong… She was being way too nice to Agnarr.

Agnarr shared a moment of befuddlement with Ranthir as Tee turned and walked out the door. Ranthir, at a loss for anything else to do, cast a web into the hall – filling it from side-to-side and stopping her from leaving.

But Tee’s reflexes seemed undimmed by her possession. She lithely avoided the worst of the webs and started making her way determinedly through the rest of them. Halfway through the process, however, she managed to wrench control away from the spineseeking demonic worm on her back a second time: “It’s on my back! It’s taken control of my mind! Help me!”

Agnarr, finally figuring out exactly what was happening (and perhaps truly waking up for the first time), used his flaming greatsword to rapidly burn his way through the web towards her.

As the thing tried to regain its control over Tee, Tee reached up, grabbed ahold of its slippery length, and tore it free. She got her first true look at the gruesome creature: A snake-like body covered with the chitinous hide of a scorpion; hundreds of skittering, insectoid legs; and three lamprey-like mouths.

It slipped through the thick strands of the web easily. Agnarr, coming up alongside Tee, swung at the creature, but his blade scarcely scratched its resilient, segmented carapace and the flame seemed to be sucked away in a snare of energy emanating from its radiating spines.

The spineseeker leapt at Tee’s face and its three dorsal mouths raked huge holes in her chest as it scrabbled across her body. Tee – already badly weakened from its possession – collapsed from the excruciating pain.

As the creature dropped away from Tee’s limp form, it suddenly split into a half dozen duplicates. There was a moment of panic at the thought of so many body-snatchers, but Ranthir recognized the illusion for what it was, shouting out, “Mirror image! They’re not real!”

The shouting and sounds of combat, meanwhile, had awoken Elestra and Tor. (Nasira, on the other hand, was far too comfortable in her bed.) While they began scrambling out of their beds, however, someone else had also been alerted: The door at the end of the hall was thrown open and a large drakken woman stepped through. They recognized her as one of the chaos cultists who had ambushed them at Pythoness House, although now she wore blue-mauve crystalline armor.

“Grab her pouch!” the drakken shouted, drawing her sword and advancing.

Ranthir summoned multiple magical missiles to sweep away the spineseeker’s mirror images, while Agnarr launched an assault to beat it back from Tee’s unconscious form. As Elestra opened her door, the creature made a break for it – having failed to secure Tee’s bag of holding.

(Nasira continued sleeping peacefully in luxurious dreams.)

Tor ripped open his door (which had been held shut by the webs) and started chopping his way through them. He felt particularly vulnerable in his lack of armor, which he hadn’t taken the time to don. And when he engaged the drakken he was particularly frustrated to find that her armor was absorbing the impacts of his blade by crumbling away to dust… and then instantly regrowing to repair the damage.

Tor was still half-entangled in the web, however, so the drakken simply backed away and began peppering him with shots from her bow. Agnarr, similarly caught in Ranthir’s web, was also trying to reach her when Ranthir managed to strike him with the familiar spell of growth. As Agnarr rapidly grew to twice his normal size, he ripped free of the webs. The drakken, suddenly finding herself within Agnarr’s reach, didn’t even have a chance to backpedal (or react in any way) before the barbarian’s sword had torn her in half.

But now a quagmire of sorts erupted in the torn remnants at the heart of Ranthir’s web: The spineseeker was ferocious; its demonic, chitinous hide almost impossible to harm. Even the mighty blows of Tor and Agnarr only seemed to deflect harmlessly away. And to make matters worse, it constantly churned out illusionary duplicates of itself and wrapped all of its forms into confusing displacement effects.

Hoping for additional reinforcements, Elestra sent her homonculus to awaken Nasira. But she was forced to call it back again only moments later when the spineseeker, seizing the opportunity of her weakened defenses, leapt at her in an effort to possess her. Elestra rapidly backpedaled, but still suffered deep wounds up the length of her arms as the creature’s claw-like legs and dorsal mouths ripped away at her flesh.

Nasira, however, had finally been roused. Unfortunately, when she opened the door she couldn’t get through the thick webs. Ranthir was forced to burn them away with a wave of magical fire (which also left scorch marks on the wall of the hall).

While Tor, Agnarr, and Elestra’s homonculus continued pounding away at the spineseeker (Tor having circled to take Elestra’s place in blocking its potential escape through the window), Nasira finally managed to reach the side of Tee (who was rapidly bleeding out). With a burst of holy energy she healed Tee, who went to check on the body of the drakken. She confirmed that it was dead (and unlikely to be sneaking away in the confusion).

In a final, desperate bid for freedom, the spineseeker leapt for the back of Tor’s exposed neck. Although Agnarr’s blade caught it in mid-air (slicing off a section of its tail), the spineseeker latched onto Tor’s neck and took control of the knight’s body. Agnarr suddenly found himself facing the body of his friend. He was unwilling to inflict mortal wounds, but uncertain what other choice he had.

Agnarr was just about to abandon his defensive posture and launch a (regrettably mortal) assault, when Tor managed to free himself from the spineseeker’s control. The spineseeker tried to leap to Agnarr’s body—

And that proved its undoing. The barbarian thrust it away and then beat it repeatedly with his greatsword. Finally caught unprepared and in the open, the spineseeker was segmented into parts as Agnarr forced his blade into the chinks they had opened in its devilishly hard chitin.

MISMATCHED CORPSE LOOTING

Agnarr joked about taking the spineseeker to a taxidermist and then hanging it in their room. (At least, the others hoped he was joking. Particularly since they were going to be sharing rooms now and Nasira was convinced it would give her endless nightmares.)

Tee searched the drakken’s body. Then she searched her room. While all of her equipment was of the highest quality (and some of it of considerable interest, like the crystalline armor) the room had been professionally stripped down and the drakken carried no identification of any kind. (The crystalline armor itself proved to be non-magical, leading Ranthir to conclude that it might be some sort of chaositech. They stuck it in one of the crates from Mahdoth’s.)

Tee suspected – hearing from the others about the drakken’s interest in her bag of holding – that they had been sent by Wuntad to retrieve the golden key from Pythoness House. In the morning, however, they would know more: Elestra would call upon the Spirit of the City and speak with the dead.

Running the Campaign: Inserting Bangs – Campaign Journal: Session 48A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 47B: CHILDREN OF MRATHRACH

December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Mahdoth rotated towards them. “I’m going to release you now.”

And he did.

The artificial high of ebullient friendship fled from them, but not the memory of what they had experienced.

Mahdoth asked for their assistance in mounting a defense against whatever was coming. “Since I seem to find myself rather short-handed this evening.”

They readily agreed. Elestra was still extremely paranoid (trying to figure out some way that Urak could think he had been suborned while Mahdoth was actually still calling the shots), but the others were quick to point out that he had released Agnarr, Tee, Tor, and Ranthir… even though he didn’t need to do that.

It turned out that the unused door Tee had spotted at the far end of the western cells actually led to the caverns. Mahdoth explained that an expansion of the asylum had broken into a section of the natural caverns beneath Ptolus. The caverns had never been properly explored, but when they became a perpetual source of random dangers, Mahdoth simply had them sealed off.

Mahdoth proposed that he would wait for the cultists upstairs while they kept a watch on the door down here. They thought that was a grand idea (particularly Elestra), and their only concern was the lack of any means of proper communication. To solve this problem, Ranthir went upstairs with Mahdoth to cast an alarm spell that Mahdoth could enter if he needed their help. Conversely, if they needed Mahdoth’s help it would be trivial for Elestra to send her homunculus up through the floor to fetch him.

Before they parted, Mahdoth grabbed the amulet that Urak had worn and gave it to Ranthir. It would allow him to punch through the suppression field with his spells.

UPSTAIRS WITH MAHDOTH

The minutes ticked past with tense expectation. They were drawing near the midnight hour—

Mahdoth floated through the door, carrying with him a statue depicting one of the goat-headed demons they had met in Pythoness House. They quickly realized that this was the only remnant of the battle that had been fought upstairs.

Mahdoth quickly related what had happened: When the knock came at the upper door, the beholder had opened it to discover the demon, two ratbrutes, and a dozen or so ratlings amassed outside. Leveling one of his eyestalks, he had instantly turned the demon into a statue. In the same moment, he had put one of the ratbrutes to sleep and disintegrated the other.

At the sight, the other ratlings had panicked and fled. He killed the ratbrute, plucked from its body a letter, and then dusted it. Then he grabbed the demon-statue and brought it downstairs.

Tor, upon hearing the story, bowed his head. “I apologize. We had absolutely no business trying to come in here and kill you.

“Yes,” Mahdoth said. “Quite.”

ILLADRAS’ PROMISSORY NOTE

Salcabot—

Your information regarding Silion’s last communion with the Black Voice is, indeed, most valuable. And your mercenary spirit in exploiting it is most commendable in the eyes of Wuntad.

To ensure that no disruption of this most important trade is to be suffered due to the recent and shameful disgraces of the Blooded Knife, Nalfarassik shall accompany you. He shall command the respect of the Children of Mrathrach.

But fear not. I witness the will of Wuntad, and this note shall serve as promissory to such effect, that if your information proves true and the trade continues unabated due to your efforts, we of the Tolling Bell shall support your claims to leadership among the Brothers of the Blooded Knife.

                                                                                Illadras

As Tee finished reading the letter aloud, they took some private joy in learning that the Blooded Knife had been shamed. Then they turned their attention to the second fight that they knew was fast approaching the far side of the locked door before them.

Mahdoth offered them a final briefing: The cells in this block were laced with antimagic. Three of them were currently occupied. None of them should be disturbed.

“What about that passage?” Tee asked, pointing at the narrow way she had noticed before.

“Don’t go down there.”

THE CHILDREN OF MRATHRACH

A chaotic and seemingly senseless knock came at the door.

The spellcasters turned Tee invisible. Ranthir conjured an illusion of the demon answering the door, carefully choreographing it to match Mahdoth’s telekinetic opening of the same.

In the cavern beyond the door they saw a procession of serpent people. Eight of them bore four crates, four more stood guard upon them, and leading them was a larger creature of red eyes and black scales.

The black-scaled serpent hissed something in a sibilant tongue that none of them could understand. Everyone froze for a moment (except for Tee, who slipped quietly through the door).

When the demon failed to respond, it was clear that the serpents were becoming suspicious. Ranthir, realizing that the jig was already up, dropped a fireball into the midst of the serpent’s procession. Tee, who had worked her way into their midst, hit the deck and was narrowly missed by the flames rushing over her head. The serpent people around her, however, were not so lucky. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

The black-scaled serpent turned to flee, but Mahdoth floated into view and blasted it repeatedly with a coruscating array of beams – the last of which caused it to explode in a fine mist of blood as it collapsed at the far end of the cavern.

As Mahdoth’s rays dropped away, Tor dashed through the door and finished off the rest of the serpent people still trying to reel away from the charcoaled remains of their brethren. Tee had scarcely had a chance to regain her feet and the fight was already over.

Amid the bodies they found a scroll of black parchment. Strange, twisted characters were written upon it in silver ink. Elestra reached out through the ancient knowledge held quiescent within the Spirit of the City and translated the script. And then she cried out in dismay.

BLACK PARCHMENT

Know that the barren serpent savages of the Teeth are not unknown unto the Children of Mrathrach.

Know that we will not deign to meet their kin.

Know that they are no kin to us.

Know that we disdain their foulness.

Know that we scorn the questioning of this “Wulvera” as to such a purpose.

Know that we act only by action of the Voice of All Chaos.

Know that the blood of the slave races must be paid.

Know that we do not forget our labor.

Know that we do not forget the great labor to be done.

The four crates, for better or for worse, remained largely undamaged by Ranthir’s fireball. At Tee’s direction, Agnarr began wrenching them open:

The first contained some sort of strange, semi-organic foam – as if some terrible living entity had grown to fill the box like a swollen tumor.

The second had a suit of plate armor that was heavily insulated with a silvery fabric. The exterior of the armor was filigreed with copper and a number of iron antennae – some large and some small – jutted out from it at odd, almost disturbing angles; jagging this way and that in a chaotic fashion.

The third contained several items – two pairs of manacles made of intricately etched brass attached to a similarly-etched oblong device by a long, rubbery cord; a cocoon-like container of silvery-black metal containing six small, oblong spheres of similar metal; and a large iron collar with five oblong nodules extruding from it in equidistant points along its circumference.

The fourth held sixteen canopic-like jars containing some sort of thick fluid; twelve fluted vials containing a thick, pinkish liquid; and four three-pronged syringes containing a bluish-silver liquid.

The contents were almost certainly chaositech and uniformly disturbing, and it was only at Tee’s great insistence that Agnarr peeled back the semi-organic foam in the first crate to reveal its true contents: A two-foot-long brain trailing a pair of long, spindly, tentacle-like arms ending in complex, grasping clamps. Once freed from the foam, the brain slowly floated up into the air before it was vigorously shoved back into its crate by the barbarian.

Tee turned from watching Agnarr trying to wrestle the brain back into its crate. To Mahdoth she said, “We know where we can dispose of these items safely.”

“Fine,” Mahdoth said. “Take them. I intend to seal this door and use better discretion in finding new help.”

He escorted them back up the stairs. “Two final points,” he said. “First, lock the door behind you. Second… if you are to cross paths with the Pactlords, be wary. They are larger and more dangerous than they appear. And now, good night. Apparently I must arise early to single-handedly attend to all the affairs of this asylum.”

“Well, if you’re in the market for new assistants…” Tee offered.

“The pay is 5 gold a week.”

“Or perhaps not.”

Running the Campaign: Fighting With Monsters – Campaign Journal: Session 47C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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

SESSION 46B: INTO THE ASYLUM

December 22nd, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Elestra reached out to the memories of Zairic’s corpse through the Spirit of the City. In a horrible, gurgling voice Zairic’s head spoke from his own back.

“Where is Mahdoth?”

“In his chamber by the western cells.”

“Where are all the exits from the asylum?”

“Through the doors onto Childeyes Street. Down through the caverns. And through the walls.”

“Who is bringing the shipment?”

“The Children of Mrathrach.”

They looked at each other. “Math rack?” Elestra asked.

The question of who the Children of Mrathrach were ate away at them, but they needed to keep moving. Speaking with the corpse had taken ten minutes, and although that had afforded them the time to search the room and strip Zairic’s body (and, afterwards, stuff it into a bag of holding), they were now in enemy territory and the clock was ticking.

They proceeded cautiously through the rooms of the upper level to the staircase and then headed down. Convinced that dangers could lurk behind any door, Ranthir filled the air with arcane enhancements… only to find nothing but a storage closet behind the first door they tried.

When Ranthir tried casting another spell at the bottom of the stairs, he discovered that some active force was dampening his connection to the forces of magick. The spell was completely disrupted and lost. Experimenting, they discovered that effects that were conjured upstairs and then brought down into the field were fine, but any actual spellcasting on the lower levels seemed virtually impossible.

Faced with the decision of retracing the path they had taken with Danneth on their previous visit (which led east) and heading into unexplored territory through a southern door, their decision was informed by Zairic’s words: Mahdoth’s chambers lay near the western cells. They weren’t sure where those might be exactly, but they certainly weren’t to be found by going to the east.

So they headed south down a short hallway and into a comfortable, well-organized office with a pair of desks facing each other in the middle of the room and various filing shelves and the like arranged around the walls.

Tee quickly grabbed a stack of paper off one of the desks and quickly scanned it before handing it off to Elestra for further study.

SITUATIONAL REPORT ON DEREGALIS FINORIN

A series of correspondence, all attached under the title of A Situational Report on Deregalis Finorin.

Mahdoth—

The exacerbated excitations of Rinner Silverfind’s condition appear to be worsening rapidly. This in marked contrast to Tabaen and the other victims of the Oldtown event. I would urge you to prioritize his examination before the situation exceeds the limits of our control.

Danneth

Zairic—

Danneth brought this situation to my attention before his recent unpleasantness. Please conduct the appropriate observations to confirm his “urgings”.

Mahdoth

Master—

Although you are quite right not to trust anything to the word of that fool – and I am loath to do the same – in this matter I have found his suspicions to be quite correct, and beyond my personal measure of examination.

Zairic

Zairic—

My findings regarding the Silverfind case are quite alarming. There appears to be a sympathetic resonance between Silverfind’s excitations and the similar excitation of Deregalis.

Relocate Silverfind immediately to the antimagic containment cells. Increase the levels of sedation for Deregalis and immediately institute identical regimes for Silverfind.

Mahdoth

As Elestra read the situation report, Tee continued rifling the desks. Jimmying the lock on one of the drawers, she found detailed financial records. She thumbed through them long enough to notice that they went back about seven years. The first five years were all recorded in a single hand, but that changed about two years earlier. Then the handwriting changed again roughly a week ago (most likely because Zairic had replaced Danneth).

In the other desk, Tee found a hidden compartment. And inside that compartment she found Zairic’s spellbook. She took it over to Ranthir, who had been pouting over losing the spell he’d attempted to cast on Tor. “Does that make everything better?” she asked.

“It does!” he said, immediately looking immensely chipper.

The files lining the walls proved to be patient records. Following the paper trail from the situational report they had found on the desk, they pulled the patient records for Tabaen, Rinner, and Deregalis…

PATIENT RECORD FOR TABAEN FARSONG

This slim file contains the patient record for an elf named Tabaen Farsong. Tabaen was admitted on 9/15/790 and his record has been flagged as being “part of the Oldtown Incident”.

His condition is listed as “excitation of latent sorcery with a divinatory flavoring”. He is described as “non-dangerous”, but his condition is resulting in “psychological harm”.

On 09/19/790 there is an additional note: “Entered a comatose state.”

There has been no improvement in his condition since that date.

PATIENT RECORD FOR RINNER SILVERFIND

This slim file contains the patient record for a dwarf named Rinner Silverfind. Rinner was admitted on 09/15/790 and his record has been flagged as being “part of the Oldtown Incident”.

His condition is listed as “dangerous, uncontrollable excitation of latent sorcery with full-blown manifestation of arcane summonry”.

“The patient reportedly summoned a non-sortable variety of creatures at increasing rates of acclimation, but upon placement in the suppressive fields of the asylum the manifestations were brought under control. Unfortunately, the psychological trauma of the event has left the patient near-raving at all times – reporting voices, conspirators, and demons to be ‘locked in his cell’ with him.”

PATIENT RECORD FOR DEREGALIS FINORIN

This thick file contains the patient record for a human wizard named Deregalis Finorin. The file dates back almost twenty years, with an admission date of 04/28/771.

According to the records, Finorin suffers from an acute madness leading to the “perpetual casting and manifestation of powerful spells of arcane summoning”. The creatures resulting were both powerful and dangerous. Apparently the public believed him to have been executed years ago, but he was instead confined to Mahdoth’s.

Unfortunately, the “suppressive fields” of Mahdoth gradually “lost their effectiveness against this tumorous eruption of primal sorcery”, in ways that the asylum’s experts could not explain. Even moving Deregalis into an antimagic field had little effect: He continued to summon monsters.

Deregalis is now kept heavily sedated in a near-comatose state in a Special Isolation Spell to keep his powers from continually manifesting.

… and reading those gave them great cause for concern.

“The suppressive fields of Mahdoth?” Tee quoted.

“Does that mean that the suppressive fields down here emanate from him?”

“It’s possible,” Ranthir said.

Beyond the immediate danger of lowering those suppressive fields by killing Mahdoth, it served as a greater reminder that they were planning to wipe out the supervisory staff of an asylum full of mad arcanists.

“Who’s going to take over keeping them in line?” Tee asked. “Us? I don’t want that responsibility.”

Amidst much consternation they decided to pull back out of the complex. Instead of a scorched earth approach, they would severely limit the scope of their operation and content themselves with capturing the shipment before it could reach Wuntad’s hands.

“And kill Wuntad,” Elestra said.

“I don’t think he’ll be here,” Tee said.

“When you’re in charge of all the chaos cultists in Ptolus,” Tor said, “I think you can afford a few minions to pick up your mail.”

“Yeah,” Elestra said. “But he might be.”

“And then we kill him.” Tee agreed.

They briefly discussed the possibility of cleaning up the salon on the upper level so that Mahdoth would have no idea what happened to Zairic. But Ranthir didn’t have the proper spells prepared to make a quick magical job of it, so they decided it would cost them too much time to try to get the bloodstains out of the floor… and chair… and… well, everywhere.

They retreated through the windows, closed them behind them, and moved to the end of the Childseye Street dead-end loop to discuss their new plan of attack.

Running the Campaign: Speak with Dead SFX – Campaign Journal: Session 47A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 46A: AMONG MADMEN

December 22nd, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

It was mid-afternoon when they left the Necropolis.

“Should we head back to the Ghostly Minstrel or go straight to Mahdoth’s?” Elestra asked.

“Ghostly Minstrel,” Ranthir said. “We need to clean up. Besides, we still have several hours. And the Minstrel is on the way in any case.”

Agnarr grunted. “You need to clean up?”

Ranthir rolled his eyes. “Yes. I seem to be covered in some sort of black ooze. I wonder where it came from? Oh, right! My eyes and my mouth!”

THE BIG PLAN

Once they reached the Ghostly Minstrel they spent a few minutes cleaning up and then gathered back up for a planning session.

Their biggest concern was Mahdoth himself. They knew he was connected with both Wuntad and the Pactlords, which made him an obvious threat. And Ranthir knew enough about beholders from his studies in Isiltur to make them all worried: Eyestalks causing paralysis, searing pain, and even death, combined with a massive antimagic field emanating from its central eye that could unknit their strongest offensive weapons.

They laid out extensive contingency plans for dealing with the various eyestalks – restorative magicks, scrolls to re-enervate their flesh, various potions and enchantments to boost their natural resistances against its powers, and much more of the like. It would be expensive, but it was obviously a necessary expense.

“The ultimate problem, though,” Tor said, “Is that all of these precautions are magical. As soon as he puts the big eye on us, it all becomes useless.”

“We do have some non-magical solutions,” Ranthir said, pulling out the alchemical potions of questionable provenance they’d recovered from Ghul’s Labyrinth. “Who wants to go blind?”

“Do we know if his eyestalks will work in his own antimagic field?” Nasira asked.

“I don’t know,” Ranthir confessed.

“Then we should assume they do.” Tee grimaced.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Elestra said.

From memory they sketched out a small map of the areas they had seen last time they had been at Mahdoth’s. But the truth was they had no idea how extensive the asylum complex was or how deep it might go beneath the streets of Ptolus.

To supplement their limited knowledge they considered using clairvoyance spells again, but they were concerned that defensive measures at the asylum might be triggered by their use.

Elestra tried to figure out how they could use her homunculi’s ability to pass seamlessly through earth and stone to scout out the complex, but since it was incapable of communicating anything of detail back to her that seemed for naught. Nasira, on the other hand, mentioned the possibility of scrying, but the limitations of the techniques available to her made it seem of little use, as well, until Ranthir combined the two plans: By affixing the scrying sensor to Elestra’s homunculi, Nasira would be able to watch the homunculi’s progress.

INFILTRATION BY FIRE

Eventually, feeling as prepared as they could perhaps hope for, they headed for Mahdoth’s around 9 pm.

On the way, however, they had time for further debate: Did they want to wait for the shipment to arrive and then ambush it? Or should they assault the compound immediately so that they wouldn’t have to fight both the asylum personnel and whoever came for the shipment at the same time?

“I think it’s six of one or half a dozen of the other,” Elestra said.

“I’ll take the six to one,” Agnarr said. “I like those odds.”

They all stared at him for a long moment.

“What?”

They settled on the immediate attack, which naturally opened the question of what their specific approach should be. They considered drilling down from street level into the staircase they knew led to the lower level (and which passed beneath the street). They also reopened the practicality of sending Elestra’s homunculi to scout (and, if so, where and when and how he should carry out the scouting).

Keeping the homunculi as an option, Elestra wrapped them in the camouflage of the city’s spirit. Keeping this camouflage-connection through physical proximity, they strung themselves out in a daisy-chain to allow Tee to get close enough to the building to scout the perimeter.

Through the simple expedient of looking through the windows, Tee confirmed that the street-level portion of the asylum (like the tip of the iceberg above its lower levels) was largely abandoned: Only Zairic – the halfling who had ratted them out to Mahdoth when they had come here at Danneth’s invitation – was to be found there, reading a book in a salon-like area towards the rear of the building.

Zairic looked like an easy target. Tee eased open a window at the opposite end of the room, carefully lowered her longbow into place, and… FIRED!

At the last possible moment, Zairic twisted aside so that the arrow lodged in his shoulder instead of his heart. Letting his book drop to the floor, Zairic vaulted over the high arm of his chair and jumped for cover. In mid-leap, he released a fireball through the window. Tee ducked down as the fiery inciting pellet passed over her head and avoided the brunt of it almost completely, but Elestra (standing in the open further down the alley) was caught by the edge of it.

Most of the others – clumped together across the street and still debating how they could (or would or should) use Elestra’s homunculi – missed the flash of the fireball. Fortunately, Ranthir – who was providing the daisy-chained camouflage near the mouth of the alley – recognized it for what it was. “Fireball!” he shouted, hurrying into the alley.

Zairic called out from behind the chair. “Who are you? Do you know who you anger tonight?!”

Tee didn’t bother to answer him. She vaulted herself through the window and skipped across the room, loosing another arrow that thumped into the high back of the chair.

Zairic wrenched her first arrow out of his shoulder, gulped down a healing potion, and made a break for the door. Elestra, cursing the burns from the fireball, threw open another window to the room and fired her dragon rifle at him. The blast missed narrowly, scorching the wall.

Zairic, in mid-stride, ripped a scroll from an inside pocket of his cloak and gestured through the window towards Elestra. The others were just arriving at her side, and they were all caught in a pounding, painful hail of dagger-like ice that plunged down from the sky.

Tee, deciding to fight ice with fire, dipped her hand into her bag of flames and hurled a fire elemental at the Halfling. Distracted by the fiery sprite, Zairic made an easy target for her as she plunged her dagger into his shoulder and re-opened the magically healed wound from her arrow.

Zairic cursed loudly. Wrenching himself free from her blade he cast another spell, sending his body into a rapid, cascading shift between reality and the Ethereal Plane. “You’ll die tonight!”

“You’re the only one dying tonight!” Tee shouted. “We’re happy to speak with the dead!” Her expert eyes were tracking his skittering, shifting, flickering form.

“I’ll speak with your corp—“

The halfling gurgled and collapsed. Tee’s arcing blade had ripped through half his neck. As his body fell forward, his head fell back upon a flap of flesh and landed upright on his back.

“That’s disgusting,” Elestra said, climbing through the window.

Running the Campaign: Ex Post Facto Roleplaying – Campaign Journal: Session 46B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index