SESSION 43A: SCOUTING PORPHYRY HOUSE

October 25th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Porphyry House stood on one end of an open plaza in the Guildsman’s District near the Warrens facing a large, dilapidated open-air rotunda which stood along the Old Sea Road near East Street. It was an elegant, two-story structure constructed of dark purple and mauve porphyry. Minarets rose from each of the buildings’ four corners, and a central dome served as the roof. Its façade was decorated with several statues, bas-reliefs, and other carvings of handsome men and beautiful women (many of them striking a variety of lewdly suggestive poses).

The plaza itself was sparsely populated. A small band of jugglers was performing near the rotunda, and a few others were lazing here or there. No one seemed to be approaching the brothel itself (it was, after all, still the middle of the day), but a pair of guards – one male, one female, and both quite attractive – stood before the large pair of golden doors leading into Porphyry House. These guards were dressed in purple ceremonial full plate, which was both form-fitting and revealing of more skin than would normally seem practical. Their faces were masked by helmets with white porcelain masks depicting beautiful and handsome faces. The doors themselves were fully fifteen feet tall and featured detailed carvings depicting a frenzied orgy.

The party was impressed, but not daunted. Elestra transformed into a bird and performed a discreet aerial survey: She found no secondary entrances and no windows. Even the minarets appeared to be decoratively constructed out of solid rock. The only way in or out of the building seemed to be the front doors.

They thought about simply sending Agnarr through the doors looking for all the world as if he were a customer, but rejected the plan when they considered their fair degree of fame. If he was recognized by the cultists, that could horribly wrong.

“It might not work anyway,” Ranthir said. “They may not take walk-ins.”

“How do you know something like that?” Elestra asked, eying him up and down.

“I come from a city.”

“I come from a city,” Tee said. “I don’t know stuff like that.”

“They may not take customers at all,” Tor said. “I think the whole thing is a front.”

Ranthir agreed it was a front, “But to be one it must take customers. It would be suspicious if they turned away custom.”

Tee agreed. “And it probably makes a lot of money.”

Agnarr was glad the infiltration plan had been abandoned. “Tor and I could just sneak up on those guards and stab them from the side. They’ve got poor periphery vision in those helmets. They won’t see us coming.”

“Where did you learn a word like ‘periphery’?” Elestra asked, eying him up and down.

“What about everyone else in the plaza?” Tor asked. “Won’t they see us?”

“Not if we’re subtle.”

“So… everyone will notice?”

“Where did you learn a word like ‘subtle’?” Elestra asked.

They knew that Porphyry House was engaged in illicit as well as salacious trade, and they doubted the cultists were bringing that other business brazenly through the front door. That meant there must be a secondary, surreptitious entrance somewhere. Probably underground. Probably through the sewers.

They found a nearby sewer entrance at East Street and Hogshead and went down to explore. Unfortunately, they were right in the heart of the multi-layered interstice where the older sewer systems of the Warrens met the newer systems and it was all a chaotic, jumbled mess. If their senses of direction had held true, they eventually found their way to the area right beneath Porphyry House… but found nothing except a few impassable pipes which might (or might not) lead into the House.

ON HOLY BUSINESS

By the time they re-emerged from the sewers, evening was settling in and they were reminded that they had an appointment with Rehobath in the not-too-distant future. They decided they needed to leave and try again the next day, and on their way back to the Ghostly Minstrel laid out a plan to magically tunnel their way into the house from below (if they could figure out exactly where they should be digging).

At the Ghostly Minstrel they used the paving stones they had taken from the Temple of the Ebon Hand to quickly clean themselves, but didn’t worry themselves beyond the bare necessities (they were only meeting with Rehobath, after all). On their way through Oldtown, they took a short side-trip to the alley on Yarrow Street and spoke with Shim. They suspected that once the cultists learned that both the Temple of the Rat God and the Temple of Ebon Hand had been raided, their security precautions would skyrocket. They wanted to attack Porphyry House before that could happen, and the most effective way to do that was to find the cultists’ secondary entrance as quickly as possible. If anyone could do that, they felt it would be Shim. They introduced him to Nasira and got down to business.

“So let me get this straight,” Shim said when they had finished their explanation. “You want me to find a secret entrance to a brothel?”

“As quickly as possible, yes,” Tee said.

“And quietly,” Ranthir said. “We don’t want them to know we’re coming.”

“You’re looking for a discreet rush job on a whore house?”

“It sounds unsavory when you put it like that.”

“Could you keep using adjectives?” Shim said. “I like nice, expensive adjectives.”

They hashed out some surprisingly reasonable terms. Shim promised to bring them whatever he found first thing in the morning.

Throughout the conversation, however, Tor’s thoughts had been distracted by their upcoming meeting with Rehobath. They didn’t know what he wanted, but if their connection with Sir Kabel had been discovered then there was every possibility that they were walking into a trap.

So Tor asked Shim: “Do you have any idea why Rehobath might want to meet with us?”

“Fifty gold crowns.”

Tor shrugged and paid it.

“I’d guess it probably has something to do with your friend Dominic.”

Which it did.

They arrived at the Holy Palace to find it now staffed with servants in the livery of the novarch. The entire building was filled with a greater sense of pomp and circumstance than when Tor had first visited it only a few days before. They were led down a long hall upon a carpet of red and gold, passing between the great curves of two balustraded stairways, and through a door into the minimalist grandeur of Rehobath’s throne room.

When they arrived, Rehobath was surrounded by a number of functionaries. But he sent these away and spoke with them privately, keeping only a few guards at the far end of the hall.

“You have heard, I am sure, of what your friend Dominic has done?” Rehobath said, eyeing them with either suspicion or calculation.

The news was all over the city, so there seemed little risk in admitting it.

Rehobath gave them a report from one of his “house servants” (in other words, one of his spies). It detailed Dominic’s appearance in Empress Square the day before in much greater detail than the news reports they had been able to collect themselves.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Rehobath demanded.

“Of course not,” Tor said.

“It doesn’t even sound like something that Dominic would say,” Tee said.

(“Well, maybe that last bit,” Elestra muttered.)

Rehobath looked sharply at her. “You think he may have fallen under the control of the traitors?”

“Perhaps,” Tee said. “Or it might not be Dominic at all. It could be an impostor. Or an illusion.”

“Yes…” Rehobath said, his eyes drifting into shrewd thoughtfulness. “That will serve… It might even be true.”

With a final nod, Rehobath changed the topic to the Banewarrens. They gave him a mildly edited account of their progress (particularly neglecting to mention the details of the legend lore spell Ranthir had cast). When Rehobath learned that they were waiting for a wish spell, however, he promised to expedite the matter with Heth Neferul.

From the moment they passed into the Holy Palace, Nasira’s nervousness had grown. Who, exactly, had she agreed to work with? And why did they seem so close to this freshly-minted novarch? Were they truly allies of Rehobath? But as their conversation continued, she became more convinced that the others were playing at some deeper agenda. At the very least, their travails together had instilled her with some trust of them. She would wait to hear their explanation.

Running the Campaign: It’s Gotta Be Here! – Campaign Journal: Session 43B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 42A: RAT MOTHERS

October 17th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They burned their way through Ranthir’s web and passed into another trash-filled chamber. Rising out of the trash on the far side of the chamber, however, was a ten-foot-tall stone statue of a ratling. Its head was lowered, staring into the dark depths of a wide sinkhole that lay at its feet.

They were wary of the statue – thinking perhaps that it was cursed, enchanted, or trapped in some way – but ultimately chose to investigate it. In a hidden compartment at the rear base of the statue, Tee found three scroll cases: One contained a stack of gold and silver coins; another a copy of the Truth of the Hidden God; and the third an arcane scroll.

Uncertain of what might emerge from the sinkhole if they left it at their backs, Tor quickly tied a rope around Tee’s waist and lowered her into the darkness. The sinkhole bottomed out into a large, conical cavern. Near the limit of the light she carried, Tee could see a couple passages twisting away from the cavern. On the large wall nearest her she could see cave paintings: Rat-shaped humanoids worshipped a huge, bulbous rat. Gouts of flame seemed to erupt from the rat’s sides, and in the midst of the flames Tee could see white rats dancing in the infernos.

Something about the painting disturbed her deeply, and after studying it for a few long moments she tugged twice on the rope – giving the signal to draw her back up.

After Tee had described what she had seen, they discussed their options. Ranthir, as was his wont, strongly opposed delving deeper before finishing the exploration of the current level of the nests. Besides, they suspected that they were on a level with the Midtown sewers – delving deeper into the caverns beneath the city wouldn’t get them where they wanted to go.

THE MOTHERS

Leaving the chamber with the statue, they passed through the far end of a long hall filled high with even more of the rats’ garbage. Tee passed silently over the surface, but, of course, Agnarr and Tor made an unearthly racket wading their way through. In the process, they attracted the attention of several large rodents which emerged out of the trash heaps: They had pale, chalk-like fur and eyes which glowed like fierce embers of flame.

“Who’s there?”

The voice came from the direction they had been heading. A huge, lumbering ratbrute emerged from the shadows.

Tee turned to face him. “We’re looking for the sewers.”

“Who are you?”

“Silion sent us to the southern sewers. We have business with Porphyry House.”

A befuddled look passed over the ratbrute’s features (which was surprising, considering how befuddled they already looked). “I guess if Silion sent you…”

“That’s right,” Tee nodded encouragingly. “Now, where can we find the sewer?”

“There’s an entrance beyond the mothers.”

“Where are the mothers?”

“Right over here.” The ratbrute turned and started lumbering back the way it had come.

Tee looked back at the others as if to say “I can’t believe that worked” and then, with a shrug, followed the ratbrute.

The passage he took them down was relatively broad and surprisingly free from debris. They passed another of the tattered blue curtains, and Tee took a moment to poke her head through it: The chamber beyond was unnaturally chill and contained a variety of bloated corpses – dogs, birds, cats… and a few humans. The bodies had been variously dismembered, with a few pieces here and there having obvious gnaw-marks on them. (Ranthir identified the chill as coming from a simple cantrip, most likely cast here to permanently keep the room cool enough to preserve the “meat”.)

“Are you coming?” The ratbrute looked at them curiously.

“Of course,” Tee said. Hurrying after him, she drew her sword and pointed it at the ratbrute’s clueless back.

Pushing through another blue curtain, they emerged into a large chamber containing several of the now familiar ratling nests… along with half a dozen female ratlings. The mothers. Everyone froze: Ratlings staring at humans; humans staring at ratlings.

“Tattum! What have you done?!”

The mothers scattered. Tee stabbed Tattum in the back.

Tattum, roaring in pain, drew his greatsword in a massive sweep that caught Tee with the flat of the blade and sent her staggering.

Nasira, meanwhile, noticed that several of the chalk-white rats from the hall of refuse had been following them. She was about to call out a warning when the melee broke out.

And then the chalk-white rats burst into balls of bright flame.

As Tee fell back towards Nasira, one of the flaming rats – pouring inky black smoke into the air – spit a ball of fire at Nasira, catching her full in the chest. Agnarr and Tor, meanwhile, were moving up to form a line against the enraged Tattum.

Several of the mothers had dashed out of the room through other exits, while others circled around the melee shaping up at the cave mouth – dashing in and delivering blows whenever they found an opening.

Tor managed to inflict a few deep wounds on Tattum’s massive frame, but then one of the mothers managed to latch onto his arm. Another, going low, sunk her teeth into his leg. Tattum, seizing the momentary advantage, found a chink in Tor’s armor and, ripping the blade free, caught Agnarr with a devastating back-swing.

Elestra dove forward, pouring the strength of the Spirit of the City into Agnarr’s wounds. Tattum, thinking Agnarr dispatched, stepped over him to take another swing at the badly injured Tor—

And Agnarr plunged his blade up through the ratbrute’s crotch.

(Which was becoming something of a habit.)

Tattum stumbled backwards as another ratbrute pushed through the curtain on the far side of the room. “Tattum! What the hell is going on?! If you’re in another—Oh shit! Fudd! Get out here!”

Fudd, a third ratbrute, pushed his way through the curtain. “What has he done now, Berq? … Oh shit!”

As Tattum fell for the last time, Fudd and Berq rushed Agnarr and Tor. Agnarr, however, was in the full heat and flow of the battle. He stepped forward and in a series of smooth blows that looked like perfect arcs of flame dropped Fudd in his tracks. Berq was more cautious, however, and moved into a careful dance of blades with the two fighters.

The blue curtain swept aside once more, revealing an aging albino ratling. He lowered a dragon pistol and fired, but Tor narrowly dodged the blast (which passed harmlessly over Tee, who was finishing off the last of the ash rats with Ranthir and Nasira).

As the separate melees raged, punctuated with blasts from the albino ratling’s dragon pistol, the mothers who had fled into a side-chamber returned – each bearing ratling babes in her arms. The albino ratling cried out to them, “Flee! Run as fast as you can!”

But Ranthir, upon hearing the word “flee”, whirled around and webbed the far side of the room: The mothers, the albino, and Berq were all helplessly caught – except for one mother, trapped in the corner, who futilely screamed for help in her despair. Tor closed on her and ruthlessly killed both her and the baby ratlings.

Agnarr, meanwhile, was finishing off Berq. This gave the albino ratling enough time to rip his own way free from the web. Cutting another mother free, he took her and ran for it.

Tor and Tee chased him down, but before he was killed, the albino managed to buy enough time for the mother to escape into the effervescent chamber of the true temple. Tor and Tee skidded to a halt and cautiously retreated back the way they had come.

Several of the mothers were still trapped in the web. Tee was able to broker a bargain in which they would be freed if one of them would lead the party to the southern sewer entrance. While the mothers were carefully freed from the web, Tor started discreetly taking ears and fingers from the dead as trophies. Meanwhile, Elestra distracted the ratlings with small talk to keep them from noticing Tee looting the coffers of the nest master (which were filled with gems, jewelry, and large amounts of coin; although given the bones and skulls dangling from the ceiling, Tee didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about where it had all come from).

Running the Campaign: Killing Orc Babies – Campaign Journal: Session 42B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 41E: RETURN TO THE LOWER NESTS

August 15th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

With a roaring battlecry Tor and Agnarr rushed down the tunnel. The ratbrutes – having turned to follow Tee’s forward dive – were unable to turn back and block the door in time. Tor and Agnarr burst between the ratbrutes, driving them apart. While Tor pushed his back into the corner (raining down blows in a stinking cascade of frying rat-hair), Agnarr quickly circled the other and drew him down the length of the room. Once Tor had finished with his, he joined Agnarr and the two of them together were able to harry and eventually cut down the other.

Unfortunately, until they were finished the ratbrutes made it too dangerous for Elestra, Nasira, or their healing magicks to reach Tee. By the time they did, she had almost bled to death from her wounds.

Once Tee (a little paler for her ordeal) was back on her feet, however, they were able to head down into the lower nest. With their thoughts filled by the dangerous cranium rats, they were hoping they could grab a kennel rat and then quickly find an exit into the southern sewers that they could use to follow one of their maps to Porphyry House.

Instead they found more guards posted. Tee emerged into the first room of the lower nest and was immediately fired upon by four ratlings. They missed, but Tee was pelted with shattering stone from the tunnel walls around her. Agnarr and Tor pushed past her and moved to engage the two nearest ratlings. Tee drew her dragon pistol, shot a third, and taunted them: “This is how you shoot!”

For a moment it seemed like a complete rout, but then two larger ratlings pushed through the curtain leading to the next chamber. The ratling nearest the one Tee had shot grabbed a dragon pistol off his fallen comrade and began firing from both hips. This time Tee was caught by the unexpected hail of fire.

But although Tee was painfully forced to a position of better cover, her sharp-shooting provided enough covering fire (while killing two more of the ratlings) for Tor and Agnarr to make a killing-ground sweep of the room with their swords. Then they briefly debated their next course of action: They knew what lay to the west (“Death,” as Elestra aptly summed it up), but there was another passage to the south.

Thinking of the cranium rats and their milky-eyed masters, Tee described the chamber with the chasm of effervescent green fluid as the True Temple of the Rat God… and she had no interest in tangling with it again. Plus, they were looking for a southern route through the sewers: The other passage would at least be taking them in the right direction.

The next cave-like chamber, however, was filled with more heaping piles of unstable garbage and offal. With a little sigh, Tee started heaving her way over the first of the piles towards the exit on the far side of the room—

And a swarm of black-furred rats with gleaming green eyes rose up out of the garbage around her. The very stench of them – a thick, unnatural musk of terror – suddenly struck the air, sending her senses reeling.

Tor rushed forward to help her—

And plunged through the refuse, between a set of loosely gapped wooden slats, and into a twenty-foot pit or chasm that ran across the width of the room.

Agnarr, seeing what had happened to Tor, ran forward, too. He jumped over the spot where Tor disappeared—

And also dropped into the pit, which was considerably wider than he had anticipated.

Ranthir, looking for a quick solution to Tee’s distress, dropped a fireball into the heart of the swarm – trusting to Tee’s reflexes to avoid the worst of it.

… but the rats were completely unaffected by the firestorm; the flames seeming to lick their way through the fur like some sort of elemental conductor. (Ranthir spent the next several hours cursing the waste of such a powerful spell.)

Tee – finding her mind hazed from the thick stench of the swarm and her flesh burning from their incessant, poisonous bites – fell back towards the others… taking the swarm with her.

In the flaming chaos and chittering madness of the scene, none of them had noticed a ratling priestess slipping into the far end of the room. Nasira, overwhelmed by the swarm, collapsed. The priestess surveyed the situation for a moment and then surrounded herself with a scintillating field of multicolored light.

A mad tittering filled the air and their eyes were drawn to the far end of the chamber as two large, white-furred rats came up to join the priestess. As they entered the room, their titters climbed into a shrieking peal of hideous laughter, ripping through the chamber and blasting insanity across the thoughts of those that heard it. In the chasm below, Tor suddenly turned upon Agnarr in incoherent madness and pounded his fists on the barbarian’s head. Agnarr, for his part, was driven into a panicked frenzy and fled to the end of the chasm, cowering as Tor continued to beat him about the temples.

Following in the wake of their shrieking laughter, the white rat-dogs raced towards the party. Fortunately, as they joined the melee, the madness of their tittering howls faded somewhat. Tor, regaining his senses, stumbled away from Agnarr (who, thick-skulled as he was, was only slightly the worse for wear). Hearing the screams from above, Tor knew they needed to get back in the fight. He unstrung the rope from his belt and hurled it over the wooden slats above. Quickly securing it, he began climbing up. Agnarr followed.

Above them, Elestra, calling upon the Spirit of the City, tried to force her will upon the mind of the priestess. For a moment she succeeded, but as she tried to force the priestess to attack the rats she felt her control slip away like grease from fur.

But Elestra had brought the priestess closer to the melee. And when Tor emerged from the chasm, he found himself directly behind her. Although his first wild swing (dragging himself up over the trash-filled lip of the chasm) missed, the priestess quickly found herself hemmed in between Tor, Tee (who had finally managed to beat herself free from the remnants of the swarm by using her boots of levitation to float a few feet into the air), and (shortly thereafter) the emergent Agnarr.

One of the white rat-dogs, however, leapt up and bit into Tee’s foot, swinging itself up to claw at her calf with its poison-drenched talons. Tee knocked it free, but not before the priestess slipped through their line.

Ranthir, meanwhile, had summoned a giant bombardier beetle with a carapace of glowing white light. The beetle’s powerful acidic attacks were able to rout the last of the swarm, driving it back into the chasm at the center of the room.

The priestess withdrew to the far side of the chamber. Tor pursued her. He tried to keep a careful watch on the placement of his feet, but still slipped and nearly fell back into the pit – only narrowly catching the lip.

Agnarr, on the other hand, roared ragefully and leapt across the entire pit. The priestess might still have escaped as she nimbly darted across the surface of garbage drifts through which Agnarr was forced to shove his way—

But Ranthir dropped a web across the entire width of the far passage, blocking her escape entirely.

The priestess, caught on the edge of the web, ripped her way free and tried to defend herself against Agnarr (and Tor, who caught up only moments later)… but she could do little against the cold steel (and fire… and lightning) of their blades.

Meanwhile, with the swarm gone, the others were able to rally and pound away at the laughter-mad white rats until their last titters were lost in gurgling blood.

Running the Campaign: Tactical Traps – Campaign Journal: Session 42A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index