The Alexandrian

Posts tagged ‘campaign journals’

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 42B: FALSE BROTHELS

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

Fantasy Sewers - Marina P.

TO THE BROTHEL?

They chose one of the mothers to lead them to the sewer entrance and left.

As they passed the corpse of the albino ratling, the mother sobbed.

“Who was he?” Elestra asked.

“He was our nest leader.”

“What does that mean?”

The mother looked confused. “He was the one who leads.”

She took them to a secret door. It swung open to reveal the familiar sights (and smells) of the Ptolus sewers. With a final hiss, the mother scurried away down the sewer corridors.

Turning the kennel rat loose, they followed its scuffling path through the sewers. As they neared the Warrens, they found that the tunnels – which were hardly an orderly place to begin with – slowly turned into a chaotic nightmare. Tee explained that they were moving into an older sewer system: The Warrens, near as they were to the Docks, were one of the oldest portions of the city (it had been a shanty town when Ptolus itself had been confined to the fortified area known now as Oldtown). Like Oldtown, several mismatched sewer systems had been built beneath the Warrens (although these were generally of even poorer quality). And during the massive construction project in the first century YD in which sewers were built under the rest of the city, the older sewer system had simply been connected to the new – resulting in a completely chaotic maze of interlocking, half-designed tunnel systems.

Fortunately, the kennel rat seemed to know its way. At one intersection, however, it paused and waited for direction. Their maps from the temple indicated that there were multiple routes, and Agnarr confirmed that this was trained behavior: It was waiting for its handlers to choose between multiple routes. They thought the likelier route lay to the south, and so Agnarr dutifully pointed the kennel rat in that direction.

A little later the rat led them through a broken patch of wall. In the tunnel beyond it they recognized the distinctive – yet destitute – construction of Ghul’s Labyrinth. Tee waved the others back and scouted ahead. After a short distance down the passage of pale, begrimed stone, several loud and raucous voices could be heard echoing toward her.

Stealing forwards, Tee peeked around the corner into a sconce-lit basement (which was also clearly a converted portion of the old labyrinth). Several ratlings and a ratbrute were gathered around a rickety table near the center of the room playing cards. On the opposite side of the room there was a narrow hallway and, beyond the card players, a wrought iron staircase spiraling up through the ceiling.

Tee went back and joined the others. They quickly concocted an assault plan: Nasira enchanted an opal ring they had taken from the nest master’s coffers so that it would exude an aura of impenetrable magical silence. Elestra, with a now-practiced ease, called upon the Spirit of the City to make them one with its stones so that they might pass without being seen.

These preparations done, Tee levitated to the high, vaulted ceiling and moved silently into a position directly above the card table. Agnarr slid along the wall until he was almost directly behind the nearest ratling. And Elestra snuck into the corner of the room opposite the sewer tunnel and carefully aimed her dragon rifle at another.

ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN?

The ambush wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

Tee pulled the ring Nasira had enchanted out of her bag of holding and dropped onto the table. Her foot slipped on the coins and the cards and her first blow went wild, but she recovered neatly and skewered one of the ratlings with her second.

As Tee hit the table, Elestra pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the blast caught the back of the ratling’s chair. Tor came racing in from the outer corridor, but the ratling – turning at the blast – was able to twist away from Tor’s blow. Tor’s sword still caught it on the shoulder, however, in a flash of electricity which drove the ratling down and towards the unseen Agnarr… who took the perfectly aligned opportunity to chop off its head.

But all of this confusion gave the ratbrute behind Tee a chance to get its sword to hand. The brute drove it painfully down into Tee’s shoulder, driving her into a cascading slide of blood across and off the table. As she hit the floor, she momentarily blacked out from the intense pain.

Agnarr, seeing her fall and seized by a terrible rage, leapt onto the table and attacked the ratbrute without mercy or care.

Tor, meanwhile, looked down the narrow hall for the first time and spotted two ratbrutes talking obliviously to each other outside the range of Nasira’s silence-exuding ring. He charged toward them and – although they noticed him halfway down the hall – it was too late. They were effectively pinned at the end of the narrow hall and were nothing but ripe targets for Tor’s expert swordwork. (Although Tee was actually responsible for killing the second, catching him with a shot through the eye after crawling out from beneath the table.)

The hall Tor had charged down was flanked with cells. Tee wasn’t surprised to discover that there were nearly a dozen slaves kept trapped in these pens… including one young boy.

The prisoners all told the same story: They were shivvel addicts, and their last memories before waking up in the pens were of buying and using shivvel from a shivvel den in the Warrens.

The boy’s mother had brought him to one of the dens with her. She had apparently overdosed and he had been brought here by the “rat-things”.

None of the addicts knew anything about Porphyry House. They were completely isolated and disoriented in these pens; many couldn’t even tell how long they had been there for. They concluded that the cultists must be using the shivvel dens to kidnap slaves, moving them through the sewers, and clearhousing them from Porphyry House.

Having learned all they could from the addicts, they led them back through the sewers to an entrance some suitable distance away and cut them loose.

Nasira volunteered to take the boy to the nearest watch station. Naturally there were none to be found in the Warrens, so it made the most sense for them to leave the sewers and travel by street (which seemed terribly old-fashioned in some way).

Nasira, however, wanted to avoid the kind of public attention that Tor had attracted by rescuing the children from the Temple of the Ebon Hand. Therefore she brought the boy to an alley directly opposite the watch station: “You can just go through that door and they’ll take care of you. Everything will be all right.”

The boy eyed it doubtfully. “My mother told me never to trust the watch.”

“And look what happened to her.”

Nasira shooed the child on its way.

FRUSTRATED INTENTS

When Nasira had returned to them, Tee headed up the wrought iron stairs. She emerged into an empty, drab room. There wasn’t even a single door in evidence, but a quick search turned up two secret doorways – one of which was locked. From beyond the unlocked door she could hear faint voices, so she decided to unlock the other door first. Beyond that door was another small chamber – this one containing a chest with thousands of coins (almost all of them silver). On a table nearby were several dozen small paper packets, each containing a dose of shivvel.

Tee put all of it into her bag of holding. Then she backtracked, retrieved the others, and they laid an ambush for the voices she still heard from beyond the other secret door.

Mimicking one of the ratling voices they’d heard playing cards below, Tee called out: “Hey! Somebody come down here!”

The secret door slid open. “What the hell do you want? We’re not—“

Tee pulled out Nasira’s enchanted ring and they went to work.

They made a quick, clean sweep through the four ratlings in the next room (although the sole ratbrute made a valiant stand in the corner of the room before he was killed). Once the ratlings were down, the party took a moment to take in their surroundings: There was a door leading outside, a rickety table shoved into one corner, and another door leading deeper into the building.

Not wanting to attract too much attention they locked the outer door without going outside, and then proceeded through the next door. They passed down a shabby hall and then passed into a larger room filled with roughly a dozen badly stained and worn cots. On one of them a shivvel addict lay, sweating his life away in his drug dreams.

They left the shivvel addict where they found him. Beyond the shivvel flophouse they found a ratling nesting room… And then nothing. Tee scoured the walls for hidden passages or the like, but there was nothing else to find: Tee was baffled. What they were seeing just didn’t make sense to her. But eventually they were forced to conclude that this wasn’t Porphyry House.

Elestra flung open the shutters on a nearby window… and looked out over the Southern Sea. They were on the coast cliffs deep within the Warrens. Far from Porphyry House.

They retreated back to the sewer, retraced their path, and used the kennel rat to take the sewer route they hadn’t chosen before. The rat brought them to another tunnel leading away from the sewer proper, and although this one bore no resemblance to the work of Ghul, they sought out the nearest sewer entrance, poked their heads into the street above… and concluded that this wasn’t Porphyry House either.

In utter frustration at the time they had wasted, they left the sewers altogether and decided to head straight to Porphyry House’s front door.

Running the Campaign: Scouting DungeonsCampaign Journal: Session 43A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 42A: RAT MOTHERS

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

Rat Statue

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 BabiesCampaign Journal: Session 42B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 41E: RETURN TO THE LOWER NESTS

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

Rylkar Rats - Monster Manual V

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 TrapsCampaign Journal: Session 42A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 41D: BACK AMONGST THE RATS

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

Ratling - Dominick

Now it was a question of their next goal: Should they pursue the Idol of Ravvan? Track down Arveth at the Temple of Deep Chaos? Go to Alchestrin’s Tomb in the Necropolis? There were at least nine different leads tantalizing them.

Ultimately, however, the temptation of Wuntad’s association with (and his occasional appearances at) Porphyry House was insurmountable. Elestra knew it to be a high-class brothel located near the border between the Guildsman’s District and the Warrrens, but little else. (“Why would I know more than that about a brothel?”) They suspected that one of the sewer routes leading from the Temple of the Rat God would take them there, and they decided that the element of surprise to be gained from using such a route was worth the extra effort involved.

When they returned to the temple, however, they found four watchmen standing guard before the outer door. The surrounding buildings had been evacuated. When Tor went to speak with the watchmen he learned that a major operation involving watchmen from across the city had attempted to “root out those filthy rats”. But eight watchmen had been killed in attempting to explore the areas below the temple and now they were simply bricking up the basement to seal the problem away.

The watchmen weren’t supposed to let anyone through, but since it was Tor they didn’t think it would be a problem. Tor thanked them kindly and led the others through the sanctuary.

On the level below they found six more of the watch bricking up the tunnel leading to the warrens below. They recognized Tor, too, and when they learned that the wanderers were planning to go below they offered to hold off their efforts for an hour.

Tor shook his head. “We’re just passing through. I don’t think we’ll be coming back this way. Finish what you’re doing. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you keep an eye out down there? Three of those who died… We weren’t able to recover their bodies.”

They promised that they would bring them back if they could.

Halfway down the tunnel they triggered the first of the ratlings’ traps: An explosive charge sent a shower of stinking, diseased offal into the air. Tee detected two more of the tripwires along that length of tunnel, carefully disabling each of them before allowing the others to pass. The traps were crudely constructed, but cunningly hidden.

When they reached the north-south T-intersection at the end of the first tunnel, a squeaking, gibberous swarm of huge rats rushed towards them from the north. As Tee stepped out to confront them, however, three ratlings to the south popped out of some sort of concealed culvert and fired dragon rifles at her back. As Tor joined Tee in cutting down the swarm of rats from the north, Agnarr ran after the ratlings to the south. The ratlings fell back while continuing their volleys of fire… taunting Agnarr into a spew of fire from carefully prepared pots of alchemist’s fire.

Agnarr had almost reached them again when a board full of poisoned spikes swung down from the ceiling above – not only piercing his shoulder with a painful, burning wound, but wedging itself tightly into place and blocking the tunnel. By the time Agnarr had forced the board aside, Tee had joined him. She ducked through first, finding the ratlings waiting with another volley of fire that she narrowly dodged.

If she worked her way carefully down the tunnel in an effort to avoid the traps she knew were waiting, the ratlings would tear her apart with their rifle fire. Throwing caution to the wind, Tee threw herself down the hall – trusting to her instincts and reflexes to avoid the seemingly never-ending stream of dangers.

The ratlings fell back before her rush – sometimes trusting to their tripwires; in other cases chopping at concealed ropes to release counterweighted doom. Tee avoided the worst of it, and even managed to drop one of the ratlings with a sharply placed arrow.

The ratlings fled back around a corner and Tee pulled up for a  moment to wait for the others – picking their way through the spent traps behind her – to catch up.

There was an explosion of chittering from around the corner and something large and bulky was thrown around it, bouncing to a halt near Tee’s feet.

It was the head of one of the dead watchmen. His badge had been spiked to his forehead.

Tor, coming up beside Tee, looked down and felt his heart go cold. He rushed the corner with preternatural speed, dashing through the rapid volley of the ratlings and plunging his sword through the chest of the nearest one in a burst of crackling electricity.

The last of the ratlings fell back and triggered another of the spiked boards. But Tor had no patience or mercy left in him: With a sweep of his sword, he cut the board asunder, leaving a very surprised ratling scurrying backwards in a panic into the chamber of bones. But in two quick steps, Tor was upon the creature, cutting it down mercilessly.

The chamber of bones was still filled with a cascaded avalanche of bones, but three sharp sticks had been raised in the middle of the room – the headless bodies of the three watchmen impaled upon them.

While Tor and Agnarr took up the grisly task of taking down the bodies of the watchmen, Tee headed into the southern passage, checking it carefully foot-by-foot for any additional traps the ratlings may have had a chance to lay.

As she emerged into the slave pen area, however, her focus on tripwires and mud-buried mines turned into a liability: Two ratbrutes, lurking to either side of the door, took her completely by surprise.

For a long moment Tee was frozen in shock. Then, as the massive blades of the ratbrutes swung towards her, she dove forward. She managed to narrowly duck beneath one blade, but the other caught her a glancing blow. A moment later she found herself prostrate on the floor, gasping in a pool of her own blood. (Something which, frankly, had been happening to her too much in the last twenty-four hours.)

Before the ratbrutes had a chance to finish her off, however, reinforcements had arrived.

Running the Campaign: Aftermath of AdventureCampaign Journal: Session 41E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 41C: I’LL BE SEEING YOU

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

Just before sunrise; a cathedral silhouetted against the sky

THE ALLIANCE MIRAGE

When the false dawn was still cresting the sky, Tee arose while the others still slept and left the Minstrel. She headed up to Castle Shard, where she found that even with the early morning hour Kadmus was waiting for her. He escorted her to Lord Zavere, who it seemed had arisen not long before.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the morning,” Tee said. “But I have news about the Idol of Ravvan.”

Zavere was more than interested when Tee showed him the letter they had recovered from the Temple of the Ebon Hand concerning the Dawnbreaker, the Argent Dawn, and the unnamed “idol”. Zavere wasn’t as certain as Tee that the letter referred to the Idol of Ravvan, but he agreed that it was a definite possibility. “Keep me informed of anything you might discover.”

“We will,” Tee promised. “But there was one other matter.”

“What is it?” Zavere asked.

Tee quickly supplied him with an abbreviated version of the ambush from the night before.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Yes,” Tee said. “Barely. But we don’t know where we can go that would be safe. We were wondering if… Well, we were wondering if it would be possible to stay at Castle Shard.”

Zavere pondered it for a long moment, but then he said, “I’m sorry, but it’s not possible. Your relationship to Rehobath is too well known. If I were to give you or your comrades sanctuary – particularly Sir Tor – it would be seen as Castle Shard aligning itself with Rehobath.”

Tee chose her next words carefully. “I don’t trust Rehobath any more than anyone else should.”

“Be that as it may,” Zavere said. “It’s ultimately a matter of public perception, not reality. I have no desire to tip the scales in this matter. Nor do I want to antagonize the Commissar in this. The situation is simply too delicate.”

“I understand,” Tee said with a resigned sigh, and left to rejoin the others for breakfast at the Minstrel.

THE PACTLORDS OF THE QUAAN

As they were settling down to their meal, they were surprised to see Jevicca come through the front doors of the inn.

“Good morning!” she said cheerfully, waving her red-glass arm towards them.

“Jevicca!” Agnarr said, a huge grin creasing his face. “What brings you here this morning?”

“I have news,” she said. “We’ve identified the bone ring you gave me.”

‘Really?” Tee said.

“They belong to the Pactlords of the Quaan,” Jevicca said.

“The who of the what now?” Elestra said.

“They’re not very well known,” Jevicca said, “And they’re mostly dismissed as a minor criminal organization. They’ve also got a minor reputation in the slave trade.” (Tee’s ears perked up at the mention of the slave trade. Could there be a connection to the Brotherhood of the Blooded Knife?) “But the reality is something more than that.

“There is an ancient book known as the Tome of the Shadow Dragons. Or perhaps it is many books. Only fragments of it have ever been found, and even these are few and hard to decipher. This book speaks of the “teachings of Jessuk”, a body of lore dedicated to the warping and corruption of natural life – the transformation of the natural races into abominations.

“These arts were practiced en masse by both the Banelord and Ghul, among others. The Pactlords are the descendants of the creatures created by them. They hold themselves superior to the “natural races” and, ultimately, seek to subjugate us.

“The group is held together through a living pact which is focused through these bone rings. The nature of the pact – and the force which binds it – is a secret kept by the Pactlords themselves. As is the nature of the ‘Quaan’.

“They have never been seen to pose any true threat, but they consider themselves – like Ghul before them – to be the natural heirs of the Banelord’s secrets. This explains their interest in the Banewarrens, but that doesn’t appear to be the group’s only current activity: Slave raiders have been prowling the caverns around Kaled Del and attacking the trade caravans of the Delvers’ Guild. Some of the raiders have been reported to be wearing ‘rings of bone’.”

THE FORTRESS SUITE

Jevicca’s briefing gave them a lot to chew on. She asked after their progress with the Banewarrens, but there wasn’t much they could tell. (And even less that they wanted to.) As they turned to amiable chatting over the rest of their breakfast, they returned naturally to the question of their lodgings: Should they go? If so, where?

Jevicca suggested the Nibeck Street mansion. It was currently abandoned, it would give them a base of operations as close to the Banewarrens as they might care to have, and it would let them defend the entrance to the Banewarrens.

On the other hand, as Agnarr put it, “Living over the hellmouth? No thanks.”

Greyson House was another abandoned building, but, as Tee pointed out, “The bad guys have already looked for us there. It’s no safer than here.”

“We could just go to another inn,” Elestra suggested.

“But that has all the same problems,” Tor said.

“Only if we stay in the same place,” Tee said. “We could just load everything we own into bags of holding and stay in a different inn each night.”

But that would prove troublesome for Ranthir’s research.

Tor proposed, as he often had in the past, that they buy a house somewhere in Ptolus.

“But that has the same problems, too,” Tee said. “It’s only a matter of time before they track us down, and then we’re vulnerable again.”

If they needed fortifications, then perhaps Pythoness House would be a solution. But Sir Kabel was already there, and while the others might be able to make that work, Tor would only be able to stay there if he abandoned his position within the Order of the Dawn. They briefly considered Tor staying at the Godskeep or the Holy Palace, but splitting the party seemed like a bad idea – particularly if it meant burrowing even deeper into the politics of the church.

Security through obfuscation, as Ranthir pointed out, was playing with fire: They could reset the clock, but eventually their new home (wherever it might be) would be found. And once it was found, they became vulnerable.

So they decided to stay where they were. Instead of hiding, they would bunker down. They laid out a plan for remodeling an entire wing of the Ghostly Minstrel: A false room with a secret door would be used as a pass-thru to a real suite of other rooms connected by new, interior doors.

They spoke with Tellith, who agreed to the remodel if they paid for it and if they also paid at a year’s rent in advance for the rooms they would be converting. This done, they spent several thousand crowns and arranged for more than twenty contractors (including several master craftsmen) to install the secret door, punch thru the two new connecting doors, and to strengthen the security on the existing doors. They also hired an arcanist to ward the windows with permanent alarms. And then they spent even more money to speed a project that should rightfully take weeks until it would take only two days to complete. On top of all that, Tee set aside enough money to pay every single person working on the project a hefty bonus to forget that they had ever worked on it.

Nasira was somewhat taken aback by the sheer amount of money they were able to throw at the project (more than 5,000 crowns when all was said and done). And while the project surely tapped deeply into their resources, they all felt it was an investment worth making.

THE NEXT STEP

While they were still drawing out their plans for the new suite, an invitation arrived.

INVITATION TO THE CRUISE OF THE VANISHED DREAM

We had hoped that this invitation might arrive on a most triumphant note – giving you proper congratulations on the apprehension of Shilukar and the ending of his scourged blight upon Crest of House Abanar, a golden cup on a green fieldthe city. With the recent news of his escape within the prison, that triumphant note is perhaps muted, but your accomplishment was nonetheless notable and worthy of great praise and equally great appreciation.

To whit, it would be our honor – both in light of the duty you have done for us and for those sundry other accomplishments which you have achieved in the name and for the betterment of our fair city – to attend upon us for a grand cruise of the Vanished Dream at the estates of House Abanar upon the Fifth of Noctural to celebrate the last rays of the year’s light and the coming of the Days of Night.

Dered Abanar
Merchant Prince of the Abanars

Ranthir quickly penned a positive and elegant acceptance, and they dispatched it by courier.

While Tee was drawing up the contracts and making the other arrangements necessary for the suite, Tor went to the Godskeep to continue his training with the Order of the Dawn. While he was there, he was informed that Rehobath had requested a meeting with him that evening at 7 o’clock. Tor wasn’t told what the meeting was about, but he could only suspect it had something to do with Dominic’s denunciation of Rehobath the day before.

Elestra, meanwhile, was checking the morning newssheets. The headlines were considerably less dramatic than the day before (“What a Whopper! Stranded Jellyfish as Big as a House!”), but there was also a report of another brutal murder in Oldtown: A priest had been killed on the Columned Row. His head had been ripped open, just like the woman who had been killed the night before on Flamemoth Way.

On her way back to the Ghostly Minstrel, Tee stopped by the Delvers’ Guild and left a message posted for Arveth:

Arveth—

Eye’ll be seeing you.

“Do you think she’ll break my code?”

Running the Campaign: Home Base RenovationsCampaign Journal: Session 41D
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