Episode 11, Welcome to Devil Town!
When we exited Greystone Keep after disposing of the bone
devil and his minions, we were surprised to see Unagi approaching! Evidently,
he had decided not to return to Neverwinter with the others but to double back and aid us on
our mission to the “Barony”. The monk had an uncanny ability to show up
unexpectedly.
When we arrived, we were in such a hurry to examine the
keep that we hardly noticed the small village that surrounded it. Now we
decided to investigate. Like the keep, the village was in ruins. The buildings
were in disarray; some of the walls had been ripped out. The roofs and walls
had weather damage, and some were rotting away. There was a fountain in the
middle of the courtyard, but the water was not running
Basel inspected the courtyard and saw footsteps in the
mud, some up to 16” long. He also sensed the presence of undead, but it was not
constant—it came and went, which he found unnerving. He inspected the fountain,
and sensed it was magical. It appeared to be clogged.
“Something is watching us,” said Unagi.
“I’d be surprised if something wasn’t, in this place.”
Varus went and inspected the fountain. It was a statue of
a human heroine dressed in armor who was cradling a fallen soldier. It touched
Varus, and he sang a song of respect for the dead. As he sang, the statue began
to weep from its stone eyes. He was deeply moved, and hope that the heroine was
at rest.
Tomeck naturally headed to the tavern to see if there was
anything to drink, and Tyala followed. The inside was busted up pretty well.
There were burn marks on the walls, as if someone had been swinging a torch
around. He searched for booze.
Surprisingly, there were some unopened crate and barrels.
When Tomeck moved one of the barrels, it started vibrating. Her spider-sense
tingling, Tyala pushed him out of the way. The barrel exploded and green goo
burst forth. Then it felt the cold, shrank back, and perished. Whatever the
nasty stuff was, it did not like the cold.
Unagi joined them and started searching the barrels as
well. Most of them had been resealed. The monk found a small skeleton, possibly
halfling, holding a sword. He grabbed it – and then felt something in his mind.
It tried to take control of him. He mentally fought the attack and was able to
resist. He realized that it was the sword! It had a mind of its own. Now in
control, he examined the weapon more closely. The blade crackled with
electricity, but he could discern little more. He went out in the courtyard and
showed it to Basel. The paladin cast detect evil on it, and did not sense it.
However, he did detect the that sword was honor-bound, but only if the wielder
willingly gave in to the sword’s influence. He was able to discern that it had
been created by a human civilization in a time when magic was more abundant. It
was engraved with a symbol of power, and was a badge of high office.
Varus was intrigued to hear of this intelligent weapon,
and inspected it as well. It was +1 to hit and damage, and did an d6 additional
electrical damage. He saw the it would keep the monk at a comfortable temperature
whether it was hot or cold. It dulled gems and jewelry, reducing their value by
at least half. Once attuned to the sword, the monk would be proficient in
History.
While the three inspected this fantastic magic sword,
Tomeck and Tyala continued their inspection of the compound. On the other side
was the garrison. As they approach, the rogue felt the hairs rise on the back
of her neck. As they entered, they saw an apparition…a ghost, like the ones we
had seen in the keep. It appeared to have its hands over something.
“Hey, you there, what do you want?” asked Tomeck. The
apparition turned and reached out to him, then turned back. They entered, and
found a table that looked like it may have been used for medical purposed. The
outline of a body was visible, with dried blood around it. There was also
catgut on the table. Tomeck picked it up and spoke to the ghost.
“Here, is this what you want?” He held out the catgut to
the ghost. It reached out to take the catgut, and then realized that it could
not. It dissipated.
Varus and Unagi checked out a gazebo in the far corner.
Our first instinct was to attack; after all, it was a gazebo! The roof of the
gazebo had a gruesome sight - effigies of bone and still attached muscle and
sinew. The wind whistled through the bones. The floor of the gazebo was tiled
marble, and it was spotless! Further inspection revealed a button on one of the
benches. After some discussion, we retreated, and Tomeck pushed the button with
his mage hand. Colors swirled up the gazebo, then back down, and a portal
opened in the floor with a spiral staircase leading down. Tomeck pushed the
button again, and another mage hand
appeared, shook his mage hand, and disappeared!
We decided to check out the rest of the compound before
descending the staircase. We approached the largest building, which appeared to
be the home of a moderately successful merchant. A fire was burning in the
fireplace! Two fine mahogany chairs and a table were in the room. Looking up,
we were horrified to find that a giant pool of blood covered the whole ceiling!
It was not still, but quivered and bulged as we watched. It definitely seemed
like demonic or devilish magic, a portal to another realm.
Basel cast Protection
from Evil on Tomeck. Varus insulted the ceiling with Vicious Mockery, and the
blood reacted! Tomeck decided to cast a grappling hook into the blood; Varus
did not think this was a good plan. Tomeck swung the rope and launched the
grappling hook upward. It plunged into the liquid and disappeared. Then the
line went taut. A giant fist came through the blood and started trying to pull
itself out. Basel cut the rope, which came to life and started spewing blood
everywhere. Tomeck blocked it with his shield, but Basel slipped, and the blood
splashed on him. He felt drained and weak as the blood dealt a serious blow to
his constitution. We watched as the blood seeped through the floorboards, flowed
up the walls, and merged back into the pool on the ceiling.
Unagi decided this was the perfect time to take a short
rest and attune to his weapon. However, this time, he did not have the willpower. Unbeknownst to any of us, the sword took
over his will. He saw visions of a judge making decisions. He now knew that the
sword was True Neutral, and that he would only be interested in pursuing
something that benefitted him personally. Most importantly, his alignment would
randomly shift each day!
Varus examined the portal further.
“I believe that this blood is part of the River Styx,
which is located in Hades. It will sap the will to live from heroes. We must
not touch the blood. Basel, it looks like a Remove Curse spell would help you
heal a bit. It will take a Greater Restoration spell to completely heal you.”
We had access to neither of those spells.
Unagi came in and we updated him.
“Ferryman; I pay for my companions,” he said, tossing 2 gp
into the ceiling.
The threads retreat, the fire in the fireplace flared up
and died down, and then a door appeared behind it. A door of complete and utter
blackness. Basel realized that half of his constitution damage was gone.
We decided to leave this alone for now and head over to
the gazebo. We get on the moving spiral staircase and head down. It was a 3
minute smooth ride to the bottom, and the staircase is lined with beautiful
artwork. The staircase ends in a square 40’x40’ room with a door on each wall.
There are sconces on the wall that go through the spectrum of color. We opened
the door to the west, and Tyala and Unagi heard cackling voices that sound
dwarven.
We came to a large room with a 15’ ceiling. A metal cage
with a gate stuck out on one side, extending into darkness. There was a table
with a wash basin on it, bookshelves, and the colorful sconces. Tomeck, Basel,
and Varus investigated. Tomeck inspected the basin and found it contained blood
and herbs, and one vial. There was a manuscript as well; Basel inspected it and
found it was a ledge of maladies. Varus checked out the bookcases; most of the
books were ruined, but he did find a scroll with a magic missile spell on it.
The cage is locked, but the bars do not seem very sturdy. There was a dung pile
in one corner, and a small skull sat on top of it. Another effigy hung above
it. We headed out to join the others.
Unagi went right and found a large chamber. The ceiling
disappeared into the darkness. There was a large pool of water in the middle
that was bubbling up. Some of the water was drawn into a tube in the center of
the pool. The tube went into the ceiling, but there was a hole on one side of
it, so the water spilled out and back into the pool. This seemed to be the
water source for the fountain in the courtyard. Unagi threw a marble into the
water; it was drawn into the tube and then fell out due to the hole.
We decided to repair the hole in the tube. Getting in the
pool seemed like a bad idea unless one wanted to do an Augustus Gloop
impersonation. Tomeck scrounged a piece of leather that was large enough to
cover the hole, and we had some catgut from upstairs. Working together, Tomeck
and Varus used their mage hands to hold the leather in place and sew it
securely. Amazingly, it worked. When the pipe was resealed, the water began to
flow again. Light filled the chamber, revealing that the ceiling was 150’ above
us. The fountain flowed once again.
With the light restored, we could now see the entire room.
There were 3 cages; two were empty, but the last one contained the skeleton of
a troll.
Tyala heard something from the cage room; it sounded like
someone rattling the lock, and then stone shifting. She snuck to the door and
listened. There were two voices speaking. One sounded dwarven, the other language
she does not recognize.
“Hmmm, the effigy is still in place,” a strange voice
cackled. She heard something sniff the air.
Tomeck decided to check out the remaining hallway. To do so, he
backed up to the closed door that behind him. The door burst open and Tomeck was swarmed by goblins.
Some of them dashed by him and some attacked, hitting him twice. He cast
Burning Hands on 3 of them, and when they were still standing, he cast it
again. They were not standing after that. Varus sang one to sleep. Unagi
attacked with his new sword, stabbing a goblin. The sword crackled with
electricity, and the goblin’s head popped off! Unagi struck down a second
goblin, and then coup de graced the
last one in its sleep. As he did that, he stepped on a pressure plate. The
pressure plate revealed a scorpion, and it fired at the monk. He was surprised,
but easily sidestepped the bolt.
In the spring room, the skeleton of the troll suddenly
animated. The bones poured out of the
cage and then reassembled into a complete skeleton. The undead troll skeleton
opened its mouth in silent roar charged Basel in a fury. It attacked and swiped
him with two skeleton claws. Basel blessed the monk, the bard, and the rogue.
He then grabbed the skeleton and performed Lay Hands. The positive energy from
the healing spell slammed into the undead creature, inuring it severely. It
tried to attack him in return, but it was stunned and was not close to hitting
Basel. Tomeck followed up as he charged into the room and blasted it with
scorching rays.
While they were fighting the skeleton troll, Varus spotted
something coming through the door in front of the pool. It was a large, live
troll. A dwarf’s head protruded from its left chest (kind of like a dwarven
Kuato! “Start the reactor…”)
“Troll!”
Varus walked straight up the wall and took up a position
to fire, pulled out his wand of fireballs, and unleashed on the ghastly
creature. It engulfed the troll, but also hit the edge of the pool of water. The
pool was evidently magically protected, as the fireball was re-directed towards
Varus as well. He was quite surprised that, and took the full brunt of the
fireball.
“Ow ow ow!’ The rest was mostly unintelligible cursing.
Unagi ran up, thrust his hand through the skeleton’s
ribcage, grabbed its spine…and pulled it out and crushed it. The skeleton
collapsed into a pile of bones. Again.
Tyala hit with a sneak attack on the troll as it ran up
and tried to grab Unagi in its huge troll hands and grapple him. Basel’s magic
put the monster at a disadvantage, and it could not wrap up the elusive monk,
but its filthy claws bit into his flesh. It got even grosser as the dwarf head
in the troll’s chest vomited on the monk.
Basel called upon his god, Helm, and channeled his
divinity into the lion hammer. He dashed up the back of the troll and brought
his hammer down in a mighty two-handed blow upon its skull. Thunder cracked as
Basel scored a perfect hit, cracking the troll’s skull. The lion head came to
life and looked like a full-size lion’s head. It roared, then bit the head off
of the troll! The troll collapsed, spurting green ichor out of its neck, as
Basel deftly rode the falling monster to the ground and hopped off. The lion
hammer practically glowed with increased power.
There was a moment of silence as everyone took in what had
just happened. Basel’s hammer had ended the battle, and seemed transformed.
“Whoa, I leveled my fucking hammer!”
“That was most impressive, Basel!” Varus exhorted.
The battle was indeed over. We searched the rest of this
place, but found nothing else living. We started with the hallway where the troll
had emerged, and found a sliding wall where it had dug in and made a home. It
seemed to have a foot fetish, as its room/den was full of…shoes. All types. It
evidently liked to sleep on them. Probably taken from its victims over the
years. We searched through them all, and found two magical pairs in the
process, boots of elvenkind and boots of frost. There were several sacks
of disgusting meat. There were also many of the bone effigies like we had seen
throughout the town. Studying them in greater detail, Varus realized that they were
identified with one of the gods of the giants, and acted as a conduit of power.
As we walked through the rest of this level, it was clear
that the pool and fountain system were once again powering this complex. The
corridors were well lit in a rainbow of color. We headed through the west door of
the central room, and it opened onto a well-furnished bedroom. A wizards
bedroom. A crystal orb glowed on a small table in the middle of the room. There
were several paintings on the wall, including one of a kobold sauntering by.
The wooden wardrobe contained fine clothes and wizards robes. Tyala opened a
small chest to find 10 beautiful blue spinels. There were 3 weapons, and they
were all magical: a longbow, a rapier, and a dagger. There was also a wand of
fireballs.
The library contained a number of mundane titles and two
interesting ones. One was The Simple Sliimes, a book on the lifecycle of green
slimes and related monsters.
Basel and Varus looked at the second boo. It appeared to
be bound in…flesh. It was entitled ERUPTUS DOMENO EXCORISMOS. Varus studied the
title carefully, and his eyes grew wide as he realized its origin.
Basel started to pronounce the title.
“ERUP…,” Varus clapped his hand over Basel’s mouth.
“Do NOT pronounce this out loud. It is of the lower
planes. This most likely has something to do with that blood gate upstairs.”
We finished searching the room. The chandelier was quite
impressive, and Varus walked up the wall to the ceiling and inspected it while hanging
upside down. He estimated that it was worth around 10,000 gp! He told the group
and asked Tyala if he could remove it and take it for the group funds.
“This could finance a ship for us!” His eyes gleamed.
“Oh, very well. It’s not doing much good here.”
He detached it with the help of others, and put it in the bag of holding.
No one had inspected the crystal orb, so Varus boldly picked
it up. He burned an Identify spell
and found it was an orb of augury; divination
magic that would answer two questions each day. It would answer with weal, woe,
weal and woe, or nothing.
When we were finished exploring the wizards laboratory, we
headed back up to see if this book was the key to closing that damn river of blood
portal to Hades. When we rode the escalator back up, the walls coruscated with
a spectrum of colors, and soothing music played. When we reached the gazebo, we
found the magic hand here had cleaned the area. It shooed us away impatiently.
It was about noon by this point.
“We have to take care of this by sundown, if we are going
to remain in this place. Things are much more likely to come through then,”
Varus informed them.
It turned out that the evil tome was written in orcish,
and Unagi was the only one who knew that language. He wanted to start the
ceremony without reading through the book first, but everyone, led by Tomeck,
insisted that he must read it at length and be very sure of what to do. Messing
up this spell could have disastrous results.
He finally acquiesced, and started reading it. The title
was The Dominator, The Thief, and The Exorcist, and the beginning was filled
with general instructions and warnings.
·
It was a book of banishment and would close this
portal
·
Beware of the blood
·
When the blood from the portal touched the
ground, it pulled in both directions
·
Do not go through the dark door where the entity
lives
·
Do not come out at midnight
The tome finally listed the material components for the
spell:
1.
The blessed blood of one individual
2.
From Down Under, a hair from the chin
3.
The hand of a betrayer
Basel seemed like an obvious choice for the blessed blood.
Tomeck donated some of the hair from his chin.
“Hand of a betrayer. Hmmmm. That is a tough one. Hand of a
betrayer, eh?” Varus asked, “Hey, Unagi, who do we know that’s betrayed?
Remember when Auntie Murphy took control of you and you attacked us? I’m pretty
sure that counts. Hey, I’ve got a great idea. How about we cut your hand off
for the ceremony. We really need to close this gate before dark. We have two
potions of regeneration. After we cut your hand off, you can drink one of the
potions and grow it back. Piece of cake.”
Unagi could not tell if Varus was serious or not, but he
certainly seemed intent. Unagi declined. Varus seemed disappointed.
“Wait, what about those goblins downstairs. Those things
betray each other.” We went back down and retrieved one of the goblin’s hands. As
everyone watched uneasily, Unagi read the incantation and performed the
ceremony. At the end, the portal closed, much to our relief. Basel no longer
sensed anything from the lower planes. The town was restored. The fountain had
come back to life, and we could see that the statue of the heroine had red hair
and that the man she cradled been shot with several bolts. A rainbow of colors
flowed down her and into the fountain.
Magic/Treasure info from this and previous sessions
Haunted Village
·
2 potions of regeneration (Tomeck)
·
scroll of magic missile (Varus)
·
Boots of elvenkind (Basel). While you wear
these boots, your steps make no sound, regardless of the surface you are moving
across. You also have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks that rely on
moving silently.
·
Boots of
frost (Varus). These furred boots are snug and feel quite warm. While you
wear them, you gain the following benefits:
·
You have resistance to cold damage
·
You ignore difficult terrain created by ice or
snow
·
You can tolerate temperatures as low as −50
degrees Fahrenheit without any additional protection. If you wear heavy
clothes, you can tolerate temperatures as low as −100 degrees Fahrenheit.
·
Crystal orb of augury (2 questions/day) (Varus)
·
10 blue spinels (500 gp/each)
·
+2 longbow (Tyala)
·
+2 rapier (Varus)
·
+2 dagger (Basel)
·
wand of fireballs (Varus)
·
10K gp chandelier
·
Book: The Simple Slimes (10 days of study)
Unagi's intelligent magical shortsword
·
Unagi resisted at first, but was taken over by
the sword while trying to attune to it, unbeknownst to the others
·
electricity crackles along it. d6 extra
electrical damage
·
+1 to hit/damage
·
Endure Elements while wielding it
·
when attuned, proficient in History
·
Metamorphic
·
It dulls gems and jewelry, reducing value by at
least half
·
It is true neutral, and shows the wielder
glimpses of a judge making decisions
·
The wielder's alignment changes randomly every
day (determined by die roll)
·
The wielder does not care about events unless
they benefit personally
From previous sessions
Potions from Greystone Keep cache identified:
·
Potion of Greater Healing
·
Potion of Animal Friendship
·
Oil of Slipperiness
A Very 6th Level Spellbook
·
1st level: Magic Missile, Burning Hands, Shield,
Identify, Mage Armor, Floating Disk, Detect Magic, Color Spray
·
2nd level: Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, Web,
Invisibility
·
3rd level: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Fear, Fly
·
Value: ~9200 gp
·
Could have other uses
·
Bound in red dragon scales
Crafting Recipes
·
+1 magical weapon (arrows and bolts)
·
+1 light or medium armor
·
+2 ring of protection
·
Ring of invisibility, minor
·
+1 ring of protection
·
Bag of Holding I
·
Potion of healing
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