November 25th, 2023

Iustitia, Ignis 9th, 1194 (Continuted)

We continue exploring and find a large room with an altar to Heltrex. Graynor notices that the area is haunted and alerts us, resulting in us being unaffected. On the walls, written in Abyssal, are descriptions of all kinds of nightmares.

Within a secret room are two incorporeal undead that Graynor identifies as haunts. Without a powerful spell, dispel evil, we can only disperse them for a few days. We disperse them and search the room. According to Sigmund, the Covenant of Tribulation (Heltrex) would drug and torture people and leave them in a room like this until they are scared to death.

When we take stairs down to a deeper level and Ralzer notices that the building is not in as good repair; whatever was preserving it is not present here. Most of the rooms down here look as if they’ve been abandoned for 50-60 years. We encounter more haunts– it seems that only apparitions of church victims remain down here. Even the furniture was taken, as if whomever left wasn’t in a hurry and may have just found a better place.

We venture back out of this structure to rest the night.

Mors, Ignis 10th, 1194

Each one of us had an uneasy sleep due to nightmares.

We head back down and find a shimmering portal that looks like the tear to the plane of water and the desert. This one doesn’t react to us like the prismatic strand on the first floor and Ralzer goes through to explore. It looks like he’s underground; it smells like a cave and there is some minor luminescence from flora.

Ralzer returns through the portal and tells of us of a statue that he saw, which is identified as an mind flayer illithid. Illithids are dangerous, very smart spell casters that use mind control to enslave people. Ty knows of them from The Souls of the Revenged, in which a mind flayer (Zyllyzx) enslaved the priest of a the Home Foundation (Cassilda) to convince his congregation to pledge their afterlives to the service of another evil being, Bartandalus. A paladin of Cassilda in ages past defeated Bartandalus and, upon retiring, founded this church.

We all enter the portal and find that sounds in this place are a little muffled; it’s most noticeable on loud things, like Graynor’s armor and Ralzer’s gun.

In one area we find a phase spider, as identified by Ralzer. We convince it that we are not a threat and leave. Ralzer says that they have a potent and dangerous venom and it’s best to not get involved.

In another alcove is a gelatinous cube. Ty remembers them from The Sapient Hypotenuse. An insane cabal of ridiculed mathmagicians is attempting to discover the Sapient Hypotenuse in order to restore the reputation among their scholarly peers. In one attempt to contact the Sapient Hypotenuse, the cult sacrifices a gelatinous cube and fails to draw the attention of the Sapient Hypotenuse. Investigator Vale was hired by this cabal to capture the gelatinous cube for their ritual, as it has “an abundance of right angles”.

Amongst the gelatinous cube are some coins; they do not look like any of the coins we are familiar with. They contain images of landscapes that none of us recognize.

We explore the rest of the complex and it looks as if we are circling some kind of structure, but cannot find a way in. We find more illithid statues, some of which are holding glowing orbs.

Ty uses Empty Step to breach the walls of the structure. Inside is clearly an elder brain, lord of illithid colonies. It doesn’t appear to notice Ty at all. We then decide to leave this area back through the portal.

We go investigate the prismatic strand portal. It takes us to a shore under a night sky (it should be afternoon), in which does not hold our stars or any moon. The lunar amulet does not function at all here and the sky doesn’t seem to be the same alien sky from Tolm’s cave. After a brief moment, the portal closes behind us. There is a small fishing boat nearby and what looks to be the remnants of a road.

November 4th, 2023

Terra, Ignis 6th, 1194

We sell the loot and recuperate. We are unable to sell the scroll of binding and will have to try selling it in Ironwald Downs. While shopping we find a merchant selling the Stormwalker’s Attire. Mayor Heggry has arranged nice accommodations for us while we stay in the city.

Forte, Ignis 7th, 1194

We discuss our next moves and return the mithral sword to the Eldreen family. We are pretty certain that Crove’s cabal, the Keepers of the Oldest, is not what the calendar was portending.

Ralzer researches the city records and comes up with the following timeline.

• Before 950B – Independent city – Followers of the Old Cults
• 950B-568B – Independent city – Kel’Quay worshipers, farmers, hunters, woodworkers
• 568B-546B – Independent city – Mercenaries, barbarians, warmongers
• 546B-348B – Independent city – Kel’Quay worshipers, hunters, soldiers
• 348B-305B – Independent city – Bandits, mercenaries, slavers, thieves
• 305B-118B – Orc city – Barbarians, slavers
• 118B-338 – Undead city – Minions of the Undying Conqueror (lich warlord)
• 338-705 – Independent city – Eliaz worshipers
• 705-743 – Abandoned – Ghosts, scattered plague survivors (bubonic)
• 743-1194 – Blackstone city – Current occupants

Sigmund talks to the mayor and Rupman. Rupman gives us directions to the derro city and he doesn’t believe that the derro pose a threat to the city; as far as he knows, they keep to themselves. He doesn’t know any more about the Old Gods than we already know and suggests that Crove may have secret rooms in the basement of the asylum that we didn’t find.

Ty and Graynor gather information around town and hear rumors of a black market in the undercity.

We settle on doing a thorough search of the asylum basement. We investigate the morlock’s cell, which just leads to another cell. The morlock has no useful information for us. We find a secret library near Crove’s quarters– inside are 4 magic scrolls, research notes, nasty poetry, and a spellbook. The books in this library are quite old and we find some tomes on the Great Old Ones.

Bellum, Ignis 8th, 1194

We finish search the asylum, finding nothing else of note. We release the morlock into the undercity.

Ralzer starts reading the Pnakotic Manuscripts and Sigmund will try and read more of Ty’s book. He finds a passage about how He seeks for those with a spark and will send armies out to find them (just like the one we saw briefly). It mentions debauched ones, degraded ones, fiends of exalted excess, and refers to the leader figure as a prince of demons. We should learn more of these creatures to prepare.

Ty goes to the library to read recreationally. While there she overhears an Investigator Vale book club meeting; they meet on Bellum’s in the evening. She starts reading The Crimson Rite and finds a passage in which Vale must outwit four spawns of the Dark Tapestry; they sound very similar to the beast that the Keepers of the Oldest summoned. They deal extra damage to structures, have tenuous natural invisibility, are very intelligent, and some can cast spells spontaneously. They have many different appearances and vary greatly in size, some even look humanoid. There are old stories about how they were created to destroy life on planets. Ty checks out the book; Sigmund is dismayed.

Iustitia, Ignis 9th, 1194

Ralzer finishes reading the Pnakotic Manuscripts and gains insight into conjuration magic and the Outer Gods.

We try and trace Crove’s steps in the undercity, going to the derro town first. When we encouter some derro, we introduce ourselves with the names we provided earlier. They will escort us to their settlement and we will meet with Chief Sadek. Unfortunately, Sadek does not know what Crove was looking for down here.

We leave the town and begin retracing Crove’s exploration. We start with a route that Crove took to an area in which he did some thorough exploring. The area is at least 1,000 years old, which puts it in the age of the Undying Conqueror. There are statues of rats with their paws wrapped in chains; the rat is the favored beast of Heltrex and this could be related to her.

Ralzer notices that the stonework here is in very good condition. We feel the same sensation that we felt just before the arcane tentacles attacked or when we saw that marching army. Going forward, we’ll call this sensation an unveiling.

In one room there is a thin, prismatic strand that is very hard to see. When we approach, it expands and looks like a portal. It retracts about 30 seconds after we leave it and does not respond when Luna approaches by herself. Perhaps it’s keyed to our sparks? We’ll continue to explore the complex before interacting with this portal.

We encounter and kill a cacophonic echo, an incorporeal undead of auditory themes.

October 28th, 2023

Mare, Ignis 5th, 1194 (Continued)

We continue our search of the premises– finding a library focused on ancient cults and savage rituals, another related to astronomy, astrology, and eldritch knowledge, and a third with books on torture, mental illness, and old gods. Rupman looks genuinely horrified by this asylum.

We clear the ground floor and begin exploring the basement. We find a row of cells, the first of which is empty, containing only blood and filth. The second has a morlock and a small passage that the morlock moves into. The third has a man named Ploog, who asks us for help and says he was captured recently and lobotomized. The fourth has a large emaciated, unconscious man. At the end of the hall we find a room with a chaos beast and kill it. Rupman confirms that it is not what they summoned.

In a laboratory we find a small blue person performing an autopsy on a lunatic. After a quick battle, he surrenders to Graynor, as if he knows Madri must accept. Sigmund uses a spell to communicate with this creature, finding out that he is a derro and wants to return to the undercity. Crove made a deal with the derro to provide him bodies to autopsy in exchange for unmolested travel through the undercity. We try to make a similar deal in exchange for his life. He says he will bring it up to the chief and asks for our names to provide to his chief for our safe passage. Sigmund gives the derro a fake name, Ian Goodfellow. Ty’s not sure why Sigmund gave another name, so she follows his lead and gives the name Mackenzie.

We encounter Crove and kill him. While fighting Crove, it sounds as if something very large is moving towards us. The beast breaks through the ceiling and attacks us. During the fight with the beast, Sigmund casts spiritual weapon, which manifests as a chakram, the favored weapon of Avarra. It’s a horrid battle, but we prevail.

Crove has a holy symbol with the same image as that blood pattern that we saw yesterday. Among his belongings is a crude map of the undercity; it looks as if he was exploring it.

We try to drag the beast out, but it’s too heavy, so we just take the head to show the mayor. Mayor Heggry is happy to hear that we have dealt with his problem and awards us the remainder of our payment. He informs us that Hyve was killed by the beast after we left him in the custody of the guards; that makes Rupman the only surviving member of this group.

Mayor Heggry ponders Rupman’s punishment and we vouch that he was cooperative in our investigation and assisted us. We return his bonded ring and he’ll get his spellbook after Ralzer spends a few days copying some spells from it. We’ll spend a couple days resting and selling loot.

October 14th, 2023

Vita, Ignis 4th, 1194 (Continued)

We try to interrogate Rupman, but he only talks to Graynor at first, ignoring everyone else. He begs for help against that monster and says that it’s a spawn of the Dark Tapestry and will become more powerful if it kills him. They performed a ritual to drain its power this morning, which will be restored if it kills the others. Their goal was to control it, but it was too strong. We agree to unbind him and take him to the other scenes to determine if any of the bodies are his accomplices. We need to find out if this beast can track them somehow.

The only other body he can ID is Glem Baskerwhel, who is the other corpse that was found with Marshan. He says that Crove would be at his asylum, and Hyve stays at an abandoned church; neither of these locations have been attacked.

We devise a plan of having the town criers proclaim that an individual has been apprehended and is being kept at a specific location, in an effort to lure it into an ambush. We consult with the mayor about our plan and possible collateral damage and find out that there has been another attack. According to witnesses, it is now invisible. Some townsfolk have begun to riot.

It’s getting really late, so while the town criers are doing their part of our plan, we will be resting at our ambush location. During rest Sigmund uses some magic to read the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which looks to be a working spellbook as well. There are some warnings to summoning a creature, just like Rupman talked about.

Night passes.

Mare, Ignis 5th, 1194

The beast attacked Rupman’s vat warehouse during the night. We head to the abandoned church, which is identified as being dedicated to Eliaz. There is a comprehensive collection of Blackstone history books here and a trap door that leads down to some natural cavern system.

In the cavern we are ambushed by Hyve and he snipes Rupman, then grenades him, nearly killing him. He gives us a really long chase, but we finally capture him after his fungus creatures knock him unconcious. Amongst the fungus there is an intact skeleton with a guard uniform and a magic mithral longsword. The area looks as if Hyve was using it to make, and maybe test, poisons. We drop off Hyve at the nearest guard post and ask about the mithral sword; it belongs to Sgt. Eldreen and is enchanted with aberration bane.

We head over to the asylum; inside we are greeted by patients, strapped in jackets, rolling around the ground and screaming. Orderlies then begin to assault us and we retaliate. In a small room attached to the kitchen is a narrow hole that has faint gurgling and shuffling noises coming from it. The hole smells really bad and Sigmund tosses a lit object down into it; it falls far and lands in water, sinking out of sight.

October 8th, 2023

Iustitia, Ignis 2nd, 1194

In the early morning an Advocate Destroyer of Avarra comes bearing gifts for our journey. He said that the goddess told them last night to make these scrolls for us. We then hit the road.

Mors, Ignis 3rd, 1194

While traveling we all suddenly feel a strange sensation and Luna becomes spooked. The scenery starts to shift, looking similar to when Ty would go ethereal. Approaching us on the road are six debauched ones on foot, another nine are riding ostrich-ish birds with green plumage; Ralzer identifies these are degraded ones (Planes 30), a large creature that looks like a cross between a scorpion, a lizard, and a human, and a large, blue-skinned creature wearing purple and black robes (Uunas‘ colors). The latter has a presence that exudes command. They don’t notice us at all and march in the direction that we came from. The vision lasts about 30 seconds before settling back to reality. Ty hops ethereal to see if she can find the platoon, but finds no evidence. Could this perhaps been a vision of the past or future?

Vita, Ignis 4th, 1194

While approaching Crestfall we hear a town crier proclaiming a search for heroes and to go to the Crown Manor. According to the guard, a great beast burst out of a house and then escaped a few hours ago in a district called the Slipper Market. The creature is described as a writhing mass of tentacles. The town is really tightly packed with buildings and only guards are outside in the streets.

We head to the Crown Manor and meet Vanton Heggry, the mayor. The mayor explains that this creature came up from below, burst through a building, killed some people, and then descended again. It has since repeated this a few more times in the city. The beast emerges from sinkholes that are coated in a foul smelling slime. Judging by the description Ralzer thinks it could be a chaos beast. Mayor Heggry gives us 1,500gp up front to help with this problem.

We visit the first site– the home of Marshan, a retired adventurer. One of the victims looks as if he was rung out like a wet towel; Marshan is not amongst the dead. Ralzer inspects the building; it, along with much of the city, is made out of midden stone, a cheaper stone alternative. On the side of the building opposite of Marshan’s home is what looks like a spiral blood pattern. The pattern seems similar to Dark Tapestry imagery and portals. Sigmund believes it could be related to a specific outer god. Inside the ruined house is a nauseating smell of wet fur, moist air and decay. There is a modest book collection here with subjects on astronomy and Crestfall history. We descend into the basement.

The basement is not typical– it contains several sarcophagi and a stuck stone door, which we are unable to breach. The slime trail leads to an 800ft. descending stairway that eventually leads to a moldy, moist cavern. A ghoul, Yarresh, is guarding two bodies near an altar surrounded by barren trees. On the altar is a book that the ghoul won’t let us near. Ty sneaks a look at the title, “Pnakotic Manuscripts”. According to Ralzer, the book is about conjuration and portals, gods and magic of old cults, and was originally written in Aklo. The book could hold valuable information. On closer inspection, both of the bodies are without blood. Graynor doesn’t want to engage in any quest to help this ghoul and get that book, so we end up killing him swiftly and take his magic ring, too.

The book has some inscriptions on the front page in Aklo and underneath are five signatures:

Sulm Marshan
Glem Baskerwhel
Waldur Crove
Arlend Hyve
Rupman Myre

Judging by the handwriting, the rest of the notes in the book are by Waldur.

Upon taking a closer look at the trees, Sigmund believes they were grown with necromancy magic. They are also decorated with bone fetish charms. Down one tunnel we find some recently (within a year) installed iron bars. We find a campsite with books and notes written in Aklo, which we take. We then return to the surface, bringing the two human corpses.

The guards inform us that there as been another monster encounter in the city and IDs one of the bodies as Marshan. We head to the newest beast emergence, the home of Oliver Barker (deceased). There is a similar hole in the house with slime up top, but nothing below. Based on the damage around the area of the hole, Ralzer doesn’t believe it went this way. Using a bit of the slime, we try to have Luna track its scent.

Luna leads us to the docks before losing the scent. We ask the guards about the other names in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and he recognizes Rupman, who has a place close to the docks where he makes midden stone. Inside are disgusting vats of fuming filth manned by undead workers. The zombies and an old, drunk arcane spellcaster assaults us. We destroy the zombies and subdue the drunk old man, whom the guard IDs as Rupman.

August 19th, 2023

Vita, Draconnes 13th, 1194

While selling stuff in Rivershade we try to check on the prisoners that we released, Geradil and Courana, but have no luck. There are quite a few traders in town and Graynor asks around about information on the two set items that we found. The Blade of Harmony, part of the shield set, is part of someone’s collection in Ironwald Downs. Ralzer makes some bullets and Sigmund starts teaching Luna a new trick. We will leave for Ironwald Downs in the morning.

Mare, Draconnes 21st, 1194

We get a sending from Nadal first thing in the morning — “We found more information on the calendar that could be related to our situation. Are you available to investigate?”

We arrive in Ironwald Downs around noon and visit the Temple of The Inevitable Order. Nadal looks overworked and we fill him in on what we have learned since our last meeting. He is not aware of any Bethany Swan. While the Calendar will take much time to fully investigate, it is suggesting that there is, or will be, activity in the city of Crestfall, which is about 11 days away. According to the Calendar, there is a cult to a Great Old One there, which are similar to, if not related to, the Outer Gods. Crestfall has a history with these cults. Nadal tells us that Laern Zolerii has the Blade of Harmony; he’s an abjurist that Graynor has worked with before and is part of the Magic Circle, a collection of spellcasters. Nadal also mentions that sendings have not always been working properly as of late.

After our visit with Nadal we pay a visit to Laern Zolerii. He and Graynor catch up and Laern will sell him the sword at a discount if we perform a job for him. He has a business installing security and would like our help in testing some defenses, which should only take a few hours tomorrow morning.

Terra, Draconnes 22nd, 1194

We meet with Laern in the morning and test his security system in an illusion simulation and earn a discount purchase for the sword.

Ralzer will be crafting for the rest of the day, Graynor and Sigmund are finishing shopping, and Ty will be reading in the library. After their shopping spree, Graynor and Sigmund separately look into Bethany Swan and if “The Oracle” is a person. They find out that Bethany Swan is an advisor to the royal family of Jasper and is a human divine caster. We can’t, however, determine how she knows Ty or how she knows that Ty has that book. Here  are the people that know that Ty has her dangerous book: Nadal, Tharivol, Mikail, and Expounder Victoria.

Forte, Draconnes 23rd, 1194

Before we leave for Crestfall, we talk to Nadal and Laern. Nadal will send word ahead of us to the Inevitable Order in Crestfall and we ask him to look into Bethany; which god does she worship? Laern is nor familiar with the other set items belonging to the Helm of the Warlord. He does point out that the helm has the maker mark of Godo and that other Godo pieces are located at the Salamanca, a sorcery school run by devils. He’s not sure where the school is located and Ralzer thinks that the bit about the devils may be just a rumor.

We leave for Cresftfall, which will take about 11 days, including a stop at Sigmund’s hometown of Delanshire.

Bellum, Ignis 1st, 1194

We arrive in Delanshire and Sigmund and Ralzer visit the Well of Knowledge. In addition to the normal Sustainers (Avarra’s forbidden knowledge sect) that look after the well, there are also Destroyers (Avarra’s death sect) guarding it. Sigmund uses the well to talk to his grandmother. Ralzer wants to get a sample of the water, but is denied.

August 12th, 2023

Forte, Draconnes 9th, 1194 (Continued)

While resting up in the posh room, we overhear some duergar moving in the halls discussing a problem that needs to be taken care of. When we ask them about it they accuse us of releasing something. Apparently their camp has been recently assaulted. We follow them to their camp. They ask us if we found a portal in the sinkhole, saying that a “demon” attacked them and they tracked it back to that portal. The demon is a female humanoid, about seven feet tall with purple-blue skin. She was repelled, but not killed. They want us to close the portal and Sigmund asks for payment for this service. They refuse and tell us to leave. During the argument between the duergar and Sigmund a door opens and a heavily armed duergar emerges. He tells the others to stop and, “tell the dragon our contract is over, we’re leaving”.

While the dwarves are prepping to leave and we are discussing our next steps, a door opens and three gray, six-legged canine creatures emerge from seemingly out of nowhere and attack us. They are accompanied by a slender gray skinned humanoid. These could be a void walker and void hounds. The void walker is knocked unconscious by Ralzer and we kill the hounds, then begin securing the area with a temporary truce with the duergar. Ralzer wants to let the void walker go so he can magically spy on it later. Before we let our prisoner awaken we decide to visit the portal again.

We settle on rebuilding the wall to block the portal and collapse part of the room and the entrance; spending most of the day plugging the portal. Afterwards, we attempt to interrogate the void walker prisoner. He blocks our perception of him and then teleports away.

Bellum, Draconnes 10th, 1194

We continue exploring the duergar area and find a library. Sigmund finds two Investigator Vale novels and keeps them to himself. On the floor is a summoning circle carved into the ground. It was once filled with mithril, but has been stripped; we take the flecks of mithril that are left behind. In the kitchen we find an animated table and learn that if we tell the animated guards to stand down in dwarven, they will obey.

Sigmund wants to speak to Kaarghaz of the stink lizards to warn them of this demon lady. Kaarghaz is aware of her and invites us to visit if we are in the area again.

Before we leave the dwarven hold we check on our sinkhole barricade and it looks as if something has tried digging through it and Sigmund spots some bipedal hoofprints in the area. We camp in the area hoping to catch whatever is doing this and we find our seven foot tall purple-ish lady in the area with the stars on the ceiling. Ralzer believes she is a rare kind of demon, a Debauched One (the planes check: 30) and we engage in conversation.

She describes herself as a tourist and asks if we know anything about the stars in this room. She informs us that they are the constellations of Kaajh’Kaalbh (hearing this name out loud causes us great pain; she is unaffected); he is also known as The Void. The constellations are a copy of the sky where he is from, or once was as he moves around. She tells us that saying his name can alter reality. She was most recently visiting a rather large void world, the one we found down here, but that she was not the one digging into that wall.

She explains that if The Void was called here, there would be signs as he approached. Plants would grow wild, natural growth will look like the entangle spell, and normal animals would have trouble sleeping due to too much energy. Magic would also be altered, it would be more difficult to concentrate on spells, caster levels would be reduced, and wild magic would start to happen. The tentacles are his creation, their presence indicates that he was, indeed, called. When asked how we stop him coming here, she suggests that we interrupt the call.

Regarding the Rite of Six Shadows, she says that if someone completed that ritual it is not a good sign. It can contact a greater demon, turn a mortal into a demon, or turn a demon into a greater demon. We bid our farewells and Graynor is concerned of what she will do once she starts “touring”.

We will now begin our journey back to Ironwald Downs. Three days travel back to Rivershade and a day there selling our loot.

July 29th, 2023

Terra, Dracones 8th, 1194

There’s a room that’s filled three feet deep with brackish water. In the back corner is the skeleton of an orc and some magic potions. Submerged in the water is an orrery, astrolabe, telescope, lots of miscellaneous astronomy tools, and some nice buoys. There’s something hidden behind the wall that starts emitting a pale purple light when Ralzer tries to manipulate the orifice. With Ralzer’s direction we are able to safely excavate around the light, which looks to be a portal.

After some testing, we enter to the portal and find it very similar to the void realm that Graynor visited. The landscape is mostly just sand dunes, but the area is all in grayscale with a purple hue. We see a colossal manta ray-ish creature flying around and come across a field of jellyfish.

Sigmund attempts cast detect magic. The spell doesn’t work, but he gets temporary some HP. Ralzer tries to cast a spell and it works normally. Sigmund tries to cast detect magic again, this time he creates a lot of grease. Through experimentation we determine that spell, spell-like, and spell completion do not always function normally; supernatural abilities do not seem to be altered.

We leave the void realm and discuss our options, settling on talking with the duergar. The duergar will let us explore their area,  with an escort through some of it, for a fee of 400gp. Ghared mentions an area that is infested with undead and another area with a dragon in an underground lake. The undead area has an orc wight and an allip.

We begin to explore the undead area first. One of the doors that lead there has a warning written in Orc, “Beyond this door the Maker of Death is chained. May he gnaw on his own hate until the sun dies and all things end.” We ignore the warning and enter. Inside we find the orc wight and two ogre skeletons, which we destroy. Down the hall we encounter a room full of dwarven skeletons, easily dispatched by Graynor. The hall opens to a larger room and we find, and destroy, the allip. The allip looked as if it might have been a priest in its prior life.

Most of the rooms here look to have already been looted. One room, which has not been looted, has an animated rug protecting it. Based on the personal effects we find inside, the room belonged to Arundel, a priest that traveled with Durgeddin. After Durgeddin died, Arundel started to create undead from the bodies to defend the fortress. His journal details his descent into madness. We rest in this room.

Forte, Dracones 9th, 1194

We delay our exploration to wait for Graynor to recover from the negative level he received from the wight. While waiting, Ralzer finds out that he is diseased with the Shakes. We spend the day recovering.

July 22nd, 2023

Vita, Dracones 6th, 1194 (Continued)

We make camp in the grick’s den.

Mare, Dracones 7th, 1194

We find a white scaled lizard the size of a horse chained to the wall in a hard to access part of the cavern. Sigmund calms it down long enough for Ty to unlock its shackles. It then tries to run away with Sigmund. Sigmund delivers the killing blow, while grappled, with his revenge knife.

We encounter another group of smelly lizard people. Their area has enough food to sustain a tribe for a significant amount of time. Nearby we find their warren and attempt to communicate and ask about the dwarves. They claim that duergar are not in their warren and ask us to leave. Sigmund wants to negotiate safe travel through their territory and is directed to ask their leader, Kaarghaz. Kaarghaz agrees to not attack us, if we leave his people alone.

We take the stairs down, which are behind a very difficult to unlock door. They lead to a very polished stone worked area. We can hear some faint hammering in the distance. Someone is warning us to leave, but we can’t see them. For 400gp they will grant us safe passage–we pay. Three duergar appear as if they were invisible. Ghared is the duergar that is talking with us. We ask her about star maps and prophecies and she directs us to a place they call the Sinkhole. Ghared and the other two are using this area because of the good forge that Durgeddin left behind. No one else has been here asking questions, so no Tolm. We sell her some of our loot and Ralzer buys some black powder. We bid our goodbyes and head to the Sinkhole.

In a disgusting store room is a gray ooze. In The Lord of the God Kings, the sequel to The Wickedly Weaved Webs, the duergar used a gray ooze in a stone bird bath as an enhanced interrogation technique. The cabal leader, Brezel Largith, wants the summoning incantation for the demon Legiticus the Unceasing and has captured Leera Turnsin, an elven maiden and expert in demonology. Investigator Vale needs to rescue her before Brezel succeeds.

In another area Ty and Graynor feel a similar sensation wot when Ty when ethereal near the calendar and when Graynor visited the Void Realm. The ceiling in the area has some star mapping on it and Sigmund copies it. Sigmund believes these stars are not from this planet’s sky, nor are they the same from Tolm’s ceiling. Ty goes ethereal and sees the same shimmering effect as he did near the calendar. It’s confined to a smaller area; she can see the borders. Her book glows brighter. While we are leaving, what looks like three small arcane tentacles and another pale yellow tentacle with white suction cups filled with tiny tentacles attack us. When we kill them they disappear slowly.

Afterwards, we camp and identify magic items.

July 15th, 2023

Mors, Dracones 5th, 1194 (Continued)

We find a secret door that looks as if the orcs didn’t know about it; it leads to a barracks. Down the hall there is a double door with a bloody human skull staked to it. Inside is Zeltron, an ogre divine caster who bears the holy symbol of Thrax–Thrax is the god of hate, malice, and madness. We kill Zeltron and camp in the barracks.

Vita, Dracones 6th, 1194

We find a pair of prisoners from Rivershade, Geradil and Courana; whom we release after making sure the area is secured. Beyond a barricaded hallway we encounter four stirges and a large set of stairs going down. In what looks like a shabby office we find a secret door that leads back to the main area. Sigmund tracks three individuals using this secret passage to escape within the last day or so.

We take the stairs down, which lead to a large, natural cavern system. There are a lot of stirges down here. In a room with yellow mold are two dwarf skeletons, one has a glowing bastard sword with a maker’s mark on it. We burn down the mold and take the sword.

Luna smells something she doesn’t like and soon after we all discover the awful smell. It turns out to belongs to some hiding lizard people. They have a pet bear and Ralzer obliterates its with a scorching ray and the lizard people go down shortly after.

While exploring Ty spots a grick ambush. Gricks are ambush predator aberrations. In The Sundered Carapace some gricks are living in a decayed corpse of an enormous creature that Investigator Vale is exploring. He encounters a pair of them slowly consuming an enlarged parasite.