Abyss Modified Session 29: Flights, Discoveries, and Face Bites

Dinak the drow gloomstalker ranger, Buttercup the tiefling swashbuckler bard, Orion the tiefling way of the long death monk, Xanaphia the human wild mage, Thelrum the tortle abjuration wizard, Syre the Yuan-ti whisper bard, Godric the half elf hexblade bard, and Drifting Cloud the tabaxi grave cleric of Anubis made their way to Longsaddle. It was an uneventful journey to the town, and a few well-placed history and arcana checks got them some background history for both the Harpells and Longsaddle itself. They landed their airship near the town and debated on taking their skeletal horses with them.

They ended up walking into town seeing all sorts of normal townsfolk running all sorts of general goods and butcher shops. They gave the party quizzical looks, the group does contain a few different animal people and two tieflings, while they were looking around a non-descript man in bland wizard robes approached them and asked if they were new around town. They told them they needed information about demons, magical locations, and magic and he told them he better take them to the headmistress. They walked and talked with him and loud booms could be heard in the distance. They found the Ivy Manor, a building that looked slightly like a large boot covered in greenery. Their guide was pointing out different sights and before the party knew it they were inside the mansion. They saw two golems walking with a large metallic beam of some kind and their guide realized the golems were going the wrong way and crashing could be heard from that direction. He pointed the party to follow the green lights up the circular stairs to the headmistresses meeting chambers, and he ran off after the golems.

Drifting Cloud was filled with cat folk ancestry random zoomy lust, like a cat at two in the morning attempting to break the sound barrier, and sprinted up the stairs at full speed, leaving his brethren behind. The rest of the party followed, just not as quickly. They found themselves within a large room with a large wooden double door on the far wall and chairs lining the other walls along with six suits of armor. The large doors were closed and Godric knocked on them. A small note came out from under the door, with the words “I will be right out, just finishing up with something here”. He wrote “ok” and sent it back under the door. The doors opened a few moments later and Danica Harpell, the current head mistress and leader of the Ivy Mansion.

She bade them sit, and summoned a large war table with the realms carved into its surface. The party sat with her and discussed what brought them to her in this time of troubles, from the excursion to the Underdark, the rise of the demons, the appearance of Demogorgon, the mushroom wedding taking place soon, the return to the surface, Daddy Fate, and their patron the Companion (nicknamed Beelzeboss, who had told them not to tell anyone about his involvement), and their quest to fix the fallen Mystra temples. Danica gave them advice and a history lesson about the desert they were traveling to first. She pointed out on her map where the High Ice, the Plain of Standing Stones, and the Anauroch desert all met, that was the location of their first temple. She also told them about the fall of Netheril and mentioned Mystra and the flying cities. Xanaphia asked Danica if she knew her grandmother, also named Xanaphia, Danica offered to search her records and see what she could come up with for her.

The group asked for more help and asked why the Ivy Mansion was not launching into attacks against the demons. Danica explained that while they were practitioners of the arcane, many demons were resistant to some magics, also most of the people living in the town are without magic and many of the people in the mansion are just learning to use spells. More of the skilled mages are already out working on other world threatening disasters and would be unable to help until their problems were solved. She was able to give them three barrels of ever flowing water for their airship. They thanked her and with their information and a location, headed back to their airship. Within moments of getting aboard they could tell something was wrong.

The aforementioned water barrels were there, but something else was as well. Thelrum cast see invisibility and could see a small child, maybe two-foot-tall, quietly making his way across the deck of the ship. Thelrum demanded the child empty his pockets. The child, scared because someone could see him while he was invisible, emptied everything out onto the deck of the ship. Small books, a wand, some trail rations, about three gold worth of assorted coins, and some minor spell components. He also has a small animal on him, which he dismissed. Ralph, the halfling child, explained the magic mansion was boring but still dangerous and did not want to stay there any longer, so when he saw a flying ship he decided to climb aboard and see who owned it. Drifting Cloud cast zone of truth and had his khopesh at the ready as the party grilled Ralph for more information. Eventually the group “adopted” Ralph, giving him the job of cleaning the ship and watching out for bad guys. Thelrum took him under his wing and taught him a few spells. Ralph learned unseen servant, making his chores that much easier.

A few uneventful days later they made it to the border of the Anauroch desert and a few miles further found the High Ice. While traveling south along the edge they found a half buried blue dragon of immense size. They landed the ship and started bashing the teeth out of the jaws. Drifting Cloud wanted claws, so he started digging into the sand. It was slow going but he found a bisected skeleton that looked like it had died fighting the dragon. They took the skeleton’s mithril spear and quite a few teeth back to the ship.

They followed the High Ice south east and eventually came to where the three edges met. There was a large strange mountain structure with a large crack on the side of it. They left Ralph with the ship, telling him to turn invisible if anyone got on the ship that he did not recognize, if all else failed use feather fall and jump off the ship. They also used the largest tooth as an anchor, which was pretty cool. They entered the crack and after a few minutes walking. Guided by Thelrum’s light they noticed the walls had strange pictographs and glyphs. They noticed the sand was collected strangely in the corners of the room and realized the entire structure was upside-down. They investigated the wall art and saw wizards fighting strange billowing windsock shaped monsters. They continued down the central hall and found another sandy room with a door to the north, south, and east, each corner had a blue light ball floating.  They listened carefully at the stone doors and could hear muffled movement on the other side. They arcane locked and alarmed the north and south and readied themselves at the southern door. They checked for traps, finding none and opened the door. Within they could see a broken guardroom, a large desk broken and again upside down, broken shelves, rotten clothing, weapons, two cloaked figures with oversized masks on their faces and red pinpoints in their eyes.

The two creatures rushed the party, wasted bodies covered in scraggly robes. Godric was engaged by one, it reached out and touched him, stunning him. The other creature ran up, its mask opening up into a giant maw, and engulfed Godric’s head, shoulders, and a bit of his chest and bit down. Godric’s allies attacked the creatures, driving them back and stabilizing the now bleeding out Godric. Orion and Buttercup stabbed and punched the creatures, Xanaphia used her elemental spells, Thelrum engulfed the creatures in elemental breath attacks, Syre used dissonant whispers on them, Drifing Cloud battered them with divine magic, and once back up Godric used his booming blade against the creatures.  They ended up driving the monsters back into the chamber they were hiding in and eventually defeating them. On further investigation they found this room was once a guard room and these creatures were some form of undead fiends, what appeared to be a mask was actually the face of the creature.

The party regrouped, healed their Godric a bit, and then opened the north door. Now knowing what these creatures were capable of the party was better prepared and quickly dispatched the two hiding in that room as well. They opened the east door and did not see anything moving in the chamber, there was just the eighty-foot-wide room about forty feet across and with a large broken dining table almost the length of the room broken on the floor and piles of rotted chairs. More blue lights sat in the corners and they can see a few doors leading out of the room. They locked the door with magic and are now making preparations to invade further in next session.