Upon a Dark Place: Part 2 Sessions 6-10

 

Halfbuilt in flames! The central stalactite had been knocked down and had fallen across a considerable part of the city. The group left their carts at the entrance and snuck in to see what was happening. They found the Kaismar, this world’s dark elves, capturing townsfolk and giant ogres with baskets on their backs trapping any they found hiding. The townsfolk were given two options, become slaves or die by fire in the pyre of others that had resisted. Many townsfolk resisted which only made the flames burn higher. The group attacked the Kaismar and were able to free the remaining townsfolk. One of the kaismar survived the attack because the creepy dark elf Nor that befriend the party and his “Sister” Nira incapacitated her with a paralysis poison. The party found out the other townsfolk not still in Halfbuilt were taken to New Gracklesnap, a dark dwarf stronghold a few days journey away. Before going after their allies, the party went to check on Lord Halibar and found him quite dead. With the help of both Bastion and Nor, they cast speak with dead, they were able to discern what had happened in the town and each was rewarded for the last mission and each given a note from Lord Halibar as well as a boon and a new ally, his treasury imp, Engire, that could help finance them. Lord Halibar had left each of the characters magic items.  They also found out about the mystical Udaren, a group hiding somewhere in the deep that may have abilities to help the party as well as strange things from each of their backgrounds. Burf turned the body to stone. They also question the drow priestess and found time was of the essence to save the townsfolk that had been taken. Wilbur was also approached by an elderly ratfolk lady that told him about her town, which had been wiped out by a strange man with the ability to control fire. Her son had wounded the man with a strange dagger, which she gave to Wilbur, and then disappeared into the crowd.

On quest of vengeance the party found the raiders had left Black Bettie alone, or at least they found a few kaismar bodies in parts near the farmhouse she was sequestered in. They let her out and with the help of a goblin friend Corvo were able to ride all the way to New Gracklesnap in a few hours by cutting a path through the stone itself. Once there, they noted a small encampment outside town full of Kaismar and prisoners. They snuck in and got many of the prisoners out with clever lies of Corvo and all was going well until the priestess in charge and her night companion, a tiefling sorceress, came out of their shared tent and noticed not only the party but the fleeing prisoners and the light bridges Bastion created as ramps. Using their new found magic items from Lord Halibar they defeated the priestess and a few of her guards and the tiefling left a dire warning with Zamira and disappeared with teleportation magic. They were able to loot the tent and found a chest with strange broken Udaren sun stone. The party made their way back to Halfbuilt and put their heads together to find a new solution to this new problem of homeless Halfbuilt. The druid Burf remembered a cave to the north that had everything needed for a new home but could not remember why it was abandoned. The party made some blood deals by selling their blood to Nor, met with townsfolk and eventually borrowed Toppa the bard to adventure to the north. Nor also looked at Wilbur’s new dagger, finding it was made of some sort of angel bone and with a blood magic spell they learned about the human fire mage and the fire cult he was a part of. The rest of Halfbuilt agreed to give the party a few days head start again and follow in their wake with the other group of heroes working as guards in the process.

The abandoned town was supposedly near the towns of Lowgren and Latiea. The party was not quite as fascinated with the stories of Stormcroak that Toppa was preaching and eventually came across a passed-out traveler face down on the cavern floor. They woke him up and he claimed to be a simple mage named Victor looking to fix the portals of the Deep and had a summoned dragon friend. He looked human and gave them great bits of information about the goings on within the city of New Gracklesnap as well as the Kaisimar capitol city Korshad. After helping him get back on his feet they brought him with to explore some of the tunnels. When they rested, there was a commotion when a strange tentacled man flew past the group on watch and told them to make ready as a group of odd dwarves came down the tunnel yelling about a traitor. When pressed for information the dwarves’ forms twisted into horrible fleshy monster the party quickly went into combat mode and were able to save their newfound friend. After combat, the goblin pressed the tentacle man for payment and was promptly stunned and the man faded into the darkness. The party was also dismayed in their friend Victor, who had done nothing but cower behind his dragon from the monsters, even Toppa helped.

They continued on their path until they found a large nexus of chambers and saw a giant slug being eaten by three overly large bugmen. Bastion hit the slug with a daylight rock startling the bugmen and combat ensued. Their allies helped control the battlefield while the party dealt damage quickly enough to drop all three foes in short work, sending bugmen parts all about the cavern. The next challenge the party faced a corridor that crackled as they walked on it. After noticing all the bones, the party saw an obviously trying to hide horrible giant eyed cave beast that blasted them with a spell of confusion. All three of their newer allies started flailing around like madmen and the oracle Bastion almost was bitten in half by Victor’s dragon. The party attacked the beast and made very short work of it. They pressed onward after bandaging their wounds with magic.

After days of traveling, they found the abandoned city and started investigating the buildings finding most of them decrepit they found a house that was impervious to wear and tear but had a dead tentacle faced man husk in an armoire. Cecil saw something either flying through the water fall either on its way in or out of a cave but was not sure. They investigated the town hall and found the vault and a few other magic bits. They crossed a main thoroughfare and four ghosts appeared and started chanting a fell chant. The party started attacking them to no avail as lightning cut across the street hitting a few of them. Victor was knocked out and his dragon disappeared. Nimhe saw something strange when the lighting blasted, it seemed to come from a point in space lined with eyes and teeth. She blindly felt her way around and felt something warm, soft, and fluttery like a thousand eyelids blissfully opening and closing then the grazing of teeth passed by her hands. She grabbed it and attempted to grapple it. As she started compressing, it became visible and left a shell of itself in her grip having teleported away and behind the rest of the group, blasting them with more magic. The group beat the hell out of it and it kept jumping to another clone until Cecil was able to smash its core. They picked themselves up and went to check on Victor, finding the skin on his face mostly featureless and eyes white as pearl. He was a changeling or shadow man. Then Zamira stabbed him in his “god damned throat”, tied him up, and they interrogated him just short of torture. They found out quite a bit about the slave markets and strange creatures known as the formless. They made their way with him in tow to the water fall and into the cave. The cave was full of bones of a staggering number of creatures all with the same part of their skull missing as well as a pedestal with a strange black broken urn covered in eyes and teeth. The goblin smashed it into a fine powder and they left, sealing off the room. They rested and waited until the goblins, mushroom men, and survivors of Halfbuilt arrived.

Images created in Heroforge