Upon a Dark Place Part 3: Sessions 11-15

 

The goblins and their constructs set to quick work on the city while the party wandered the town looking for any clues of what had else had happened here. Zamira found an ancient thieves’ guild hiding in plain sight with an odd symbol in a mini temple. Bastion found a temple to his goddess as well as a book of lore about her. The Nimhe found an area of houses build to her standards, and Cecil found an area of forges and some rare metals. The group bartered deals with townsfolk and Engire to finance a few purchases and made a few decisions. The party was going to travel south again to look at Daramander, a city of lamia that lost all of its men after being visited by the patchwork man. They found out someone else was looking for Zamira and might be from her old orphanage. The party also traded in Toppa for Lady Sharn and Tor, knowing their path leads them close to Stormcroak and they have no interest in stopping there. A few characters divulged backgrounds in a way to each other before setting out in to the wild. On their way they heard wolf sized cave crickets and used light to make them flee, right into a giant cavern with oddly shaped holes in the ceiling and strange white filaments hanging down. As crickets touched the filaments they were yanked by filaments and devoured by cave fishers. The group decided to create light and chase the crickets to one side and attempt to flee across the other. The barbarian took off running and the alchemist shot a fisher out of the ceiling as it attempted to grab the barbarian. The force of it caused more cave fishers to fall out of their holes and into the cricket herd. The party then fled and the alchemist guarded them as they made their way across, when it became his time to cross, he shot a cave fisher with another bomb arrow and a pile of burnt and dead fishers fell out the hole and he made his way across the chamber.

They found old almost abandoned dwarven ruins with magical runes and the Burf was able to speak with the door and find out things were inside and not alive. Once inside a golem like creature attacked the party, Burf made the ground under it shifting sands and it almost crushed the Cecil. Once the golem was proved beatable the group noticed another around the corner and Lady Sharn gave Victor a dwarven holy symbol and he caused the remaining stone guardian to return to its alcove. They found an old undead dwarven guardian with a portal and asked him for help and advice, he told them about the formless and showed them the group in a portal. The Formless stood around in a circle in the ruined city of Daramander. The Formless saw the party in the portal scrying device and the guardian panicked and closed it before Bastion could convince the party to jump through. After some consideration the dwarf teleported the party with the portal and the group ended out outside Latiea.

They made their way past all the secret guards and into the sprawling and bustling city. Quickly they were found by a charming street urchin that offered to give them a tour and seemed to be talking about taking them to a pub. When pressed with intimidation found out the urchin was an actor from the Stone Pub and was well into adulthood. For his deception and his being fearful of the Bastion and Zamira he bought the party drinks at a garden bar. Nimhe ate an alcoholic egg of unknown origin. The bar had had the egg pickled for years and no one was brave or drunk enough to eat it. Nimhe resisted the potential poison and was not seriously injured. The rest of the party drank and followed the alchemist to a bar his brother was working at, there were reunions and the party split up to find entertainment where they could. Burf and Cecil went to the fancy bar and after impressing the jerkish bouncer they threw gold over their shoulders and watched as urchins took out him out. They met a pretty elf man and bought mead from him, paying 600 gold a bottle. When they left, they split up, one going to Stone Pub, the other going to Egg bar. At egg bar Zamira and the Bastion saw a blue tiefling, named Blue, sitting at a table, very drunk talking to himself, they sat with him and got more information than required and were able to bluff and deceive him, borrowing his legal documents getting him to the auction coming up within the next few months. Wilbur and Nimhe both stayed the night at the Stone Pub. Everyone slept off the effects of an adventure well had.

In the morning the group was delivered missives to join the leader of Latiea, Lord Nessim at his estate at the center of town at the top of the Lord’s Step. Our new player was playing Tor, the swashbuckling cat person. The group met with a raven headed man named Nassim, he was the “mayor” and an eccentric collector of artifacts and antiquities in the Deep. They asked him numerous questions about magic items and portals as well as having him research the Formless and the Prophet of Flame. He had a contact on the surface world that might have more information on the strange Udaren sun stone they had found awhile back. The party was able to travel to the surface via the Faulty Portal tavern within Rhadamanthus and gained audience with the Radish man, or Robank of Tower Artifacts. They were met in the tavern by Drogo, a tiefling minion of Robanks’ and he led them to Tower Artifacts. They got a rapid tour of the grand city of Rhadamanthus and eventually got to the tower. Robank gave them the other half of the Udaren sun stone and the party has a direction to find the missing culture, once together there was a illuminated map that appeared on the back side. They also asked about terrible monsters known as the formless and learned about Cull and his offshoots. Robank also gave them huge bits of world history. They also stole a carpet from Nessim via Robank’s portal and with help from Barthog. Once they settled things with Nessim they were given info packets from him about the Prophet of Flame and the Formless. They gathered gear and traveled out into the deep to find the path of the Udaren. Their first step took them to a group of Kobolds that told them about a strange troll. They then went and killed the troll, which was an elder troll, or an ancient one. It was a difficult fight but they had the right tools for the job, fire and more fire.

On their travels they met an odd fey creature living in the tunnels and had traveled with him for a bit. This creature stole their food and was attempting to feed it to rocks in a cavern. When the party attempted to intervene, he became agitated and attacked the party, who were then forced to put him down. Zamira dealt the death blow and noticed something in the entryway of the cave, a large imposing figure made of black stone with gold eyes. Four figures also dropped from the ceiling and greeted the party, Bastion cast daylight and the figures started talking in strange floating symbols and also cast daylight. The figures were golden men standing around 7 feet tall and massively muscled. Realizing there was some odd similarity between these men and Bastion they stood down. Avoiding conflict, the party went back with them to their city where they found there were no women or children, just a giant feast, gold lined buildings, and massive pits of black clay. The Udaren, or the People of Telma as they call themselves, had been fighting the drow for many ages from the shadows, the head priest met with the party and revealed history of his people and asked Bastion where he came from, plot and character development was divulged. The party ate at the feast, a few went without food, thinking it to be poisoned. After attempting to flirt up one of the men folk Nimhe was informed that the Udaren, not having females, might not know what sex was. Her night ruined, Nimhe and her allies stayed the night quietly in town and awoke in the morning within the trials.

The Trials started with a massive lake filled with small islands and acid. The acrid smell was almost unbearable, burning their noses. The group noticed a small wooden boat that seemed immune to the acid’s effect but decided to take Bastion’s conjured moonlit bridges, a boon from his oracle of the heaven’s patron. They crossed the bridges, seeing that the acid was alive and attempting to reach around the bridges and pull them under. The group was able to mostly ignore the acid pseudopods, making it to the central island and found a small teleportation circle that took them to the next challenge. They found themselves in a dark room with a large twenty foot tall and wide stone in the center. The stone animated as a huge elemental which attacked the party. Teamwork saved the day, a rare gem was found inside the beast, which teleported them into another room.

The next challenge was a circular room with two cloaked figures sitting in the center. The figures, when they stood, stood over ten foot tall with gaunt skeletal bodies with terrible hollow faces. The creatures, bodaks, attempted to use their undead abilities to drain the life out of the party, but were quickly put down. The last challenge found them in a large chamber with something flapping in the dark. A large two headed skeletal bat monster started its assault. The monster flew around the chamber and breathed fire down upon them. With a series of lucky rolls and demon bat riding the day was won. Again the world shifted and they were standing in a room without any exits with a sacrificial stone slab, a corpse, and a strange glowing liquid filled bowl. The group all drank from the bowl and gained the blessing of Telma.

After the passing of many moons, two or three weeks in game or over a year in the real world, we had an adventure meeting with dire foes and rescued friends. Both Nimhe and Cecil were eager to head to the auction, knowing that their families were being held and sold by the dark dwarves. The party and their ward, Victor the changeling with the perforated neck wound, made their way with their disguises and ill-gotten passes into New Gracklesnap. They quickly saw where the auction was going to be taking place and made their way through the crowds of people making their way across the city. A few of the party noticed the drow slavers moving large flying cages towards the center of town. They also saw a rune scarred copper dragon being led in chains to the holding grounds as well. Bastion made a bridge of light and Zamira, having secured the plans and looking the most regal went up to Blue, the tiefling she had stolen the invites from. Blue, not realizing this was a farce let her see the slaves early, only costing her one thousand gold. She passed a masked drow woman on the way down and saw there were golems protecting the eight cages, each holding about twenty people, a tiefling that seemed familiar, and the dragon. Zamira also found lamia and barbarians matching the people Nimhe and Cecil were looking for.

The party went to the tavern lodgings provided by their free passes and found their room to be quite a bit comfier than expected. They discussed options for a break out, none of them good. Victor showed up to help them, spying, buying items, and sewing confusion were easy tasks for him. While he was out a noble from Stormcroak showed up to talk to Lady A, Zamira’s fake identity. The party panicked trying to figure out what to do with him. He noticed her looking at the slaves and told her to buy light, he intended to get a deal on the unpurchased slaves. He left, bumping into Victor in the hallway. Party chose to attack as soon as possible. Victor helped with additional discord and they noticed the queen of the kaismar elves show up to appraise the slaves. They had to move fast. Something in the city exploded and the guards went to see what happened, the party ran, invisibly with Victors help, and found their way back to the cages. Nimhe unlocked the muzzle styled mask on the dragon’s face and claws. Victor summoned a swarm of rust monsters to eat away the fronts of the cages, the tiefling, revealed to be Drogo again blew up a few guards, the dragon wrestled and body slammed the golems. The party gave Cecil’s barbarians that knew weapons, Nimhe reunited with her mother, and in the chaos a hole broke over the center of the city. A large serpent made of lamia sewn and fused together started breaking its way through the city. The group took their newly freed friends and fled the city. They were stopped at the main gate by a strange Patchwork Man. Bastion brought out his biggest spells to combat this menacing creature from his past. The Patchwork Man used magic to wall off the army of prisoners and battled with the party. His magics were terrifying and eventually they destroyed his form, seeing a mote of light flee from them and come to rest in the giant lamia beast. They fled the city and heard both Drogo and Zamira shouted in rage from somewhere in the city. They made it to a safe place and from headed to the teleporter dwarf wizard. with his help they were able to get the survivors and family back to their town to safety.

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