Lost Lore 18 - Downpour
General Summary
Three days have rushed by with our various attempts to secure the children's future and search out Lorgen and Brightshine while they're captured as rats. The Eye of Basul cannot locate them while stuck as rats by his spell, or Crisnos, for that matter, as we attempted to reach out to him for help in the expected confrontation with the Rat King. The flail snail's shell would require an armorer of skill of such reknown to craft it into something usable that would take, likely, weeks before it could be deployed in battle or subterfuge, and beyond that, they would need a lot of manacite as well. I estimated the cost in total of 15,000 gold to either craft a) a suit of Spellguard Half-Plate or Full Plate b) 2-3 Spellguard shields, with 3 shields or full plate being possibilities to an exemplar crafter. I further estimated the shields to valued at 5-8 thousand per, and Half / Full Plate being valuable beyond estimation. Looking into the use of the Durability Rune we discovered in the farmhouse ruins, we were easily able to etch it into the corrupted piece of manacite (after a days worth of prep and work) so that when we finally get the Rat King back into an incorporeal form, it will last indefinitely (or at least, longer than our lifetimes). We further determined that etching it into regular manacite, we could preserve the crystalline structure after the energy is consumed, without introducing large instabilities or variance for further charges of the crystal, meaning we wouldn't have to give students unstable manacite nor would we necessarily need to convert every charge off of the battery to Nisaba's Guile in order to continue to produce more energy. We were then awoken early into the night the day before we were set to have to confront the Rat King by the students knocking on the door saying something about hordes of naked people wandering about the streets, confused, and unaware of portions of their lives, and that it was supposedly city-wide. Ospher and I went to check up on Tadlo and, evidently, Lorgen in the office we were keeping them in and they were groggy as if coming out of a heavy sleep. I went to go fetch their clothes and bags we recovered from the warehouse while Ospher spoke with them, and was shortly joined by Charity.
What happened? I remember the warehouse and eyes in the darkness..?
It's a long story.
What's everyone screaming about?
Well they're back to normal now. It must mean whatever the Orders did worked.
We need to keep our ears open for a bird man flailing about.I returned with their clothes and gave them a broad overview of the last three days and what we knew about the experience from the Oracle and the King. We then had a knock on the front door so I attempted to call up Brightshine on the Eye of Basul and saw him clucking and talking to himself in a very dark area while there was a faint sound of water and sqeaking. I got him slightly calmed down and gave him an idea of what was going on and how to navigate Balmoran style sewers. I promised to talk to him again shortly and got to the door and saw Neville there and he explained that it was the agents of The Savage and the Adamantite Order that had taken care of the Rat King, be it temporarily or not, and that there were now hundreds of reverted peoples wandering about the city, but he observed on the way over that there were already a couple fatalities from the change back due to size mis-matches of where the rat had been. The horror of these people's experience really dawned on me at this point considering the way in which the Rat fed off of their essence and left them unaware of intervening times. He invited us to go to City Center with him, since that was where the largest concentrations of them were reported. I went to get my armor on and the three of us set out with Neville to City Center.
Oh that's right we're still missing him.
We've only been gone a few days, so I'm hoping he didn't get to us.
Yeah, same.
I won't know what I don't know.
I remember you, that's all that really counts.
Lorgan nods
Where's my clothes? Where's my armor? Where's my gear?
We have them. When you went into the warehouse you were jumped by a disembodied spirit that calls itself the Rat King.
I can't see anything, nothing! It's pitch black! There's water and everything smells bad!
I'v got outstanding news!
Yeah, our friends aren't rats anymore!
Scooped! Ok, I've got mroe exciting news, it looks like our agents were able to deal with the Rat King, I don't know if it is permanent, but I think you're off the hook.
You're welcome to come with, do you have all your people?
We still need to get Brightshine, but otherwise, yes. he's down in the sewers.
I didn't even think about the sewers. Do you know how many are probably down there!?
What do we do? This is a weird situation, those are all kids that are out there?
Yeah and they're all missing a significant portion of their lifespans.
Between you and me though, whatever's going on with Ospher is taking a toll on him.Charity and I instructed the students to remain within the Abbey since there's likely to be even greater chaos in the streets tonight and we walked over to City Center. He explained that the Ebon Orchestra and a pirate from one of the orders were involved that that rumors were ludicrously abound already. In city center, we saw gawking citizens, constabulary officers running around trying to keep confused persons rounded up, scallywags from Trentpoole lurking about taking advantage of the chaos. I checked back in with Brightshine with the Eye in an alley, and saw he now had a human person with him in the sewers that he was leading through the darkness trying to keep them calm too. He explained that he'd found seven others so far and that he was trying to keep them corralled as well. Based on his explanation of not having run into any egresses, Charity and I worked out a likely location based on him having described a larger alcove and from our having viewed sewer plans from Solicitor Kint's office. Neville then went over to to join the rest of the people from Order of the Basilisk while we made for the closest sewer access.
A pirate?
Strange people join this orders.
We're VERY far inland, even from Lake Bask.
That's what I heard.
There's rumors of one ship stuck in the middle of Lake Bask, but otherwise.
Oh, we took care of that ship.
Oh. Then, there's no more ships then.
No one should see that ship anymore. I will ABSOLUTELY GO BACK THERE AND MURDER THAT GHOST A SECOND TIME.
I found him, I'm trying to put him with the others I found. I'm trying to shove them all in a crevice I found.As we closed in on an entrance point, we heard a bit of a scuffle and muffled screaming with some slow brooding string instrument as background. We approached cautiously after realizing the darkness ahead was magical and activated our Driftglobe's Daylight ability and saw a human woman in noble attire with some patches of armor directing 4 skeletal corpses attempting to dismember one of the transformed persons while they cried and begged for help. She silenced her viol shortly after dispelling the light and explained we were interrupting her games that the Ebon Orchestra was playing against the vampires of The Red Death Theatre, whereby each person they killed and "recruited" from the sewers was a point and anyone in the sewers was "fair game". After threatening her she stopped her skeletal zombies from killing this person and I administered them some aid and sent them off running to the authorities. We briefly discussed what they were up to in the sewers presently, how many murderers were down there, between the Theatre and Orchestra, and she mentioned there was a prize if we got the most people saved. Rolling our eyes at her, we shimmied down the ladder, Ospher brought Servos down from the skies above and we set off in flight for the Southwestern-ly portion of the sewers to make contact with Ser.
I didn't know that you had an invitation to this dinner party too.
This is Orchestra business and we're playing our favorite game tonight: Prelude. It's the Orchestra versus Le Morte Rouge tonight.
I don't want any trouble, we're just here for some fun and games.
Fun and games? The murder of a helpless person?
Preluude. Whomever they join, in whatever capacity they can, gets them. Whomever comes out with the most new recruits tonight from the sewers wins a prize. Anything in there is fair game.
You can have that point, we'll call them out of bounds. What's your name by the way? I'm Janka.
You can call me A.
Chaff are short on letters, I suppose.
You should be careful down there, that would make you fair game. I've warned you about the rules.
Yes, it would.
My understudies are down there, and then Sameer and whoemver he brought, from the theatre.
I'll give you guys... 5 minutes head start, so we don't murder each other by the ladder?We set off down the sewers, terrible smells assaulting us in addition to spotting a few corpses here and there, though considering the people down here, there wasn't much we could do for them. A bit further down, we heard a woman crying out for help, but the pleas were being repeated in the same pattern, so I convinced Charity and Ospher to ignore them for the time being, though I confess to hearing a scream off in the distance behind us after we ignored it. We approached two nude human men staggering away in the muck from 4 skeletons and a younger human male, likely an understudy, directed them with a flute from up on the stone walkway. I used the broom to charge in against the caster with Charity close behind still controlling the broom. I ran up to try and swat the flute out of his hands with Avatar Annihilator, but before I could close with him, he fired off a Ray of Enfeeblement at me, but I ducked in under it and smashed his flute (and some of his jaw) with the blunt part of the weapon as he staggered back.
How kind.
Are we worried about her? Is this gonna be a problem?
Until we run into any of her understudies, no, I don't think so.
I'd prefer to avoid any of those crazy bastards if we can, I don't want to have to hurt any of them.
Maybe we should be on our best behavior and try to not kill them first? We've only been in the whole Society for less than a week now, I don't want to start a war between the Orphanage and them.
It seems that the Ebon Orchestra and Le Morte Rouge are having a competition murdering people in the sewers?
Oh! I'm not super used to this whole thing. You can do this anytime?
I would avoid them if at all possible, but that said, kill those fuckers.
This is not the way of their end! We are aware you are an understudy, so you can back off or you can die.Ospher's familiar, Servos, shot fire breath at the skeletons charring the half-zombie flesh in a few places and igniting the last bit of materials draping their bones, and then Ospher's Ray of Frost didn't finish the job on the one of them. Two skeletons then closed on Ospher striking him and the other two attacked me trying to save their master but couldn't get through my armor. Charity finished a skeleton with a spell, and then threw a Chromatic Orb at the necromancer, catching him in the chest, crumpling him while we attempted to deal with the three remaining skeletons. I set one aflame with radiant energy leaving its dust to get swept away by the filthy stream of fluids, and then Charity dispatched another with Frostbite and then Ospher and Servos took out the final two skeletons. I got my broom prepped to take the two humans down to the last exit we saw with instructions to stay hidden nearby and we would check back up on them after we got back to the surface and spared them the terrible tragedies of what had occurred to them. We saved the Understudy from dying, but stole his manacite, money and then abandoned him in a small alcove before we set off once again after checking in on Brightshine.
Why are my hands so big!
Adjenna's voice, where are you?!We got back to flying back through the sewers when we saw two figures recoil from the Driftglobe's light and behind their cloaks and they called out at us, under the presumption that we were Janka. Charity described a taller man, lanky, pale, blue veins and dead eyes as well as a woman behind him that was likely also vampire/vampire spawn. We played into their assumption, scoffing at the rules of the "game" and then Ospher's mage hand pulled one of their cloaks away a bit, inducing them to run far away. We resumed racing down the tunnel and far off in the distance we saw moonlight as the sewer's outflow finally found its exit into the reservoir some distance from Frial. We closed in on the exit and Charity spotted an older woman laying on the ground, the same old woman that Ser had on his back when he said he bricked someone. I administered some mundane aid and tried to figure out where Brightshine was with the Eye once more. He claimed to have found the exit, gone back for the others and then couldn't find the place he stashed them and then started losing his cool.
Brightshine, don't call out that loudly again, there's people hunting in the sewers.
Who's hunting?!
Some magical monsters.
I think I killed one of them, I hit them with a brick.
Daylight was off limits! You agreed!
Ha ha! That was so we could win the favor!
I set her down, and found the way out! Because I was so still and calm and cool! I'm definitely not anymore. I went back to find the others because I had courage at the time, but my courage is gone, and it's dark and I don't know where the other ones are.Charity was able to figure out where Brightshine was based on the piping and tunnel sizes around him and us, so I dispatched the woman on the broom out onto the streets above before it returned to us and we set out. We closed in on Brightshine, with him still in the Eye, and then heard some light snickering in the area. After talking with him and convincing him to turn around back towards us, I could hear my voice telling him to not trust that other voice, so I understand how it is that he got so confused by all this. We advanced towards him and found a darkness that the Driftglobe couldn't cut through, and from a side tributary tunnel, he emerged and I told him to run towards us and we readied ourselves for whatever deceit was to emerge. Hovering out of the darkness, was an illusory replication of the light of a Driftglobe, at which point he got confused again. We then pulled out his glaive, cast Burning Hands from it and he knew which direction to go. Bursting forth from the darkness, six skeletons armed with daggers attempted to chased after the now sprinting Brightshine, as the voice and Driftglobe illusions dissipated and Janka walked out of the darkness, expressing her displeasure. In a brief bit of banter, we learned the man whose jaw I broke was named Anthony and that The Orchestra was not ahead in points.
I think I see... two lights?
Pick one.
Oh oh! I think I hear your voice.
Brightshine, I wasn't talking, go away from that!
But you're in my head too!! OK head Adjenna, I'll trust Head Adjenna, not Voice Adjenna.
I've had about enough of this. I'm taking that one, he would make an excellent wight.
Well, you can't argue with that logic.
Five minutes, non?
You can get around fast, sure, but we have our ways too. We can sing to the shadows and they speed us along.
I wonder, what is the score right now?We attempted to close in mêlée, and she attempted to drop a Fear spell on the three of us, which we shrugged off, having acclimated ourselves to the effect of Ospher's wand, but while we pushed through the thick miasmic fog of the spell, the skeletons closed with Brightshine and struck him a couple of times. But he was able to leave four of them behind in his scrabbling and retrieve his shield and glaive that I had tossed on the ground before I started rushing forwards, but all this left a wide opening for Ospher's Fireball spell to engulf the 4 skeletons in searing flame and while they attempted to dodge out of the way, they ended up tripping up Janka, who couldn't avoid the blast's tumultuous effect. Servos' fire breath immolated another skeleton that had be on Ser's back adjacent to where they were brought with his desperate run, and Charity's Frostbite destroyed the final skeleton. I advanced towards Janka, and kept a piece of Guile prepped for Janka's next spell. She attempted to repeat Illsemine's desperate gambit in the woods by loosing a Cloudkill, while I played the role Tick with a Dispel Magic, immediately ruining her plan to save us. We ordered her to drop her manacite and began negotiating the terms of her surrender.
We're not winning.
I know which one is the real Adjenna now!
Oh shit! Fearrrrr!
Oh, not impressed I see!
Try harder!
Nothing? That did nothing?
All of your manacite, on the ground now.
You're robbing me?!
You were going to Cloudkill us!
You shot a fireball at me!
I could kill you right now, this is not against Neros' teachings!
Can I go?She was (fairly) pretty worried that we would kill her, even after we said we wouldn't, and ran off into the darkness, presumably to another of her understudies to make sure she wouldn't be treated as Fair Game as well. Ser had already forgotten what I told him had happened, asked about the others he was with in the warehouse, and then explained where he thought he stashed the other six(?!) persons he came across. We tracked his talon marks across the sewers and finally found them in an alcove, but across the way was yet another understudy, older with a long bushy beard, a well oiled and waxed moustache and his instrument was finger cymbals, but this time with 7 zombies coming around the corner towards the vulnerable people.
Yes, of course.
What about the Rat King?
Purportedly defeated.
You defeated him without me??
No, someone else ended up doing it, as we've been told.
I didn't think you could, without me.
Thanks for thinking enough to come down here and save me. I gathered up six people, plus an old lady. I don't know if old people like that count for full, in some cultures they don't.While I attempted to goad Ospher into lobbing a fireball at him and the zombies to save the Downpour folks, the understudy and I had a brief tête-à-tête, which gave Ospher enough time to draw his Wand of Web and catch all of his zombies but not the understudy. He rushed forward and attempted to use Blindness on Ospher, which didn't work on him due to his fortitude, and Brightshine closed on him and let loose a flurry of blows with the glaive, but overbalanced himself still adjusting back from his transformation and nearly was bowled over by the necromancer trying to shoulder him in the gut. Servos' firebreath light the webs on fire and caught a bunch of the zombies on fire, and I advanced to intercede the zombies from getting at the confused people and slapped the Necromancer with the flat of the blade.
In my book they do. I think you won this game Brightshine.
What are you doing here? Who are you?
We're prey to your game.
A third party, I see, I see.
Well, you can join the rhythm section then!
I thought the agreement was we weren't going to each other!Ospher fired off a Ray of Frost into his chest which then spread a sheathe of ice across him, cracking off some pieces of his flesh and gore, which he briefly registered before toppling over from the instantaneous hypothermia. Brightshine then attacked two of the Zombies that had approached, cleaving one in half, though the second one briefly looked as if it would stop moving, it resumed its stumpy struggle towards living flesh. Servos' attack on that same zombie had a similar effect, briefly working to stop it's halting motion, and then it springing back to action. This zombie and another then went after the necromancer, who was weighed down by the ice sheath on his chest and they started to feed on him as he weakly resisted. I then cast an Aura of Vitality to spare Ospher the guilt of having accidentally murdered this necromancer and put myself in the way of the zombies getting to the nude people.
I told you, we're fair game.
I didn't expect thiiiis.
Ospher! What are you doing?! We said.. ughhh!
My emotions got the better of me.
Zombie, no!Charity then threw an Ice Knife at the understudy to catch the three zombies around him, but only fell one of them due to their undead resilience. I then Channeled the power of a God of Tairos to Turn Undead from around me, annihilating all but one of the zombies left, reducing them to black dust in the breeze of the stench riddled sewers. Ospher's crossbow bolt similarly failed to destroy this last zombie, though it was now gouged by a glaive, covered in ice shards and a bolt piercing its abdomen. Brightshine did the Necromancer a favor then and beheaded the creature, allowing me to heal the fool a final time without further injury to be sustained. We then took his manacite from him, yielding another of these odd carved manacite skulls with 4(?!?) charges within.
Sir, you have my sincerest apologies. I got overwhelmed by the game.I healed him somewhat, and we chased him off after giving him his instrument and dagger. These fools and their "game" will earn them no pity from me. We escorted the six peoples back up to the surface, rounded up the other ones we sent back up earlier and brought the nine of them back to the Orphanarium for temporary housing and to help them reacclimate to the Frial they've been dropped back into. Neville told us later that the Grand Order of the Lion was taking in people in addition to the Kreastos of Frial with this fresh downpour of citizens. The Grand Order used this event to postpone our planned meeting to discuss Segravia as well as securing additional funding for teachers. I didn't quite realize that the power I could bring to bear from Nisaba, The Lady Midnight would destroy the weakest of undead en masse now. Perhaps I should revisit The Hole to scour some of the mess the cultists created there. We are SWIMMING in manacite now. It is absurd how much these understudies had on them in order to hunt defenseless peoples.
Take anything you want! Please!
Missions/Quests Completed
We saved 9 Downpour persons from being killed by Vampires and Necromancers
Character(s) interacted with
The Weapon today was known as The Avatar Annihilator
I dressed in the Vestments of Neros The Companion
Janka of the Ebon Orchestra - A higher ranking Bard within their Order. She didn't care for the tables being turned and allowed the others to disperse for this "game".
Understudies of the Ebon Orchestra - Anthony and Leopold. As I understand it, Leopold is presumed dead and Anthony hasn't had his jaw mended yet.
