Session 8 - "Descent" Report

General Summary

Kona 24, 1246

In the midst of their short rest, Seraphine sits apart from the others, by the small grave plot. She closes her eyes, reaching out to Laravelle, goddess of funerals. There is nothing in particular she asks the deity. Just a simple check-in to see if there is anything that the Woman in Black wants from her. The only response is the slightest scent of incense on the air, as Thais approaches her.

Thais offers a blessing upon Seraphine, which at first the half-drow refuses. But Thais insists, and calls upon the connection between herself and Syria through her blessed armor to protect Seraphine. She accepts it with no small amount of discomfort, but there is no more time to discuss it before the party is already packing up again, heading further into the ruins.

They travel for some time, until they come to a neighborhood of large mansions with decrepit gardens that stretch out around them like an oasis amongst the stone, iron, and glass of the buildings. It's eerie to be here, with the silence like a grave pressing in all around them. Ali especially is unnerved, feeling the entire cavern watching them in hostility at their disturbance to this miles-long and miles-deep graveyard.

It is about this time that Micaiah, Thais, and Olena notice a fleeting light through the windows of one of the mansions - Olena also catching a shadowed figure in the light, running through the halls. They point it out to the others, and they decide to stop and check it out, hoping to find the missing Glowbugs.

Stepping up onto the creaking porch, the front door seems to be locked, but a good kick from Thais breaks it down, allowing them access into the decimated home. It is exactly as it appears at first: one of several houses along this block that have been abandoned for centuries with its contents left to wither and rot.

It smells of dust and mold, with a large arching stairway up to the second floor and a standing piano to the left of the staircase. A destroyed chandelier lies on the floor where it fell, the glass crunching underneath their feet as step inside, and two suits of armor stand, guarding the entrance to this house.

But then, something changes: a whisper brings with it a great gust that ruffles the party's hair, and the doors slam shut in a way that makes them jump.

They turn to see a man - transparent and ghastly in appearance, with a look of terror upon his face.

"Take the children and go!" He cries, and then he runs through the party (in the most literal sense) and up the main staircase.

He pauses on the stairs, turning and raising his hand towards the suits of armor. "Protect us!" He cries, and the suits of armor begin to shake like a seizure has over taken them. They fall forward with a clang of metal onto their knees, before standing and facing the party with malicious intent.

Ali is quick on their feet, gripping their sword in two hands as they swing it down, biting into the armor that had been oh so stationary moments before. Seraphine takes the opportunity to call on whatever vitality still exists in this place, enlarging Thais to nearly fill the space up to the second story roof in the foyer as the druid runs up the staircase to make room for her new-and-improved friend.

Foenix darts in close, tripping up the armor with a good sweeping leg kick, but unfortunately it only temporarily inconveniences it - and it quickly stands back up. It's metallic fists fly at the halfling, one connecting with his sternum and the other landing solidly (but harmlessly) on his well armored chest. Ali is similarly hit, smacking them square in the nose. Their quick instincts save them from taking a second hit, however.

Thais, now double her normal size, takes her sword and raises it up high above her head, aiming for the same one that just struck Foenix. Her years of wearing, caring, and helping dress others in armor have her analyzing for the weakest spots in this construct. When her sword descends, it strikes true, cutting through the animated armor's straps and detaching one suddenly still arm from the rest of the construct.

From next to Ali, Micaiah steps back, allowing once again her armor of Agathys to coat her body in dangerous rime. The armor does fall for the bait - unlike the last time Micaiah tried this strategy - but it is too slow and fails to strike her with what would have been a nasty bite back of ice and snow. Jonquil, however, strikes the armor with their bow and arrow. It does little damage to the armor and (as Micaiah guessed), the poison from the sprite's weapons do very little to affect it. Still, all damage counts towards these things dying.

Olena, grouped up with Micaiah and Ali, steps forward and takes her big haymaker swing with her maul, recklessly striking out at it. Unfortunately, even with her wild, exposing attack, she fails to connect. Ali takes the window and strikes out at the armor as well, but they miss too. Unwilling to let this thing suffer another minute of animation, Ali surges forward and this time hits true with their sword.

Seeing that the armor Olena, Micaiah, and Ali have surrounded is nimbler than they would like, Seraphine summons a growth of thorny vines into her hand and whips it out at the construct. It wraps tight around the torso and drags it forward with a screech as the thorns scratch into the polished metal.

Foenix has not wasted any time focusing on Olena, Micaiah, Seraphine, and Ali's target, instead taking a page from Thais's book and aiming for the weak points of the armor - where the leather straps bind it together - as he cuts inward. His blade is true, severing the last bits of its bindings and sending the parts tumbling to the ground, lifeless hit. He turns to the last one standing, running towards it as it attempts to hit Ali.

The armor misses, and Ali takes the opportunity to trap its arm against their own, pushing upward in an attempt to overextend its joints riposte. Unfortunately, since the armor is simply an object animated with magic, it has no joints to stretch. But, seeing a new foe barreling towards it, the armor strikes out and hits Foenix with a solid knee to the gut, arm still trapped against Ali.

Thais doesn't waste a moment, stomping over to the armor and swinging down again with her massive sword. The blade cleaves through its leather straps and sends the armor scattering about the room.

With the immediate threat gone, the party begins to explore.

In the dining room, the party finds twelve chairs gathered around it, though four have been destroyed or knocked over, as though someone got up in a hurry, not caring where the chair laid, or that the actual house was ransacked and someone turned over the chairs in their search. Foenix finds a centerpiece - some kind of four-legged animal - made of wood with accents of silver upon it. It has an etching on the underside of the stomach reading "Amadeus Hatchette, 1023." He puts it in his pack, but does NOT take the discarded spices and iron pot in the kitchen. The food is so old as to have no smell, though it's easy to imagine in past decades this place smelled horrible. There are ashes in the fireplace, the last meal halfway through preparation.

In the library just beyond the staircase, there are books scattered, torn, and burned all about it. Seraphine finds the book Queens Without Honor and gives it to Thais, who has some experience with demonology and is even able to read a bit of the text in Infernal success, detailing different types of demons, devils, and the pitfalls of making deals with each kind.

Ali finds the comedy play Bane of the Sea amongst the books, and gives it to Micaiah, who is delighted by the discovery. The playwright - Maureen Bilkiss - was a prolific author whose body of work has mostly been lost to time. This is a rare find indeed.

Meanwhile, Olena picks up the final two books in any state to be read: The Tower of Tomorrow and Women of the Forsaken. Both books are odd in their own way, with the pages of The Tower of Tomorrow being completely blank and Women of the Forsaken having several pages torn out of the middle. Seraphine has a curious guess, and so takes out a knife and presses the blade into the palm of her hand until the blood wells up. She drips it over the blank book, and over time her blood begins to coalesce on the page - as if drawn to collect in the shape of words, detailing a great battle in years past. The actual words of the book tell of an ancient battle, with names of people and places that Seraphine has no context for. Regretfully, she puts it away.

The other book - Women of the Forsaken - details different holy symbols and signs from generations past. But the middle section has been torn out, leaving many unknown deities and the icons of their worship up for interpretation.

As they look through the books and Olena, Micaiah, and Ali approach the office, Seraphine, Foenix, and Thais head out to the backyard through the mud room, looking for a family graveyard. Foenix stops briefly in the mud room to scrutinize the corpse of some humanoid - a skeleton by this point - left to rot in the corner, and root through whatever supplies are left. The ladder, chain, lamp and empty burlap sack on the work station hold no interest, so he moves on to join the others.

Seraphine has moved further into the garden when her animatronic fox, Chihiro, brings her attention to a fissure in the ground, hidden by long-dead bushes and foliage. It leads into... somewhere else. Somewhere further down. She leans in to get a better look, seeing a trail lined with luminous mushrooms that eventually ends in a veritable Emerald City of dark spires. The Underdark... and a drow city.

At this time, Thais and Foenix catch up with her, just as Seraphine is putting Chihiro into her bag. They both try to get her to come back with them, but Seraphine insists that this is what she wants, and that she was only here to FIND the drow. It's hard for the paladin and rogue to say good bye to their friend, but eventually they acquiesce, with Thais giving Seraphine back the lock of Élodie Roche's hair that Seraphine originally conned from the Brillantan girl.

Seraphine gives them one final good bye before wild shaping into a lizard and skittering down into the fissure.

While this tearful parting takes place, Micaiah has found a broken lyre and Ali has discovered a strange knife hidden underneath the cushions in the office. It's not hard to overturn everything, and they don't exactly have to be careful. The glass table - the centerpoint to the room - is smashed, and the fine sofas have been torn open, to let dirty feathers scatter and fall where they may.

But when one friend leaves, another appears. Standing in the foyer, calling out to whomever created the lights in the house (that she also saw) is the earth genasi cleric, Aglaia Karagiannis! Micaiah, Ali, and Olena welcome her to their predicament with open arms, but Foenix, already taking out his anger on the books still left in the library with a vicious swipe of his forearm, is not so friendly to their new teammate.

The party decides as a whole to search the second floor, and they ascend the staircase to the landing, where they can see four doors: to the west, a study. To the north, a children's room (left), and a nursery (right). To the east, the master bedroom.

Thais and Foenix check the study, finding it has been more ransacked than most other areas. The windows are all smashed, the books scattered all about, and on the desk are journals and books with the pages torn out. Strangely, however, there are letters with wax seals still unbroken as well.

Thais takes a look through the letters, finding them addressed to or from an Amos Hatchette. Most simply have to do with importing or exporting exotic and/or magical artifacts (also called rare antiquities in the letters), but there is one odd one dated Rochambeatte 4, 1043, from a so-called "brother in spirit" named Falco Merrywine who warns Amos of a "dark stormcloud" approaching the family, and that they should batten down the hatches in preparation. Since the letter was sealed, it's doubtful Amos had a chance to read these evil tidings.

But regardless, Foenix finds ledgers detailing their shipments, and picks up a playing card set, a merchant's scale, and an hourglass from the ransacked room. From below the bench cushions, he also pulls out a steel lute, which he of course packs away immediately.

In the children's bedroom, Ali and Olena find the door to the children's room is broken in and both windows above the beds broken inward, as if something crawled in off the roof to terrorize whoever lived here.

With no warning, there's a shattering of glass and they flinch, shielding their heads as a child's scream reverberates around the room. But... there is nothing. They slowly lower their arms to see they are alone.

There are bits and pieces of arts and crafts and toys scattered about - including art pieces labelled "Trinity and "Tristan." A piece of chalk is wedged in between the wood planks making up the floor, but both adventurers ignore it. Ali instead picks up an origami paper bird sitting on a bedside dresser. They angle it towards the light from the broken window, catching the slightest hint of raised, arcane lettering scrawled across it - impossible to see with the naked eye. It rests next to a sheath of nine additional pages of the same paper, but they have not yet been folded. Ali takes those and, almost without thinking, begins to clean and straighten the room as Olena moves to the master bedroom to see what Micaiah and their new friend Aglaia are doing.

Clothing and items are scattered everywhere in the master bedroom - a bust on a pedestal tipped over and smashed on the ground. There's even food, withered and past molded, sitting on a tray next to the smashed glass table in the sitting area of the bedroom. The water pitcher and tea pot, when the two glance inside, are bone dry. A ransacking, or someone attempting to flee?

Aglaia is the one to notice a depression in the wood paneling behind where the bust used to be. Pressing it inward, she hears a click by the fireplace as the mantle's shelf pops upward - a small, cavernous area inside it holds a box with its own, separate lock. She calls out to Foenix, knowing him to be somewhat knowledgable on cracking such things, while Micaiah searches the room a bit more.

He finds an amulet with a red gemstone in the center, the metal around it etched with floral designs, hidden (tossed? lost?) underneath the rug. It seems wholly without arcane power, so he puts it on casually as Foenix and the others (minus Ali, still straightening the children's rooms) join them.

Foenix makes quick work of the lock, revealing a vial of antitoxin, three potions of healing, and a wand laid in a separate compartment at the top. The bottles are labeled "Trinity," "Tristan," and "Lilah," in a beautiful script.

Aglaia takes the wand to study it, but Foenix is quick to filch it off her to inspect it. Unfortunately, only time will reveal the rest of its mysteries, and so the party turns to look at the last one of two places they have yet to search: the attic.

Rewards Granted

• Amulet
• Vial of antitoxin
• 4 books
• The Tower of Tomorrow by Laik Thordstrom - History (military) - Condition: Strange. The pages are blank? The cover is stained leather, with some sign of wear.
• Bane of the Sea by Maureen Bilkiss - Plays (comedy) - Condition: Badly damaged. A lot of the ink has run through water damage and it is nearly illegible. The cover is wooden, with the title is carved into the spine.
• Queens Without Honor by Sadana - Demonology (fiendish bargains) - Condition: Badly damaged. A lot of the ink has run through water damage and it is nearly illegible. The cover is stone, with iron rings hold it together.
• Women of the Forsaken compiled by Zaleria Alexia Sylren - Theology (sacred symbols) - Condition: Vandalized. It appears that a good dozen pages have been ripped out. The cover is missing, with the pages are bound with string woven through holes near the spine.
• Hourglass
• Merchant's scale
• Lyre
• Paper bird
• A pearler's blade
• Playing card set
• 3 potions of healing. They are labeled "Trinity," "Tristan," and "Lilah," in a beautiful script.
• 2 sq. yds. of silk
• A swansong lute
• A wand of magic missiles
• A wood carving of an animal adorned with silver filigree. Moderately valuable. Crafted by someone in the family.