Session 18 Report

General Summary

As the session begins: Yemtoc, Ava, and Huugar are headed towards the Tinker’s Guild. Zita, Nedda, and Grim Eye are headed to the Colosseum. After asking around a bit, Yemtoc’s group learns the location of the Tinker’s Guild. En route, however, Huugar and Ava become separated from Yemtoc. Worried that they may have been taken by whoever has been abducting people in town, Yemtoc takes off back towards the Colosseum to regroup with his other party members.   Grim Eye’s group is headed towards the Colosseum. As they approach, they find vendors starting their day in the area around it. Approaching one of the stalls, they learn that the events are run by Delphine Pearlweaver. They attempt to meet with Ms. Pearlweaver but are stopped by a pair of guards at the entrance to the Colosseum. Grim Eye is able to arrange a meeting later in the day with Pearlweaver. As they turn away from the Colosseum, they spot Yemtoc, who discreetly heads into a nearby alley. They follow him in, where he reveals that two of their group have gone missing. Worried that they have been taken, the group heads back to the grate to the catacombs, and not so quietly rushes in. In the catacombs, Grim Eye finds a secret door revealed when lighting a half-burnt torch in a sconce. Passing through the door, they head deeper below the catacombs. Here, they discover a series of rooms with several traps which they disarm. In a large chamber, they come across a stained glass inset in the middle of the floor. As Grim Eye crosses over it, the glass shatters. He is able to catch himself and make it safely to the other side. Below, there is a 60-foot drop to another set of rooms. They see several people moving back and forth below. Yemtoc tosses a lit torch down, drawing the attention of the people in the room. They begin to have a shouting conversation. After a strained conversation, the party finds themselves attacked by several cultists. During the fight, they are also attacked by the Drow who had followed Duke Guias out of the underground Temple a little over a week before. As the tide of the fight turns in favor of the party, the Drow summons a Shadow Demon before magically vanishing. The party dispatches the remaining cultists and the Demon, keeping one cultist alive for questioning. Stubborn in his devotion, the cultist resists the initial attempts to coerce information. Eventually, though, the party is able to break his spirit, and he reveals that the cult has been ramping up ‘recruitment’ recently. It appears not all of the people they take are unwilling. They have been pulling more people recently because they “need people to take care of those brats” and others to help them search for something, though he does not reveal what they are searching for. When pressed about the location of the children, he reveals they were in the chamber below. Yemtoc, outraged, tosses the cultist through the broken glass to his death. Then he follows down on a rope into the chamber below. What he finds is a chamber and set of rooms where it appears people have been kept for some time, and there are papers and books of rituals related to Orcus, intended to make people more pliant and susceptible to suggestion. Investigating further, they find evidence the kids were recently here; some of the notes mention locations in town, including the Colosseum and a tavern called the Irksome Unicorn. There is also a list “for delivery on the 21st of this month” looking for a cook, cleaner, cleric, and tinker. The letter is signed by a Zypher.   Noticing that it appears a large group recently left this room in a hurry, Grim Eye and Zeno take off through the cavern. They are able to catch up with the group of children, two adult caretakers, and two cultist guards. Grim Eye is able to quickly dispatch the guards. One of the adult caretakers is Efan, Lowfan’s brother, whom they were looking for. The other is a small halfling woman named Helena. Bringing the children and rescued adults back to the party, they are led back to the surface, emerging in the northern part of town behind a guild hall. The adults hurry home, while the party is left to bring the children back with them to the Garrulous Cauldron. They settle in for the evening. During that night, they ask the children about their other friends. One of the children reveals that they sent a few people to other camps. They heard that one was to the north, while another was in a place they had never heard of, but that the cultists would need to take them on a boat to get there. Following that discussion, the children slowly went to sleep, and so did members of the party.