Session 37

Greed of the Devils

Date: Wednesday, 28th of October, 2020
Attending Players: Ashara, Embra, Ish'Mael, Victalyassa
Time 3 Hours (Total: 117 Hours)

Game Time 14th of Sowmeadow, 6:00 AM
To
14th of Sowmeadow, 6:15 AM
Game Locations:
Watcher's Quarter of Orvadah

Several plumes of breath lifted into the air. At the front stood one man, wrapped from head to foot and covered in metallic coverings, concealing any part of the man beneath it. From his mouth, no breath expelled, but from his body, an aura of cold radiated.

"Is she here?"

"Yes, but we do not meet her here. The mother may interfere, and we are not to tread in her home. "

"Then when? You promised revenge. You promised us vengeance."

Turning rapidly the cold hand grabbed at the throat of the man that demanded answers. The strong hand gripped his throat, cutting off his breath. His one remaining eye widened in terror, the mask concealing his pulverized face slipping."

"You, a man killed by a woman's palm while he slept, dare make demands of your benefactor? Really?"

"I'm...sorry," the man choked out. The cold one released his grip and turned around. "We go to the harbor. The She-Bane guides us. We have her task to do, then we sail."

"Then the Marleek dies."

"Yes, and the Marleek dies, with our visage above her broken form."

Ashara traces her hands over the patterns near the scrying pool. The air is still and calm but the red liquid in the pool begins to bubble. Noises begin to come through, but eventually an image lifts out of the water. Sayer Sienna is seen closing a door in a small room, taking a step away from the door and speaking to a bearded man that can be barely recognized from the strange temple that formed out of sand when they first entered the cultist temple. "Are all of our preparations complete?"
"Yes child, the king will do as we request. Divalan is our lapdog and will complete the task. I want you to make sure you complete your task as well in Saltfield."
"As you say Sayer Okri, it will be done." Sayer Sienna turns back toward the door, before turning back toward Sayer Okri and saying, "what about....."
The magic of the pool becomes corrupted and the image fades away. "Wait, what about what?" says Embra to Ashara.
"Well it seems that Sayer Okri was the face we saw in the sand yesterday. He's someone we can kill and soon"
"We'll have to find this Saltfield," responds Embra.
"Is there anything we can do with this water?" asks Vic.
"I wouldn't drink it..." says Ashara.
"Well obviously..." (make's sense, yeah that would be silly...) says Vic before turning to walk toward Ish Ma'el.
Ish Ma'el returned himself back to the stone book on the stone pedestal and after finally chipping away in the silence, he managed to dislodge the stone book and put it in his bag. He stands triumphantly and turns to the door where Vic is standing to gesture her over as he walks toward a door on the far right side of the hall. He opens the door and walks through, emboldened by his low intel score.
He finds a disheveled room with a table in front of it that has a headless body on it. Nearby is another small which has a similar head with wires and various technology nearby. He recognizes it to be a warforged from stories he heard long ago but doesn't know much more about it.
Ashara, Embra, and a dashingly quick Vic (still trying to avoid the silent room) walk into the room. "Don't touch whatever that is." says Embra to Ish Ma'el.
"I'm not an idiot" says Ish Ma'el grabbing the power source nearby.
The eyes of the warforged head open up, having a normal human shape but lacking pupils, the head speaks: "my body is destroyed but my mind is intact, save me."
"Do I pick up the table or your head, how does this work?" replies Ish Ma'el.
"You can detach me but keep the power source nearby. As long as it stays attached to me, I will live but it will kill me if I am separated for too long."
Ashara urges caution on taking the head somewhere, but Ish Ma'el claims to want the head for his own. He grabs the head and attaches it to his belt. He realizes the weight of his items is too much and decides to give Ashara his rope and grappling hook. The warforged looks up at Ish Ma'el as best as it can and says, "are you a sailor?"
"More of an airshipman."
"Good, good. I spent my days as a sailor for the Royal Navy. If you are a captain, you may find something useful on my body the rest will not appreciate. Does my right arm look intact?"
Ish Ma'el moves toward it, finding it to be dissected but overall intact.
"Wonderful, you may be able to use my harpoon launcher that still looks to be of use." Ish Ma'el excitedly takes it and holds it in his arms. It is as large as a man's arm could be but with all the weight and heft of the mechanics to launch a javelin at rapid speed. "Well what do I call you head?" he says.
"My name is Kal Na'soun, but you can call me Kal."
"Well thank you Kal, this is going to be VERY helpful!" says Ish Ma'el playing with the mobile harpoon launcher before strapping it behind his back. "Is there anything else in this room you may need, can you tell us anything about the people that put you here?"
"They are monsters, since they found me, they brought me back to life just to break me apart, into pieces. Once I witnessed who I imagined ruled this place, he is deformed, an elf once, who seemed to have been touched by the gods." says Kal.
Ashara pulls her ram back and slams it into a door in the silent hallway, slamming it before even checking the door handle. The door silently swings off the hinges and slams on the ground in the center of the room. Ashara gestures for Ish Ma'el to walk inside first, but he refuses and sends Ashara in the lead. Seeing that the door across the way is now opened, Vic runs through the silent hallway inside, followed by the rest of the party.
The room seems to be a storeroom of sorts meant to hold weapons, armor, and other items. There are 6 pedestals occupied by items and a small blue vase that has a red corona around it. The smell of sulfur and heat lingers in the room. On the pedestals in the room are: Dark leather armor, some beads on a string, silvery orb, an ornate dagger, a bracer (simple leather), and some ribbons of cloth layered on top of each other.
Embra walks over and examines the beads, using her arcane knowledge to find out what they could be, but she can only tell they are magical. She pulls them up and the vase nearby Ashara booms with energy, launching a sulfuric smell into the air and extending the red corona out to a roughly 5 foot radius. "Perhaps it's not smart to pull these items Embra" says Ashra, coughing the sulfur smell out.
"But it fits so well." she says, wrapping it around her hand. "Besides, you brought me here, so I want to leave fully handed."
Ish Ma'el realizes that taking the bead from the pedestal must've extended the portal. Ashara feels how warm it is and knows that if it extends out into the room, it will kill them all. Ish Ma'el chooses the ornate dagger to test the theory, quickly swapping them out but not as the speed necessary, causing the portal to extend out to 10 feet. Ashara discovers the dagger to be magical in nature (Vicious Dagger) and Ish Ma'el decides it will be better for Embra, trading her for the magical bead (Bead of Force). Ashara finds the rest of the items to be an Aegis Bracer which would make an ethereal shield, Wrappings that seems to be made for a monk such as Vic, Basilisk Leather Armor which is a more powerful version of black leather armor, and the silvery orb on the end still eludes her.
"Ideally we want all of these, but you definitely need the bandage wraps Vic. Let's think, how can we get these without dying. I'm thinking we either ram another exit, and the portal is some fail safe trap that will cut off our exit if we take another item." says Ish Ma'el.
Embra considers using her mage hand to grab an item from outside the room before they are cut off. Vic suggests finding an area of the wall that can be busted through, but she finds claw marks on the northern wall and asks the room. Kal says he did not hear any claw marks, but did hear screeches in the air that may be some devil that is stored in here. Ashara, annoyed, takes her ram and moves to the wall furthest from the portal and slams the ram against it. The wall doesn't budge at all and Ashara, defeated moves to leave the room to let Embra's plan go.
Ish Ma'el exits the room last, linking his mind with Quequeeg to let the party know what happens in the room through Quequeegs perspective inside the room. Ashara pulls out a net and decides to try to grab the leather armor from outside the room at the same time that Embra's mage hand will be reaching for the wraps at the far end of the room. They both grab the items and pull them back. Ashara quickly pulls the armor out of the room as the wrappings are grabbed by the mage hand and quickly pulled out. As soon as the items leave the pedestal, the red sphere extends out to 20ft diameter. Ashara and Embra feel the heat blast onto them into the silent hallway, and flying out of the urn comes 3 small devils; weakening the corona but still present.
Victalyassa looks on as the party pulls back from the heat, but she is unable to hear anything through the hallway and does not know the danger of the devils. One of the devils immediately swoops down toward Ashara, more hot air flying down on her, and coming down hard with his spiked fork. It catches Ashara's Katana as she pulls it out quickly. While it is hovering in the lock, it tries to pierce into her armor, and she feels its small fangs hardly get into her skin.
Another devil flies over them and aims for Yula with its fork in the silent hall, who is standing by Ashara's side. It then bites down into Ish Ma'els shoulder, excited with the amount of targets to kill. Embra attacks the spiny devil attacking Ashara with her rapier, coming up from under it for sneak attack damage. A third devil spots Quequeeg in the room with him and flies right toward it, making an attack with its fork but missing as Quequeeg dodges out of the way. The devil then grabs for Quequeeg and bites its head off, dissolving it into ash in a single bite.
Ish Ma'el's awareness suddenly snaps back, and he attempts to fire off his magic missiles in the silence. Realizing it's not working, he tries to backpedal to the scrying room, nearly being hit by a devil but firing the missiles off successfully as he enters the room. The hit with force and knocked the creature back. Yula tries to attack the creature at the same time but misses. Ashara is bumped by the devil that Ish Ma'el hit and turns to take the opportunity to crush on it while it's disoriented, killing it instantly. She then turns to strike at the devil with Embra and hits it for heavy damage. The devil falls to the ground and as it is getting up, Vic runs into the silent hallway, reluctantly, and punches it through the doorway. The devil takes the blow and dodges the second but is feigned and hit for a third hit which ultimately kills it. She then heroically sprints back into her safe room where the warforged body is.
Embra knows that a third devil is in the room and moves ahead of Ashara into the doorway where Vic was and fires a crossbow bolt, but it flies back up into the room and it just barely misses. The devil turns and fires a spine from its tail, missing Ashara who moves back into her position in the doorway. Ish Ma'el runs back into the silent hallway, pulling out his holy water as he does but does not have time to act. Ashara, knowing she can't move further into the room pulls out her blowgun and fires a dart into the devil. It hits it in the leg, not doing any damage, but instead puncturing the nerve that controls its small left leg and numbs it completely. While it is trying to wake its leg up, it remains a perfect target for Embra who fire a bolt into its shoulder.
The spiny devil moves as far as it can but still being in the room, fires more spines at Embra and Ish Ma'el but misses. Ish Ma'el happily pulls the holy water from his bag, holding it up with pride and throwing it back in the direction of the devil, but missing as the flask smashes against the floor and burns away dramatically. Yula throws her dagger at the devil and Ashara shoots another blow dart but it pulls them out, taking only minor damage from the dagger. Victalyassa knows the devil is still in the room, so she runs to the doorway with her whip to strike it, doing some more damage. Embra takes aim but misses with her crossbow as Victalyassa moves back into her own room.
The devil emerges from the room, out of the safety of the hot portal, and fires more spines at Ish Ma'el and Embra, hitting Embra, digging through her armor with a burning force. Ish Ma'el prepares the harpoon launcher while Yula carves into the devil from behind while it's focused on him. Her spiked bone dagger strikes into its nerves, leaving it vulnerable for Ashara. She runs up and strikes through the devils side and lopping it in half as the urn pulls the ashes of the three devils back inside, becoming a momentary fire tornado before shattering the vase down below.
Ashara and the party peaks their head in, no longer feeling the heat and run in to grab items for themselves. Ish Mael grabs the orb and Ashara grabs the Aegis Bracer, "I'll take that!" Embra dons her armor and Yula tries to rush the party through the large door below, but Embra spots a small room to the right side and hurries to unlock that to spite Yula. Embra unlocks the door easily and finds an even older library than the one they found through the broken wall they originally entered through. She realizes that the lock has been melted inside in the small magically closed door that sits on the low side of the room. Ish Ma'el grumpily concedes to the party not wasting more time on the door and then moves to the big door, preparing themselves for battle.
Ashara and Embra push open the door together and as the door opens, an echo crosses their mind: "I've been waiting for you."