Session 4: Rescuing Caden
General Summary
Exploring the Ruins
- The heroes picked up where they left off in the middle of a fight with more gnolls and disfigured lumps of gray flesh. The monsters were easily disposed of, and N'nchyk managed to identify the flesh blobs as very lowly demons - little more than worthless blobs of skin that hardly qualifies as a creature.
- After the battle was over, the part gathered their wits about them, and managed to catch the very faint sound of screaming.
- They moved through the dark and winding paths of the old ruins, discovering what seemed to be an eating area for whatever had inhabited it last. There was old, rotten food that N'nchyk gleefully confiscated, animal bones that had been picked clean, and a couple magical potions.
- Ashpin traveled through the right door of the eating area, carefully inspecting the dark area with his torch. A bolt of fire shot right past his head, and he caught the glimpse of a winged, crimson-red creature before it vanished with a pop. Where the creature used to be, the party discovered what looked to be a small altar with a small incense offering and a scroll written in a script that Maleakos was familiar with, but a language he couldn't identify. The only word he could make out was "restore". In the same room, the humanoid bones littering the room were identified to be that of goblins.
- Through the dark path, Nayries went still in a now-familiar pose as he gazed through the eyes of his owl, sent it through the cave, and verbalized what he saw: an ancient-looking mechanical golden machine glowing with an orange liquid, and in it, the pickled body of a shriveled beholder. Kneeling before it, resting its skeletal head on his staff, was a figure in tattered robes glowing with greenish energy.
- Dooturr attempted to pretend to be a mindless undead minion, but the patronized figure shot him in the chest with a blast of eldritch energy. Once the remainder of the party had entered, he sorrowfully expressed that he had been bound into service, and wished for the demise of Shiksu, and more than anything else, an honorable death. With fits of laughter and a thorough group beat-down, the individual was defeated. Philip identified the individual as a warlock, one that had broken its pact and had been forced to rise again as an undead.
- After defeating the deathlock, the party came across a strange stone plinth with handprints imprinted upon it. Whenever someone approached the door - behind which there were terrible deathly screams and a horrible sizzling noise - a different handprint glowed on it. Eventually, each party member placed their hand on the plinth, which fastened their hand onto the plinth with an irresistible magnetic force. Or, in N'nchyk's case, the entirety of his snake body. With a surge of purple light, a deep, echoing voice resonated: "Guilty souls are bound to me, confess a sin and be set free." There was a pause, as the heroes slowly realized what the plinth required.
- Ashpin went first, confessing that he had acted against his oath and destroyed the spirit of one who could have redeemed. With an outpouring of golden light, Ashpin was released.
- Philip followed closely behind his Silver Flame ally, saying he fought in a war he did not believe in, and failed to save his friends from their demise. With silver light, Philip too was released.
- Dooturr went next, saying he had manipulated the heads of the guild into supposedly letting him into the guild. With another flash of white light, Dooturr was released.
- After shifting back into triton form, N'nchyk barely hung to the plinth by his hand, and confessed to beating a bound and helpless orc prisoner.
- The three remaining Crew members - Maleakos, Neyries, and Viribus - were stuck for a longer period of time. Philip and Ashpin were impatiently pacing as they heard more screams and sizzling noises from the opposite side. Maleakos was frantically trying to recall something he did, Neyries had has eyes firmly shut while he muttered under his breath, and Viribus looked stalwartly on. The other hand of all the remaining party members suctioned onto the plinth.
- Maleakos eventually cursed whatever being was binding them to the plinth, and begrudgingly "confessed" to beating up a bully in an unfair manner during a duel when he was a child. A rich pink light emerged from Maleakos and flew into the plinth, releasing his hand.
- With a titanic effort, Neyries raised his head and opened his eyes. They were visibly damp with tears...tears of his haunted past. With a deep breath, and a discerning effort to steel himself, he said as steadily as he could, "I was not there for my family when they needed me the most." A massive wave of azure light erupts from Neyries, who then collapsed to the ground in evident torment.
- Viribus stood as stalwartly as he had been, also cursing whatever unknown entity was binding him to the plinth. The voice spoke once again - "You know me better than you think." The plinth began to wither the palm of Viribus away, and more screams could be heard from the other side of the door. Finally, in a spitting rage, Viribus confessed the murder of the man who had tried to pickpocket him, and the sin of weakness - not being strong enough when strength was the most necessary. A crimson red light flew from Viribus into the plinth, releasing him.
- The door melted away, and the impatient Ashpin immediately sprinted into the room.
Battling the Demon
- The Crypt Crew discovered an open pit dug by the warforged, and found a horrible demonic centaur dissolving the remainder of the warforged in some sort of acid or poison. As the party filed through the narrow entryway, the snarling creature loosed a long bolt of lightning, immediately downing several heroes.
- A devastating and chaotic combat ensued. Desperate potions were administered to the downed party members, and almost everyone retreated back through the entryway as the beast leaped into melee range. Dooturr, stuck on the inside, traveled farther into the cavern and began trying to free the bound warforged, while the demon cut off the entryway into the cavern. Ashpin compelled it into a duel, which the creature zealously accepted with a harsh laugh.
- Neyries managed to extract Philip and begin to flee, while in a last-ditch effort that seemed to disgust him while using it, N'nchyk blew the large creature backwards into the pit that had been dug with a loud roar and a splash. The sweet sense of victory was short-lived, as there was a brief pause, an even louder roar, and a rumbling noise as the creature thrashed its way back up the pit.
- Dooturr hurriedly tried to free more of the warforged, while the rest of the party positioned themselves farther away in the entrance to the cavern. In the heat and chaos of the moment, Dooturr was unable to pick the lock of any of the other bonds, but the first warforged he had freed slashed through one of the chains with a blade that had emerged from its arm. The massive beast emerged on the far side, now drenched in a vile green liquid and the dissolved remains of the other warforged, and looking beyond pissed as it stepped up to the warforged and skeletons that dared stand before him.
- It was a sight to behold, as the rest of the party feebly shot ranged attack after ranged attack at the massive creature. Dooturr and the warforged ducked and weaved around the beast before one of them was obliterated with a hoof to the chest, but Dooturr took the opportunity to land a huge critical blow on the beast's groin. With a mighty roar, it made to unleash its full rage on the tiny pile of bones before him, but not before Philip and N'nchyk burst into the cavern and N'nchyk's ghostly mushroom defeated it for good.
Rescuing Caden
- As the Crew gathered their wits about them, and Dooturr began talking to the grief-stricken warforged, a faint snarling could be heard in an alcove to the left, and a young boy in the now-ruined livery of House Orien with tears streaking through his dirt-ridden face appeared through the darkness - being held by a snarling furry creature. Ashpin began gently approaching the gnoll, while Maleakos subtly cast a spell to put it the gnoll to sleep and snatched the nearly-catatonic Caden d'Orien.
- The group did their best to console the young child, but the appearance of N'nchyk and Dooturr drove him to tears. While the party did there best to calm him down, Philip resignedly dragged the gnoll to the edge of the chasm, and with a brief second of hesitation, threw it into the pit, where a faint yelping sound accompanied by a sickening sizzle noise could be heard. Philip winced at the sound, and collapsed onto his back.
- Meanwhile, Maleakos used the mesmerizing power of his cloak combined with his own natural charm and musical talent to calm Caden enough to eat some rations while Dooturr quickly picked the lock. N'nchyk found some gold, and more parchment upon which was the same unfamiliar script they had previously discovered. Dooturr continued to speak to the warforged, and eventually handed them a slip of parchment. Slowly, carefully, the party rejoined with Neyries and retraced their steps through the abandoned ruins to the door.
- They found Neyries in a state beyond distraught. Tears were visible on his face, but his new allies still expressed ire at his choices during the recent battle. Neyries responded that there are worse things than monsters and magic in the world, and he has had to confront them more times in the last three days than he's comfortable with. He hardly knows anyone in the party, and simply states he will not blindly and mindlessly throw himself into every deadly fight that is presented to them - at least not without some semblance of forethought. He understands that there are risks, but he does not devalue his life as everyone else seems to.
- A poignant silence followed the speech, with Ashpin, Viribus, and Philip expressing varying degrees of sympathy and critique. Tensely, uncomfortably, three Crew members heaved their strength onto the chain attached to the door that led back to the entryway they had come through. Immediately after the the four members not operating the door passed through, a bolt of acid shot from the darkness, eating through the chain and slamming the door shut.
- The subgroup was confronted by an orc and firbolg, who demanded they state their business. They were wary of the group, but showed no immediate animosity and showed no signs of drawing their weapons - until N'nchyk sneezed on the orc with his spores and booked it to the shadows. The orc unleashed the fury of his spear and spiritual weapon upon N'nchyk. Between Dooturr, Philip, Maleakos - who was still clutching the small body of Caden d'Orien - and the firbolg, the orc managed to be calmed once again.
- They admitted to being Harbingers, and were ordered by their lieutenant Shiksu to guard the area against any intruders. They claimed to not know what was on the other side of the doors, and were visibly disturbed at the sight of the Caden and the mention of demons murdering warforged. They helped the party open the door once again, and the other three party members - who were having a nice chat on the other side of the door - came through.
- The troubled Harbingers offered them a ride back up the modified lift, and the party agreed. N'nchyk, however, took exception. He confronted the orc, and said he doesn't deal with "his kind". He said the Harbingers are fanatically following some prophecy crapped out by the dragons millennia ago, and in doing so, are killing refugees and anyone else that disagrees with them. The orc immediately attacked N'nchyk again in a fury, and no one in the party stepped in before the firbolg got the chance to shoot him with a holy bolt of radiance, knocking him unconscious, and stabilizing him. With the unconscious N'nchyk slung over Ashpin's shoulder, the strange collection of characters returned to the lift, with the Harbingers departing when it reached Lower Central Plateau, going to search for answers.
- The party returned Caden d'Orien to his father, who was beyond overjoyed to see his son alive. Even the stalwart manservant Vishtai cracked a smile at the sight of the alive, albeit distressed, young Caden. After the glowing reunion, Alden turned back to the party, made sure no one was listening, and told him what he knew about Shiksu, both from personal dealings and connections Alden has as a noble.
- Shiksu is an extremely wealthy Sharn citizen that lives in Upper Tavick's Landing. She's known to be quite snobby, even among the company of the Upper Wards. No one really knows how she made her wealth.
- Shiksu kidnapped Caden d’Orien to blackmail Alden into hiring out-of-work warforged to help dig an excavation pit in the Cogs, looking for some unknown ancient power. Alden said he branded the work as a "secret research-gathering mission" for his house, paid the warforged workers for their silence, and signed them to binding contracts - which he is now glad Chains broke.
- The workers found Shiksu an artifact - Alden doesn’t know what - and he granted her privileged access to a lightning rail straight to Thronehold, as he does have considerable pull in the industry. The artifact was moved to her mansion in Upper Tavick's Landing for safekeeping, and plans to smuggle it out on the lightning rail, which leaves the next day at noon. He begs the heroes to confront her in her mansion - which he gives Philip an address to - since members of House Orien will escort her to the station and be present on the lightning rail, and he hates to think of what Shiksu would do to them if the party confronted her while the Oriens were around.
- Alden also mentioned that he thinks Shiksu has some strange powers. He swears she could teleport - she was threatening him in one of his drawing rooms, and he hurried to his front door and threw it open - and there she was.
- And with that, Alden gave each member - even the unconscious N'nchyk - 25 galifars, and requested they keep his name out of any report to the Sharn Watch. Philip, looking thoroughly sleepy, once again offered the amenities of his home, to which the Crypt Crew returned. A relieved Alice greeted them once again, offered them a late-night dinner of cream of mushroom stew, and everyone except Dooturr collapsed into blissfully restful sleep.
Rewards Granted
- Scrolls in an unfamiliar language
- Scavenged gold in The Cogs cavern
- 25 galifars from Alden d'Orien and a Feather Token
- Potion of Healing and Potion of Hill Giant Strength
Missions/Quests Completed
- Successfully rescued Caden d'Orien and freed several warforged laborers
Character(s) interacted with
- Harbingers of Aegis orc and firbolg
- Caden d'Orien, the young son of Alden d'Orien
- Alden d'Orien
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