Underground Favors 1/26/25

In the weeks after Azeraphel took back the Cathedral in the name of the Holy Quarant, the temple of the redeemer reborn moves into the Cathedral and cleans it up. Nura, now a member of the church, is an integral part of getting settled into the Cathedral. After the dust settled from taking back the Cathedral and the Trial of Faith Azeraphel gave Nura a set of full plate armor she now wears almost daily. During this time, Kheya is across town at her aunt's house, helping out in the shop and recovering. One day, an old acquaintance from the College of Whispers walks in and tells Kheya to meet her at the Wind and Wale that evening. Knowing that it is nothing good, Kheya heads to the bar where she meets her school friend as well as another College of Whispers graduate, Lidi, an Elven woman who also owes a debt to the college like Kheya. They are informed that people are going missing from their homes in the UnderCity, and the College would like them, along with Kheya’s friends, to figure out what is going on. Kheya, knowing the UnderCity is a place of crime and anonymity, knows that if the College is worried about these disappearances, then it must be something serious. She grabs G.G. from the Temple of Taiia and Nura from the Cathedral and picks up Shin along the way. They, along with Lidi, head to the UnderCity to figure out what is going on.

As they enter the UnderCity, they come across a Warden and another man, whom Nura recognizes as Het'Al, the monster that helped the party out in the desert, fighting a giant Gulper monster in the sewer canal. Not wasting any time, the party Jumps in to support the Warden and Het'Al. G.G. attacks it with his mace as Lidi tries to hypnotize it, only to realize that it is blind. Het'Al is fighting it with his crossbow as G.G and Nura close in on it, with Kheya & Lidi sending blasts of magic from the corridor.

The Gulper manages to grab G.G. in its mouth as Kheya is casting a spell on it that sends it farther down the sewer canal so Nura runs after it and attempts to hold onto it with the fishing rod that the Warden dropped as he left the fight and deputized the party given them the authority to kill the monster without him. Seeing this, Kheya mouths off to the Warden, drawing the attention of the Gulper, causing it to change direction and surge toward the rest of the party. It sends a sonic blast toward the party, hitting everyone except Nura, who is running behind it, trying to attack it and free G.G. from its mouth. She catches up to the Gulper and stabs it, killing it and coating the whole party in acid goo. No longer stunned, Lidi pulls out a staff of healing and heals the party, nullifies the acid, and miraculously cleans herself. Kheya invites Het'Al to join their party, and the two of them, along with Lidi, talk to the Warden about the missing people and see if he has any additional insights. He tells them that people are going missing in the middle of the night with no signs of break-ins or bodies. He directs us to either speak to the Breakers, a gang of wererats, or the Queen. While they are talking, G.G. gets out of the sewer canal and tries to "help" Nura get clean by pushing her into the canal. When Nura sinks, he realizes that she can't swim and jumps in after her to pull her out and back onto the path. Kheya, seeing that they are both now clean, jumps in to get the rest of the Gulper goo off her.

The Party follows Kheya for a few hours, gathering information until they come across Willy the Snitch, who tells them that the Queen is holding court at the Sticky Wick. As they enter, Kheya recognizes one of the Queen’s bodyguards standing by the door to the backroom. Kheya flirts with Herm, the bodyguard, and he says that they can enter on one condition, no one starts or thinks about violence, and no weapons are drawn.

G.G. chooses to stay in the bar, and Nura suggests to Kheya that the mind of Skull Drinker might not be relied on not to have a violent thought; Kheya agrees with her and stays in the bar with G.G.. The rest of the Party enter the back room and see the court being held by half drow, the Queen of the UnderCity. The Queen agrees to give us more information after we kill the new “pet" of the breakers.

Once back in the bar, the party decides to split up; Kheya, Shin, and Het'Al are going to sneak around the UnderCity to find the Breakers and see if there is evidence of this new "pet." Lidi and G.G. try to get Nura drunk to learn more about her background, as they have noticed that things about her are not adding up. The sneaky group finds a group of the Breakers carrying a large sack that is dripping blood. After getting the rest of the party, they follow the trail of blood to one of the Great Collectors and turn around where the Breakers have made a den in the caves around the water collector. Shin and Het'AL get into hiding positions that give them lines of sight to the mouths of the caves as Lidi, Kheya, Nura, and a drunk G.G. walk up to the mouths of the caves.

Nura pulls on her best noble visage and calls to the breakers. She has heard that they have a new weapon in the form of a monster, and she is there on behalf of the Hawakat family and would like to buy it. After convincing the wererat that comes to greet them that she got the information from a bartender at the Sticky Wick, but she could not remember which one, He agrees to sell the monster to Nura. Nura won't agree to the sale price until she sees the monster. The Party waits for the wererat to bring it out. After a few moments the male wererat comes out dragging a bound sandworm.

Upon seeing the Sandworm and Nura signaled Het’Al who fired onto the worm. As she did that Kheya disappeared in a puff of smoke and in her place was Zorma. Miragh the second in command of the Breakers ran into the caves. Lidi cast confusing on the Breakers and the sandworm confusing Scrag the leader of the breaks as well as the sandworm. G.G. Very confused by Khaya's disappearance enters the fight and is joined by Nura. The fight continues between Scrag, the breakers and the Sandworm against the party. Zomra kills he Sandworm it falls on Nura who was battling wererats near it. As she is pinned by the Sandworm a carpet of rats comes from the cave along with some larger rats. Lidi and G.G. are at the mouth of the cave fighting with Scrag and his wererate minions and some of the larger rats. Nura is knocked prone and then swarmed by the carpet of rats. Lidi drops hypnotic pattern on the swarm and stuns the rats and Nura. G.G. Slaps Nura awake as he moved deeper into the cave to fight more rats. Nura tried to get up but it on able with the swarm on her chest so she starts attacking them with her spear. Zorma has moved to where the Sandworm fell and is sawing at its head so we have proof to give to the Queen. Lidi is able to cure wounds on Nura while she is still under the swarm. Scrag calls to the swarm and it forms into one large rat swarm and bites Nura along with two other large rats knocking Nura unconscious. Zorma gets the Sandworm head free and goes to run away with it but is hit by Scrag and another of the huge rats. Miragh shows back up with more large rat shifters who are met by G.G. Lidi use it her staff of healing to cure Nura and Zorma just as the rat swarm attacks Nura again killing her. At her death there is a flash of red light that kills the swarm and Nura’s body vanishes.

Zorma tries to grapple away with the Sandworm head but it is too big and he looses his grip on it and throws a Firebolt at Scrag as he walked back to the head. Het’Al kills Scrag and Miragh calls a retreat of the rest of the rats. The party quickly grabs the head and move away from the cave. They give the head to G.G. so he can give it to the Queen as Het’Al, Zorma and Lidi make their way to the surface and towards the Cathedral. On their way they are set upon by two young boys Het’Al tells them to go to the Cathedral if they need food and brandishes her large cross bow. One of the boys is intimidated enough to back away but the other tries to stab Zorma. Zorma dodged the boys three attempts before slapping him up side the head while Lidi took the knife from him.

Meanwhile Nura, who was expecting to end up in the gray waste similar to where they found Zorma, finds herself in a Receiving Room. Azeraphel comes into the room and offers Nura a deal. They will bring her back in exchange for 5 favors that will be called at a later date. Nura agrees and wakes up in Azeraphel’s office in the Cathedral. She is herself, except both of her eyes are now as red as rubies, she has an A scar on her palm, and she is now bonded to a new sword.

Het’Al, Zorma and Lidi show up at the Cathedral and are stunned to find Nura waiting for them there. After a few moments Zorma and Lidi go grab a beer and are soon followed by Het’Al and Nura. Nura and Lidi have a heart to hear over Nura’s choice to take Azeraphels deal and then Nura catches her up on the last three months while Zorma mills around the bar talking and interacting with the other patrons and the bar keeper. A while later a very drunk Zorma has the idea to feed Mort the Sheep more bones so they go and buy some bones off a local butcher and go fina Mort. Zorma feeds it the bones and now Mort is a rhino sized sheep. The group decided Nura should be the one to explain to Kheya why her bone pet is now the size of a Rhino.

Before we go to bed Khaya shows back up and catches us after we have feed all of the bones to Mort the bone “sheep”. The next morning Azeraphel greets her and asks to buy Mort from her in exchange for a bag of gems. Kheya accepts but is sad to give up Mort, who now speaks and looks at people and asks “BONES”. The Party reconvenes and the morning and Kheya tells the party they are going to a warehouse in the Under City. As they head toward the entrance of the Under City they stop at the temple of Taiia to grab G.G. who is unavailable but he introduces the party to Ranul who is another devote of Taiia who will be able to help the party. Once in the Under City we meet up with Lidi we head towards the warehouse. The area of the Under City that we walk into is in much disrepair and we come across a few Breakers come upon the group. Nura skewers one and then Ranul Crisps the rest with a fireball. As we get close to the Warehouse we notice that it is a rickety wooden building and the upper windows are boarded up and the main door is chained and locked from the outside. Kheya and Zorma go around the side of the building to see if they can find another entrance. Nura goes to climb the side of the building to look into one of the upper windows and misjudges her own strength and the weakness of wood as a building material and she slams into the building and breaks through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.

Inside the warehouse is almost pitch black, all she can make out is a group of figures in the center of the warehouse and can hear whimpers & snarls from the far side of the warehouse. Nura casts a fire shield and runs at group in the warehouse as the rest of the party moves into the whole in the wall. It is quickly evident that the figures are vampires one is clothed and the other two are naked and the party starts fighting them. The clothed Vampire summons black tentacles that grapples Zorma, Lidi and Kheya. Ranul lights up the warehouse as they are all fighting and catches one of the vampires turning them to ash. The clothed vampire attacks Lidi almost killing her the party is able to heal her and she creates a body double near Kheya and switches places with it to get away from the Vampire. Ranul hits the second naked vampire with a fire bolt catching him on fire. Lidi is pulled back into the black tentacles and killed by the caster Vampire. Kheya casts whispers on vampire on fire and as he runs away Nura sticks him reducing him to ash. Nura is then surrounded and attacked by smoke hyenas. Zorma grapples the remaining Vampire and pulls them into the black tentacles where they are grappled and then runs away and casts fire bolt on the killing it and turning it to Ash. Once the fight is over Kheya heals the party, Ranul and Zorma talk to the people who were cowering in the corner. They appear to be the people who were taken from the Under City. Nura grabs a scrap of material and makes a bag for Lidi’s body and then hoists the body onto her shoulder. The party leaves the warehouse and heads back to the College of Whispers. Kheya gives Lidi’s body to the college and they inform her that her debt to the College has been paid. They Party exits the Under City and head towards the Cathedral.