Session 53 – Capers By The Waterside

Written by KoshcheiBessmertnyi

General Summary

With time, Miletus’ dizziness and headaches recede – doubtless due to the rancid smell of the underground lake, and he begins to think of escape. He discusses his plans Blossia, who is game, although she is not unhappy to be imprisoned here. Brandon, who has also recovered from his limp, also wishes to be free of this place, and to return to the surface, where he has freedom of action. The other inmates of the grotto are less optimistic. Minoquanee has resigned himself to perishing at the hands of the ingoeth. Eglandath wonders how exactly they plan to escape – through the deadly maze, or the lake, which is even worse than death. Even if the plan were to work, and they could get out of the maze, where would they go, and how would they escape from Xibalba, especially without their belongings?
Blossia undertakes to recover their items, and heads over to the elevator shaft, where each inmate goes every nine days to pick up the fungal mush the ingoeth have been feeding them. She yells up the shaft that she would like to speak to the captors, and in response, the cabin slowly starts to descend. Blossia enters it, and shakes it slightly, indicating that she would like to be raised. As the cabin begins to rise, Brandon leaps in, and Blossia exits – the priest is particularly desirous to receive his things back.
The cabin rises up to the main cavern. Here, Brandon confronts his captors – the same drow scouting party that took him and his companions prisoner a month ago or more. Brandon asks when the prisoners might be released, and the troop leader answers that it will happen when Lhingril or the other ingoeth leaders have need of them. Brandon then inquires as to whether he may receive one of his daggers, which holds sentimental value for him. The inogeth shrugs, exchanges knowing smiles with his companions, and amazingly, agrees. He fetches Brandon’s dagger, and hands it to him, inviting him to then descend back down the shaft.
Brandon returns with a concealed dagger, and surreptitiously slips it to Blossia. He then calls all who desire to do so to head into the maze, and to seek a way out. Miletus takes the opportunity to summon his sword and his bow into his hands. As Brandon heads out of the grotto, he is suddenly confronted by Whooshdooplink the fishman, who vigorously smacks his lips, and grabs hold of him. Eglandaf, who shares a common argot with the fishman, translates that if he is leaving the prison, the fishman invites him to go by way of the lake rather than the maze. The fishman’s grip tightens, and he begins to drag Brandon to the floor’s edge. The fishman’s slippery grip is hard to break, but the priest digs in his heels, and then summons forth blades from beyond to strike the fishman down. Miletus begins to hack at Whooshdooplink furiously with his sword. The fishman, in turn, calls thee shadowy fishman shapes, who begin to suck the lifeforce out of both of his elven harriers. Blossia summons two sheets of ice in the lake below, and then retreats to the cavemouth, to watch the confrontation with the rest of the inmates.
Brandon answers the withering with his own necromancy, and soon, the fishman is covered with huge open wounds and sores. But Whooshdooplink is made of stern stuff, and these sores, along with Miletus’ deft sword strokes are unable to cool his zeal. His spirits are able to subdue Brandon, but left one-on-one with the fishman, Miletus is able to plunge his sword in the fishman’s belly, and to finish him. Blossia runs over to minister to Brandon, while the rest of the inmates chant for Miletus to throw Whooshdooplink into the lake, where he belongs. The elf obliges, and flings Whooshdooplink onto Blossia’s sheets of ice. The lake begins to bubble, and soon, the inmates watch in horror as a couple of tentacles reach out onto the ice, and drag Whooshdooplink’s remains down below the surface.
When Brandon wakes a few hours later, he calls upon Sune to provide restorative energy to himself and Miletus. Both regain spirits, but Brandon finds that his leg has been partially withered by the fishman’s magic. Fortunately, it is not the same leg that he has nursed back to health during his imprisonment.

* * *

Having arrived in Neverwinter, Theobald proceeds to the gabled building that serves as the Zhentarim Company headquarters, and convinces the guards to grant him an audience with the acting director, Willem Huysmans. There is no word of Bester’s fate, and Huysmans – his appointee, fears the worst. Bertram Bester – the son – has returned to Neverwinter, but plays no official company role.
Huysmans quizzes Theobald about his activities since leaving Claymore in the spring. Theobald explains that he has been working behind enemy lines, keeping tabs on the orcs and gathering information. He admits to having blown up Furriers’ Gate, and helping to steal the Salamander, but says that Bester was generally aware of his plans to make it appear that he was escaping and cooperating with the orcs, though he says he had to improvise at times to make the ruse believable. He also acknowledges communicating to Bester in writing regarding the drow and their role in instigating the conflict between the natives and the colonists, as well as their role in spreading a deadly disease that was discovered by Adrie. He also tells Huysmans what he knows of the ingoeth ring, and the hunt that some of the colonists, including Predicant Lorenz, have initiated for it. Theobald adds that all the information was communicated in code, which only Bester knows.
Huysmans apparently finds the story credible enough, and finds Theobald useful enough to agree to give him a clerk’s position at the Company. After a couple of Enneads, he is promoted to privy councilor, and granted a tiny windowless cabinet. Huysmans also explains that the main plan is to wait out the winter, and then counterattack the natives in the spring, once massive numbers of reinforcements arrive in the spring. Until then, he would like Theobald to accompany him on a diplomatic mission to Bright Colony, and the city of Shining. The city is run by Harpers, whom he both despises due to their takeover of Claymore, and blames for its fall to the Brotherhood. Nevertheless, he wants to hear what they have to say, since the colonists are hard up for allies at present, and since the Harpers have invited all of the coastal towns to send representatives.
Four Enneads after arriving in Neverwinter, Theobald travels northward by ship to Shining. There, representatives of all the coastal towns except Yartar and Avandra have gathered. The representatives deliver pro forma addresses to the assembly, and start discussing plans for collective defense. Theobald, too, delivers a speech, repeating what he had earlier told Huysmans, though leaving out any mention of the ring. The Harpers suddenly produce Predicant Lorenz and a few acolytes. Lorenz addresses the assembly. He makes a brief defense of his takeover of power in Claymore, saying that the previous Zhentarim rulers had lost the residents’ trust, but then proceeds to try to find common ground against a common enemy. He says that in his entourage is one who is able to show the colonists the way forward. She is an elf, who nevertheless warned the colonists at Triboar that an orcish attack was coming, which allowed the town to mount a vigorous (if ultimately unsuccessful) defense and to send the defenseless population away along with most of its arsenal, keeping it from the hands of the Brotherhood. Lorenz adds that this person then fell to the orcs while trying to punish them for destroying Triboar. But through the agency of a miraculous item, which Pelor saw fit to place into Harper hands, he was able to bring her back from the dead. The creature from whom the miraculous blood was taken represents the promise of immortality in the new land, and should turn the tide of the war, if only the colonists unite to seize the opportunity.
At this stage, one of the acolytes that walked into the chamber with Lorenz removes her hood, and reveals herself to be Adrie. She addresses the crowd, revealing that she had in fact been killed, and traveled to the House of Slumber, before agreeing to return in order to help secure the land from orcs, as well as the disease that is brewing beneath the earth.
The assembly is shocked, and a crowd gathers around Adrie, seeking proof of her story. They inspect the scars left by orcish weapons, and places where her body was obviously broken. People begin to stream in from outside the assembly hall, to witness the miracle of the woman who has returned to life.
Theobald shouts down the cacophonous babble of the assembly, and addresses Lorenz. He says that he is glad to have Adrie back, but that in taking the blood of the creature that made her resurrection possible, Lorenz violated the natural order in ways that are impossible to anticipate. In calling for hunting the creature down, he has no idea what he is talking about, because the blood is ineffective if taken from the creature against its will, as the orcs have already learned. Lorenz counters that the people of the colonies should collectively decide how to proceed, whereas by hiding information about the blood, it is Theobald and the Zhentarim that were in the wrong, because they assumed they had all the necessary knowledge to make decisions, and they withheld a wondrous gift from fallen colonists who are as deserving as Adrie to regain their life.
The assembly concludes by Theobald striking an agreement with Lorenz. The Predicant will allow Adrie to travel to Neverwinter to tell the story of her return to life to company officials, as well as to consult with learned physicians in that town about the nature of the disease she discovered. Lorenz only desires that a company of bodyguards travel with her, to defend her – a living testimony of the miracle – from any ill-wishers, and enemies of a united front of colonists.

Report Date

22 Sep 2018