Session 18: Foolproof

Assemble the Squad

Winter 41, 6840 CA

Yuri has a moment to himself.

In the morning, the group (with dogs in tow!) gather their allies. Ursa is sent to fetch Lt. Booth, while the others go look for Arturo at the Gilded Thorn. Now that the Wanderlust has been burned down, the group will have to make do drinking at the smaller and much more boring tavern. They find Arturo there as expected and invite him along. He is unhappy to hear that he will be working with a member of the Watch, but relaxes when he learns that a member of the Watch has been taken by the Swordrunners. It never hurts to have the Watch in your debt. Ursa fetches Lt. Booth at the Watch Hall, but it's not as romantic as the party probably was hoping it would be.

The group make their way over to the Noodle Hook, where the group shares their plan: which is that they don't have one yet. Valia believes that she can talk her way into some kind of compromise and so they head inside the Noodle Hook, but are immediately told dogs aren't allowed inside. Valia tries to convince them it's no big deal but is rebuffed, but Zed convinces him that the dogs are for medical purposes. After some platters of fish pasta has been ordered, Valia tells the server that she'd like to talk to Boss Grumm. His blank expression does not dissuade her and she asks to see his manager. The manager feigns ignorance, but Valia is undeterred. He eventually relents and sends someone off to relay a message.

The group finish their meal in time for the restaurant manager to inform them that Boss Grumm is willing to meet two of them at a warehouse a few blocks away. The group ponder this and feels like this is going to be some kind of trap. However this does create an opportunity that they may be able to get inside without Boss Grumm at home. Zed and Arturo do a survey of the exterior of the building, but aren't able to find any entrances. Yuri casts Invisibility on the two rogues and they go inside to explore. Zed finds nothing in the manager's office, but Arturo finds a trapdoor under a table. He knocks out the cook and opens a window for the group to quickly shuffle in. They quickly head down the stairs inside the Swordrunner's base of operations.

Infiltration!

The group head down several minutes deep below Thules until finally arriving at what appears to be the main hub for the Swordrunner hideout. Zed activates her Divination Glass to see anything invisible and is immediately greeted with the sight of a strange floating orb. Wally is able to detect that it's Divination magic, which leaves the group feeling uneasy. They decide to deal with it using one of the Dispelling Stones taken from the Lightbottle vault. The magical orb immediately vanishes, leaving the group in a long hallway that is illuminated by what seems to be permanent Light spells.

With Zed still invisible from Yuri's spell, she's sent to scout ahead. A door the south catches their immediate interest, but Zed is able to hear lous noises from within. When she steps in to look, she sees a large arena surrounded by dozens of people that are cheering and hollering. Down in the arena, she sees a large armored ogre squaring off with what looks to be Bruno Gibbons! The group have a crisis of conscience as they watch their former enemy / former ally barely holding his own against the ogre. Ultimately the group realize there's nothing they can do and have to step away, but it's clear that Bruno will lose that fight.

The continue onward and have two more doors. When Zed checks the door to the north, she sees a huge bloated troll lumbering about aimlessly in a cave filled with large floating fungi. Fungi with eyes! Fungeye, if you will. She decides that's going to be a nope from her.

She looks to the door to the west, but it appears to lead directly into the arena trhough an alternate route. Zed sees Bruno is being carried off towards an adjacent room and she decides to follow. When the coast is clear, she heads inside to have a look around. It's a small holding cell area, but she doesn't see anyone she was looking for. She does find a gnome woman inside and Bruno, who is barely alive - for now. She dips back to the hallway with the rest of the group. They decide to head north as the path of lease resistance. Surely a troll will be easier to deal with than an entire arena full of criminals!

Splash Zone

The group rush into the room to deal with the troll, but are in for more than they bargained for when the troll begins spitting up acid all around it. Even worse, the troll spews acid from its wounds whenever it is injured. Arturo and Lt. Booth find themselves taking the brunt of the abuse while the others do their best to keep their distance. The large bulbous spores only complicate things further, as they explode like a popped balloon when killed and release tiny spores all around. Yuri and Wally unluckily inhale some of the spores. After Arturo is knocked out and is healed again, the group disengage from the troll and release a flurry of attacks from a distance. The troll falls and is unable to heal thanks to Wally's necrotic Chill Touch blocking its healing.

As Lt. Booth uses his healer's kit to help patch everyone up, Wally tries to figure out what he and Yuri ingested. Being a spore expert himself, it doesn't take him long to realize it must be some kind of disease. The kind that will have the two of them killed in around 5 hours! He quickly uses Lesser Restoration to purge the disease and Valia likewise uses Lay on Hands to burn the disease out of Yuri. They will both get to live on! For now.

Onward

The group move onto a large tiled room. There's a stairway leading upwards, but this otherwise seems like a dead end. Owing to her perceptive nature, Zed is able to find a cleverly hidden switch that opens up a secret passage. The group recall the stairs as a potential escape route and continue onward. As they start heading south into another hallway, all of them are stunned by the appearance of a bright purple light coming from a room to the east. Zed carefully takes a look down the hallway and sees that there appears to be some kind of large observatory area that is occupied by three goblins. The goblins are working with a large orb and appear to be confused. It is not the Eye of Aureon, but the group surmises this room is for Scrying and the goblins are confused by some of their Scrying sensors having become dormant.

The group explore some of the rooms along the way. They find some barracks, as well as a room with a single bathtub someone is using as a bed. Another room catches their interest due to it having a large maze on a table. Yuri's curiosity gets the better of him and he starts to trace his hand alongside the maze, only to suddenly disappear and be teleported inside a labyrinth! The group are able to see an illusory version of him in the maze, but he does not appear to be able to see them. The group watches a bit dismayed as it seems like Yuri keeps walking into dead ends and ending back where he started. In the room there is also a statue of a goat man. It stops being a statue and attacks! Some items in the room suddenly come to life as well and also attack!

After killing? the rude household objects, the strange goatman summons some magical strings around Zed and later Ursa to try to control them, but each are able to fend off his attempts to control them. After taking some more abuse, the frustrated creature announces that they are boring him and he promptly vanishes. After waiting another five minutes, Yuri is finally ejected from the maze after having failed to solve it. Valia is frustrated by all this exploration and wants to use the stairs she saw to head downstairs. But there's still another room to look in!

They find a large workshop and at the center of it is a goblin who seems to be searching for something. The goblin insists he's a Swordrunner, but Wally is highly skeptical. When it becomes apparent that neither party is Swordrunners, the goblin introduces himslf as Gobbo and says he's seeing if he can find anything valuable in the hideout. He finds a map with the layout of the base and is able to tell the group what he'd already seen by marking on the map. There's a large domed room he advises them to admit, as well as multiple locations for holding prisoners. He also shares that he saw a large enclosure with an orb inside that matches the description of the Eye of Aureon, but Gobbo seems uninterested in it. He parts ways with the group and wishes them well.

Deeper Still

With the map providing guidance, they decide to head to the lower floor where one of the spots was marked by Gobbo. They can hear voices downstairs and know to expect more Swordrunners. Lt. Booth dons a robe to be more discrete, but his attempt at imitating emotion has the group suggesting that maybe he just stay quiet. When they head downstairs, they find themselves in a mess hall where several Swordrunners are eating and talking. One of the Swordrunners mentions some kind of initation going on upstairs, so the party says they're on a temporary break. They try to move on, but the two dogs are immediately enthralled by the presence of another dog! Yuri and Valia try to pull the dogs away, but aren't able to overpower them! Eventually once the dogs have engaged in enough sniffing, the group is able to move on.

They make it to the end of the hallway to find a locked door. Zed pops open the lock and inside they find Sgt. Angelica Steele! She's bruised and beaten and wakes up in a daze. Angelica reveals that she's been interrogated about some kind of aetherstone, but she doesn't know anything about it. That's one hostage recovered, two more to go!