One Down, Two To Go
Winter 41, 6840 CA
The group has Angelica well in hand now. After getting some medical attention from Lt. Booth, she's back in fighting shape but lacks for a weapon. Fortunately the party likes to horde weapons for a rainy day and Angelica is gifted a glaive, a crossbow and Zed's old studded leather armor. With Gobbo's map in hand, the group are not keen on doing any exploration and intend to go towards the next locations marked with prisoners. They start to make their way back to the stairs, but Wally hears voices up ahead.
The group quickly shuffle back to Angelica's cell, but the clanking of heavy armor from Lt. Booth, Valia and Ursa is just loud enough to catch the attention of Fandagh, who was escorting Becky the Ogre Champion down to the kitchens. Becky was the ogre that had defeated Bruno in the ring and Fandagh had been observing the fight. Zed is able to lock the door from inside by jamming the mechanism, which confounds Fandagh when his keys won't work. If the little keys don't work, then a giant Bec-Key will do the trick. The ogre shatters the door and the group are forced into a bottleneck as they try to keep the ogre from getting inside.
Valia takes the brunt of Becky's abuse and at one point is knocked unconscious. Yuri wants to keep things quiet and switches to the Railslammer instead of his preferred gun so he can fight close and personal. Meanwhile Fandagh lets out a road and enters into a strange supernatural rage that seems to teem with magical energy. Each time he's attacked, his rage begins to manifest in strange and unpredictable ways. He teleports into the fray, but soon finds himself being swarmed on by a much larger group than he anticipated. After Becky falls, Fandagh starts to make an escape just as more thugs have started running down the hall to investigate the noise. Wally uses Hold Person to lock the barbarian in place, but the magical plant growth that grows around him slows down their pursuit. in the chaos, Wally manages to raise two zombies from the corpses of Swordrunners and Yuri does the same by creating a spectre from a different Swordrunner he kills.
Fandagh is able to overcome the magical restraints and flees to the upper floor before the group can catch up. The remaining Swordrunners see one of their leaders has fled and barricade the door against the party. The party briefly consider chasing him, but the group is in bad shape after the fight and don't want to unknowingly run into more danger. After taking a minute to patch up some wounds, they head back upstairs to find the remaining prisoners. They don't see anything in the west hallway because that door was totally shut the entire time.
Fey At Work
The group head east with Valia leading the way. The enter into a cavern like area that lacks the finished tiles and walls of the other chambers they had been in. She is immediately spotted by three small hairy fey creatures that are digging out rocks and carrying them away. She improvises and tells them that this is a safety inspection, but the three Korreds look at her in confusions since none of them speak Common. Wally recognizes them speaking in Sylvan and quickly rushes in to assist Valia to back up her bluff. They're skeptical but seem to believe her that they should leave. One of them goes to speak with 'the Barber' about it and scuffles off towards another room that is blocked by a barred gate. Others in the party start shuffling into the room - including Wally's two zombies. The two remaining Korreds take this badly and begin to move in to subdue the zombies with their hair-lassoes. Wally takes offense to this and attacks one of the Korreds.
One of the zombies are lassoed and everything becomes a chaotic frenzy of battle. The Korreds prove remarkably durable and their hair-whips have an incredible range and strength. Zed rushes forward to see if she can find her mother, but finds herself on the painful receiving end of a Korred and Barber ganging up on her. Multiple members of the party are locked in place. Two little Vile Barbers run into the frey as well. They are nasty little fey creatures with huge mirthful grins and tiny razor blades that they use for precise and horrifying cuts. One of the barbers cuts into Ursa in a horrifying display that unsettles many of the party. When Ursa proves too much trouble for one Korred, it uses a hypnotic song to force her into a dance. Zed flees back to the group after spotting her mother, but Zed is barely standing at that point. Wally is restrained, but he is able to call up his Aura of Vitality to try to keep his friends alive while he waits to be freed.
A trio of angry Sporous Crabs are agitated by the battle and go on the offensive. Eventually the group are able to work together to put down the Fey creatures one by one. With the party in such bad shape, they're even desperate enough to let the dogs get some attacks in! Snotz happily murders two of the crabs, while Daisy valiantly protects Angelica. The two Barbers are the only ones remaining and teleport over to who they see as the most injured in the party, but their efforts aren't quite enough to take anyone down with them. The battle ends and the party is able to catch their breath after an unexpectedly harrowing battle.
Three Down, Time To Go
In the south room, they find an interrogation room filled with torture equipment. In the center is a flayed corpse of a woman that one of the barbers had been 'playing with'. Limaera is strapped in a chair and it looks like one of them had started cutting at her, but hadn't got around to truly carving into her. As she's released, she starts to wake up. A moment passes where the party waits for Zed to say something.... so Lt. Booth does his best to calm the situation as he patches Limaera's wounds up. Limaera recognizes Zed at last and is in a state of shock over the entire situation. She was asked about the Eye of Aureon and wants to know why Zed is after this dangerous giant's eye. Zed laments that she got involved in something more dangerous than she expected and never meant for anyone else to get hurt.
Wally spots a Boggle in an adjacent room that is pulling buckets of a strange liquid out of a pit and transferring it into vials. Valia finds a room full of corpses - but none of them look like Havmos. They go to the last location marked by Gobbo and find Havmos sitting in a cell, unharmed and humming a song in boredom. Zed unlocks the cell and he joins the group. Havmos is surprised and touched that the group gathered so many people just to rescue him! He does reveal that he buckled under pressure when asked about the Eye, but insists that he didn't sell the group out! From his story, he was abducted at the same time Limaera and Angelica were.
Havmos wants to try to find the Eye now that they're already so close, but the party wants to get out while they still can. The only question is: how?
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