241120 - Oh, this map...

General Summary

Welcome back to this week’s fascinating look into the psyche of an adventurer. The muddied line between right and wrong, between good and evil. The juxtaposition of doing the right thing and killing everything. The tightrope walk of when every problem is a body, every solution is a sword. Over the last few instalments, we’ve seen the moral decline of the Lady Luthiel. Where once she was delicate and fainted at the sight of blood, she now licks her lips and relishes the thought of it – looking perfectly delectable and on-point whilst doing it of course.
“Bugger!” said Drogon as he listened to the tale of the Drow assassin from Griff and Luthiel. Only because he quite fancied a battle of the sneaks. Who could be sneakier, him or some manky pale elf? Drogon’s mind wandered, and in it he had created a reality game called “Celebrity Sneak-off”. He ruminated that this wasn’t dangerous enough and it should be set on the ice of a frozen lake. He was brought back to reality with a start, when he realised the others were looting corpses and he wasn’t getting a turn.
There wasn’t much to find apart from a token with a before unencountered sigil, a gem symbol engraved upon mithril. It was on the cooling corpse of the female caster. Another house had been encountered. It was then that the team heard the beginnings of a booming war drum and an ever- growing cacophony of Drow making preparations to come back and counter attack. Decisions had to be made. Kurog was all for just cutting swathes through the enemy, Jude was tempted, Luthiel twirled her hair in her fingers nervously. Griff was, wait, Griff was no where to be seen. Thorg shrugged, he’d be back to cast some spell in the nick of time. Little did Thorg know that Griff had crawled into his backpack.
Sentinel was very excited as she could use a new spell she’d be saving during her captivity. She began to conjure a miraculous mansion that would inhabit its own dimension, with a room for everyone and hundreds of spirit-like servants to see to all their whims. As soon as Sentinel had said the words “every whim” out of her mouth, Thorg began to describe a litany of things he would be asking for. Even Jude was stunned at the depravity, but was also impressed as Thorg was using words she’d never heard before. Every day is a school day. Luthiel just rocked back and forth, hugging herself.
Whilst the spell was being cast, Drogon went off to scout the surrounding area that they hadn’t already been around. He discovered an open area to the east/right (they still had no real idea about direction) and found an empty throne sitting atop a seven-foot-high stone dais. He started moving further right and caught a whiff and strong animal smell, that he couldn’t quite place and decided to head back to where sentinel had anchored the mystical doorway to her mansion.
Jude and Luthiel sauntered down another small corridor and went down a slope until they came to an empty cave. Luthiel described the cave to dark-blind human, starting with the dimensions and then proceeding to explain the strata of each rock until Jude’s eyes had glazed over completely. She smiled, her new favourite game was shutting down the brain of the cleric. She stopped smiling when she realised the floor was coated in a dark and sticky substance. She nudged Jude awake and pointed. Jude came to the conclusion that the floor of the entire cave was coated in dried blood, perhaps over a week old. The pair backed out quickly and also returned to the mansion door and the rest of their friends. Was this where the Drow brought the blood from the exsanguinated corpses? They had found a dead elf in the main cavern next to some empty vials. Perhaps another indication that they were looking at the destination of the blood, a sacrifice, a toll? Only time would tell.
The team started to enter the house but a squealing Luthiel pushed passed them all, and ran to her private quarters where a huge steaming bath was sat, bordered by laden tables of her favourite elven delights. The door was slammed in a way that only a teenager can manage and no one saw her again until the morning. The others meandered off. After prayers, Jude removed her armour and had the minions clean it for her as she too stepped into a bubble bath. Sentinel, spent some time writing up a report for her master before eating and crashing. Thorg ran to his room shouting “Flame on!” and also wasn’t seen until morning. Griff and Kurog settled to play a few rounds of dice with a rather nice Charkian red wine, perfectly matched with orcish lizard cheese, which Griff politely declined to eat. Drogon had the ethereal servants conjure a board where he could develop his game show ideas.
Come morning our band were in the best of moods. The lack of damp and darkness had lifted even the depression that Drogon felt. They formed up in fighting order, not knowing what they would find on the other side until they opened the door. Jude couldn’t help but notice that, if anything, Kurog smelt even worse than when they had entered. Griff muttered about him sweating out Lizard milk cheese and Jude paled at the thought.
Team Heavy metal broke from the door left and right to head off any trouble they’d find. Nothing! Sentinel cast a few spells on the group, making them all appear to be either Drow, Bugbears and Goblins, depending on size. Certainly, all things that were at home in the dank environs they’d come to hate. Team Sneak did their thing, with sentinel checking the main cavern and Drogon returned to the strange cavern with the throne. He wasn’t expecting much to have changed and was unpleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.
The throne was now inhabited by a crone of a woman, her clothes were mouldering and tattered. Drogon, fairly secure in his triple level of sneakiness, invisible, sneaking and goblin illusion, turned to inspect the lady further. Luthiel later commented that the clothing was from an era long, long gone, millennia ago. The wizened face turned towards Drogon and simply said “I see you.”. Drogon stopped dead and felt a burning need to change his britches. He backed up as the rest of band came towards him and the throne, called by his telepathic weeping. As a group they confronted the woman on the throne. Jude and Luthiel looked at each other and said in unison,” Undead!”. Luthiel felt waves of evil pouring from the creature. Below, on the floor were four floating skulls, surrounded by a greenish mist, all turned towards the party.
The woman faced the group and asked “Who are you and why are you here, slaying my kin?”. Sentinel started to step forward, preparing for some sublime acting and swift talking but was waved away and dismissed as a worthless half-breed, as the enthroned lady looked at Luthiel. “Yet again your kind come and slaughter mine! You are the reason we’re down here in the first place, are you not satisfied with your attempted genocide, topsider? You should leave, and leave now. Go no further on!”
Sentinel cast True Seeing to test a theory that this was an illusion and although the woman didn’t change in the slightest bit she could now see the skulls for what they really were, powerful undead warriors, one of whom was wearing the same armour as Kurog. A penny felt like it was about to drop...
Sentinel recovered from the slight she felt that anyone wasn’t interested in her mellifluous tones and careful story-telling. “Who are you, that you can talk to us in this way?” she asked.
“Kneel and abase yourself as is befitting for I am Queen Aspidesa, matriarch of the house ‘Simmerbin’ half-breed,” the woman replied. Her tone brooking no contradiction from Sentinel. So, Sentinel knelt and continued her line of questions. For someone long dead the Queen proved to be quite chatty.
Jude nudged Sentinel and let her know that this wasn’t the only undead that she and Luthiel could feel. There were hundreds in the back rooms, hundreds. Jude also expressed her opinion that this was in fact, a Lich. On the scale of undead creatures that had the unfortunate ability to live on in the Material Plane, Liches ranked a solid 34 out of 10. Being powerful mages that cheated death to live on.
The party discovered that Aspidesa has no real interest in the politics that seemed to plague the Drow and her house didn’t engage in the infighting. Jude was going to quip that the reason for this was that her house was dead and gone, but a quick half-orc hand was placed over her mouth. Everyone was to be on their best behaviour.
Queen Aspidesa’s head snapped to look at Kurog with an unnerving speed. “You are wearing the armour of one of mine, Krell. How dare you!” she snarled. Kurog began to feel a pressure in his brain and voices telling to perform unspeakable acts of violence on his friends. His armour began to crackle with an eldritch energy. Sentinel's penny finally dropped.
“Leave now and do not continue down the path,” the Queen stated simply. Jude was lost in thought and wondering how best to approach the upcoming fight. Perhaps they could thin the herd of undead with some holy sanctity? She missed the cues that Kurog, hundreds of undead creatures, four undead elite and a lich were about to bear down on her. The others had backed off quite a way before Jude turned to ask their opinion on strategy. It seemed there was no fight to be had here. The logical part of Jude’s brain was relieved, the part that was a burning ball of rage would always wonder if they could have taken the Lich.
After getting a safe distance away and sure they weren’t being followed, Drogon set off to further explore the larger cavern. It was at this point that he remembered another map that they had found, after getting it out he sighed. It matched his own mapping almost exactly. Ah well, now they had two. During his explorations he came across a mushroom farm, manned by troglodytes. Possible barracks for Bugbears, along with another for trolls. The party now knew what more of the symbols on the map meant. The flail symbol, they’d seen on the shields of the bugbears was the wavy line and star symbol.
There was one corridor left to explore and this one had a guarded checkpoint in front of it. Sentinel cracked her knuckles and cooked up a plan with Griff. Griff would create tokens from the house Ulata, the moon clan. They knew enough about this house from their conversations in the tower with the Drow, Morwen of that same clan. The last time they tried this it hadn’t gone well. But, as Sentinel pointed out, the last time they had tried it with a clueless, human cleric. Jude was a little hurt by this and managed to hide the lone tear that fell from her eye.
Sentinel took a deep breath, and the party moved forward all in their disguises still. She took a masterful tone with the guards and they seemed to defer to her every word, whilst still looking for proof. Griff’s transmutations stood up to the test and the guards let them past, whilst asking why on earth they’d want to go down that tunnel. Unable to stop now and question whether they had picked the right one, they proceeded. Two of the huge slugs barred their way. Their massive, heaving and slimy masses almost filling the tunnel. It seemed they had miscalculated where they were on the map. This path would still get them to where they needed to be, but at what cost?
Only the next episode of the Band of Tomb Robbing Assassins, exclusively found in the Daily Bugle, will tell you dear readers. Be sure to pick up the latest copy next week. Note: The ink of the previous paper-run was found to contain traces of nuts. Those that have an allergy should not handle the newspaper. If they have already, then the Bugle will contribute towards their resurrection.

Report Date

20 Nov 2024

Related Characters

• Drogon
• Griff
• Jude Ellstar
• Kurog the Destroyer
• Luthiel
• Seedra Willowflax
• Thorg