Session 10. - Deeper in and Further Down

General Summary

The Realm of Tarsere    Adventures In Tarsere    The Horizon Beckons    Session Reports      Session 10. - Deeper in and Further Down

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27th of Last Light, 1439 A.P.

The party woke somewhat refreshed after a surprisingly uninterrupted rest. They wasted no time and headed straight for the stairwell leading downwards. The door was locked but thankfully the key they'd found the previous day worked and the gate swung open. The stairs headed steeply downward into darkness in a generally northerly direction before eventually turning westward and opening up into an oblong room with what looked like a well in the center.

As the others examined the three other exits from the room, Oorr stated loudly that a well is never just a well. He went on about it always being the secret back entrance to the hideout, or the entrance to the next level. With the other passages identified and not noticeably different than anything they'd encountered so far, they were easily convinced to see what was going on with the well. Deadeye dropped a rock down, expecting there to be a splash but all they heard was a wet thud when it hit the bottom. There was a debate between Arbor and Deadeye as to who was the lightest/smallest and would climb down. Arbor won and after they tied a rope to his waist, Angrar lowered him down the shaft. Unfortunately due to some poor communication, Angrar, thought he'd reached the bottom and let the rope slacken which sent Arbor falling the last five feet into the muck below.
After extracting himself from the mud, he looked around but couldn't see much. Ever helpful Deadeye dropped one of his torches down the well and thankfully didn't hit Arbor when it landed. The light revealed a mucky ooze of fungus covered mud. Partially buried in the muck was a humanoid skeleton. Arbor quickly searched but didn't find anything else. The skeleton was covered in tatterred robes and had a small golden signet ring bearing the image of a bull.
Arbor grabbed the ring and shouted up to the others to pull him up as he realized he was slowly sinking into the muck. Thankfully Angrar didn't slip on the way up and he made it out of the well without incident. With a quick wave of his hand, Arbor magically cleaned the muck off his gear and they decided to explore the southern passage first.
Urith volunteered to be the forward scout as he was nearly invisible in the gloom. He quickly came to a door that was locked. They tried the key but it didn't fit. Oorr once again determined he was not that type of rogue, when he was unable to unlock it. Angrar briefly thought about smashing the door in, but they decided that subtlety was a higher priority than necessity.
Heading back into the room with the well, they first took the North-easterly passage. It opened into a room with a fast flowing sewage pipe running westward across the northern half of it. A loud roaring could be heard through the western wall, where the sewer exited. Various machines were pumping stuff out of the sewer while three humans monitored it. A fourth was pouring something into the water. Urith was noticed while scouting and he quickly retreated to let the others know what he found.
When they all re-entered the room, the four humans were waiting for them and a fight broke out. Urith dashed into the room, hoping to get a better vantage point on the enemy (and hopefully prevent a bottleneck in the doorway that had been their downfall in previous fights). He paid for his daring though, as two of the Hand swarmed him and hit him hard. The humans then surprised them by morphing into a more bestial aspect which gave the others pause as well. The others managed to get into the room, with Oorr dancing through them and Suljurn putting the long reach of his halberd to good use.
Eventually they managed to take down the humanoids, who reverted to human once dead, and searched through the room. They found several potion bottles, a small emerald and the bloody remains of a note written in Elven that said:

Turn Nine then Three

While most of the group puzzled over the the note, and if they had all the information yet, or even what The Hand were pouring into the sewer, Arbor curiously went to investigate the sewer exit into the wall.
Before anyone could suggest tying a rope to him, he waded into the water and slid/was pushed by the current down a short tunnel onto a rusty metal grate. The roaring noise turned out to be the sewer pouring through the grate into a deep abyss below. On the other side of the chamber, Arbor spotted the haft of a staff wedged into the grate. As he moved out to get it, the metal groaned alarmingly under his slight weight. Thankfully it held long enough for him to reach the staff and pry it from the grate. However, it didn't last much longer as it tumbled down into the darkness shortly after he stepped off.
With an effort, he made it back to the main room and showed his prize to the others. It wasn't a staff at all, but was in fact a spear, wrapped in blue leather with a yellow gem embedded near the blade. After berating the goblin for being reckless and coaxing a promise to ensure he tied a rope around himself next time, they packed up the spear, though Suljurn eyed it as a potential replacement for his halberd.
Urith went back on point and continued to lead the group slowly forward. They headed down the northwest passage and it quickly opened into a wider hallway with a small alcove and two hallways leading off to the west. In the alcove the found the remains of someone's meal, a candle nearly guttered out and a waterlogged book written in Elven. After handing the book over to Angrar to translate, Urith continued scouting down the northern of the two western passages.
The passage had high vaulted ceilings which created weird echoes with the sewer line running westward. on both sides of the passage were alcoves with large valves. Urith counted five down the passage. He heard voices echoing from up ahead so he turned back to let the others know.
When he got back Angrar had deciphered the book as best he could. The water had destroyed most of the pages and not for the first time Arbor cursed not knowing a mending spell. What Angrar was able to decipher though was it was a manual regarding water flow through the vaults. A page that was partially circled described how if certain valves were closed simultaneously, then the system would back up. If left long enough, it would likely lead to catastrophic failure and flooding in the city above. It also mentioned purging the system but the only legible word was

"Opposite"

. The book presumably listed the valves to avoid closing, but the water made those pages illegible.
Urith brought everyone else up to speed on the voices that he heard and then proceeded back up the northern passage. Deadeye, Oorr and Angrar headed down the southern one and discovered a similar scene to what Urith described the other passage looked like. They met up in the middle where a single valve was lit by a torch. They were pretty certain the voices they heard were coming further down the southern passage. Oorr circled around while Urith and Deadeye held back on overwatch. Arbor, Angrar and Suljurn all slowly made their way along the southern passage until they saw a man bearing a staff dressed in dark ragged robes.
He was definitely the source of one of the voices, but they could see no one else nearby... until he shifted his posture and spoke in a different, much more aggressive tone. He was clearly mad, and talking to himself.
Oorr had managed to loop around through the far passage and was close enough to hear him and understand that an argument was taking place even though he couldn't understand the words.
Without hesitation , Oorr stepped around the corner and quickly cast charm person before the man could react. The man only noticed Oorr as the spell took hold and he waved and welcomed him over like an old friend. Unfortunately the spell couldn't overcome the language barrier and while the man chatted amiably to Oorr, the Faun couldn't understand a word being said.
Angrar and Deadeye both stepped closer to help translate and an odd-four-way conversation occurred. The man's mind was broken and even with the charm, he shifted back and forth between the kind voice and the harsh angry one.
The language barrier hindered the questions that they could ask and the personality shift did as well. They gathered that his name was Bolkaer and he was trying to remember which valves his boss, Talos, had wanted him to turn. The angry voice kept berating him for not knowing and telling him to let him take over. Bolkaer seemed to resist but when the others started to ask about Talos, he clammed up. Oorr encouraged him to go and wait in the central area and told him that they would go and find this Talos, and get everything all cleared up. This made their new friend very happy and even the angry version of his personality seemed mollified by this solution.
The party set off down the far passage which headed south before turning back east for a bit and then heading south once more.
At the second southern bend they saw a door across the hall on the eastern wall. however it was difficult to reach as the sewer pipe on the northern wall was spewing large amounts of wastewater down the southern passage. To make matters worse, the southern passage itself had a distinct slope that was made treacherous by the water and sewage.
Defying physics, or perhaps channelling his inner goat, Oorr stepped across the passage without difficulty and managed to unlock to door. Urith tied a rope around his waist, carefully made it across and proceeded into the next room without waiting for the others.
After passing through the door, he almost went over a small cliff into the room below but was saved at the last second by his natural instincts. The room itself was rounded and glittered oddly in the dimness. Several rock and crystalline formations littered the floor. He saw a ladder down and another on a similar ledge on the far side of the room.
Without waiting, he climbed down into the cave and made his way to the far side, only stopping briefly to untie the rope around his waist when it began to get taught. When he was halfway across the room, one of the rocks shifted and a long necked creature appeared and slowly started creeping towards him.
The others waited for Urith to give them a signal and when the rope suddenly went slack, they panicked a little. Angrar tried climbing across but slipped on the wet rock and slid partway down the sloped passage. After recovering, he managed to cross over and tied off the rope around the same time as Urith made it to the other side and climbed up the far ladder.
The others started making their way across the rope and into the room. when all but Arbor were left outside, Urith seemed to get impatient and opened fire on the large snail-like creature that was lumbering curiously closer.
The snail reacted instantly and an excruciatingly bright light radiated out from its shell, disorienting everyone and making them momentarily blind. Arbor was the only one spared as he had slipped on his way across and had ended up further down the passage. he slowly made his way back up while Oorr and the others attacked the snail.
As Oorr was the closest foe it could sense, the Flail Snail laid into him with its club like appendages, knocking him back with the sheer number of hits. Suljurn was able to poke it from a distance with his halberd but spent most of the fight ensuring the others didn't fall down.
Once Angrar knew that Arbor was safe, he dove into the fight, jumping down onto the beast from above, but was unsuccessful in doing much real damage against its hard shell. When Arbor joined the fight, he started flinging spells at it but to everyone's surprise, they reflected off and hurt everyone nearby. Deadeye summoned his Drake and he enhanced the damage done.
After injuring the beast seriously, it quit fighting, retreated into its shell and tried to hide. The group continued attacking it mercilessly though and after sustaining several more hits against its shell, it re-emerged and started fighting again.
Unfortunately its wounds were too great and it missed many of its attacks until a final arrow from Urith put it down. The only thing in the room that they could find was a broken shard of sapphire.
After resting up, they climbed up the far ladder and headed down another corridor heading south. When a doorway branched off to the east, they took it and eventually arrived in a large common room. Tables and chairs were strewn everywhere and the could hear voices to the south. Urith stepped where he could see into the far room and saw bunkers in similar disarray with several humans rummaging through the beds.
They noticed Urith right away and another fight broke out. When the party came into the sleeping quarters fully, the saw the leader of the humans was one of the wererats they'd fought earlier.
The fight was rough, even more-so when another wererat appeared from the kitchen area and attacked Arbor and nearly laid him low. After a tense exchange of blows the party got the upper hand and was able to focus on bringing the damage resistant weres down.
They searched through the remains of the room, curious to find what the rats had been searching for and came up with little beyond a bunch of loose coins that the rats had been so kind to gather up, an ale tankard that had seen better days yet had survived the destruction of the common room, and in the fireplace a half burned note that said:

Then 1 0

With Urith in the lead again they set off down the long passageway heading west. It quickly branched north to some stairs leading a short way down but also continued westward. In the flickering torchlight they could see more of those spike traps they'd seen earlier, however these seemed to have already been triggered and Urith spotted a body impaled on a nearby set.
Rather than face the trap just yet, they backtracked and headed down the stairs. A double door opened inwards and they came across a scene where two humans were frantically flicking switches and performing some manner of experiment on some sewer sludge by a nearly empty cistern and sewage culvert. Another humanoid, dressed in dark robes was standing on a raised platform at the southern side of the room. He was standing at a dais, barking orders, or perhaps incantations, in a harsh, gutteral tongue. They presumed that this must be Talos, the leader. Two wererat guards stood near him at the top of each of the stairs leading up to the raised area. They all turned as the doors opened...
Oorr dashed in and despite their weariness, the group followed and the fight was on. Talos started some incantation and small firey meteors started orbiting him while Oorr and Urith maneuvered into the room. Angrar, Deadeye and the Drake came next while Suljurn used his polearm to reach the wererat guards and Arbor tried sniping at the boss from the corner.
Things went well enough at first, but the rats and low level thugs hit hard and kept the party divided. On top of that Talos kept sending his meteors at Angrar and Oorr doing significant amounts of damage. The minions finally went down but the battle shifted drastically against the party when Talos cast a spell on Angrar suggesting that he was there to defend The Hand's leader.
With Angrar suddenly playing for the other team and chasing after anyone who hurt Talos, the party's momentum slowed drastically. With their spells, health and morale dwindling, things did not look good. At one point Deadeye went down and Suljurn stepped in to heal him, himself getting trapped on the stairs against one of the wererats. This led to him taking several lethal blows that struck him down. Thankfully, Oorr was able to step in and heal him partially.
Urith kept shooting arrows at Talos, hoping to break his concentration, but the mage had a will of iron and held control over Angrar, who continued to chase down anyone who attacked "the boss". Angrar spent most of the fight bouncing back and forth between targets and eventually was only able to take out his rage on Deadeye's drake, sending it back into the ether with a single hit.
Despite the battle leaning heavily in his favour, Talos took the opportunity to pull a pair of levers on either side of the dais and then ran out through a secret door behind one of the tapestries on the southern wall. Urith gave chase, ducking past one of the wererats and heading through the door. Angrar also gave chase, but only to ensure his master's safety.
The others tried to take out the wererats and follow, but Suljurn went down again and was near death for a third time in the fight. The wererat nearest him, viciously stabbed him even after he was down, knowing that his friends were helpless to stop it. Oorr stepped in again, tapping out his last healing reserves to stabilize the Saurial.
Talos had a decent head start, but Urith was determined to catch him and chased after him as fast as he could. Angrar was just as determined to protect him and came on like an inevitable tsunami crashing towards the shore. Talos wove effortlessly through the spear traps and disappeared through another secret door. Urith, his Jotuni stubbornness and bloodlust in full force, continued the chase, getting further and further away from the others. Angrar inexorably came on behind.
Urith heard a steel clanging noise and ran into a room with several chests, crates and sacks of loot spilled all over the floor. A steel doorway swung lazily open on its hinges in the far corner of the room and a spiral staircase could be seen leading upwards into darkness. Urith could hear footfalls getting farther and farther away. His instinct was to continue the chase but his better judgement reasserted itself and he came to a halt, out of breath and regretting the taste of every lungful of sewer air he sucked in.
Angrar came up behind him shortly after and as he was still unsure of his allegiances, Urith briefly raised his weapon to defend against his friend. Angrar however seemed confused as to how he'd gotten there or what all had happened near the end of the fight. Angrar expressed disappointment that the boss had gotten away and they briefly considered following up the stairs before deciding that they should head back and check on the others...
While the chase was on, the rest of the group managed to finish off one of the wererats and the last one started running. It too exited through the secret door but instead headed back towards the mess hall and dormitory. Urith and Angrar were close enough to see the wererat run and Urith rewarded its cowardice by feathering its back with an arrow... that brought it down. It fell onto one of the spike traps and lay twitching there for some time.
When Urith and Angrar re-entered the "throne room", the others were rummaging around to see what they could see. Underneath the throne, they found a set of leather bracer, a small stone ring and two potions of a reddish liquid that resembled clotted blood.
There were some documents on the dais as well. Angrar absent-mindedly grabbed them on the way past, but was too tired to read them. They played with the two levers and determined that one must have opened the secret door, but they were uncertain what the other did.

The party were desperate for a rest and headed back to the snail's cavern, figuring it was the most secure, out of the way place they could rest. Not caring about much else, they all quickly passed out dreaming of a day when they could actually leave these gods-forsaken sewers. As they drifted off, the cold spike of worry set in to a few of them after all the bites from the wererats they'd sustained... how infected were they?

Rewards Granted

• 614xp
• Signet Ring (w/ image of a Bull)
• A small Emerald
• 5 Healing potions
• A Magical Spear
• A shard of Sapphire
• A well-worn tankard
• Magic Bracers
• A dark coloured stone ring with a swirling pattern engraved on it
• 2 Unidentified Potions (contents resembling clotted blood)

Character(s) interacted with

• Bolkaer, The Outcast
• Talos, The Rat Prince

Notes

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Campaign

The Horizon Beckons

Protagonists

Deadeye Cliffhanger

Oorr Rosetta del Hilltopple

Chaotic Good [Tar] Faun (City Watch / Investigator)
Rogue 4
Sorcerer 1

37 / 37 HP

STR
10

DEX
18

CON
12

INT
8

WIS
12

CHA
16

Urith Thane

Arbor Nox

Angrar Ironbrow

Report Date

11 Jun 2023

Primary Location

Cìrdan

Related Plots

• Defeat The Hand
• Discover what The Hand are doing?

Related Characters

• Angrar Ironbrow
• Arbor Nox
• Deadeye Cliffhanger
• Oorr Rosetta del Hilltopple
• Urith Thane