Our next mission had a more ridiculous premise. The city of Ostocan had been built in the seismically active Greypeak mountain range - so active, in fact, that no other settlement ever remained whole, except this magically unaffected city. Or at least, until now. The Onix Scar, a criminal organization in charge of the city, had robbed a giant's tomb, somehow removing the magical protection. We received a crystal shard to be placed back inside. The shard glowed with hidden movement inside. Grog attuned to it, receiving great strength, but possible misfortune.
Our Waterdeep contacts provided some more useful info. The city had been built around a long ruined citadel. The Onix Scar dug underneath the ancient structure, and they are guarding the tunnel well. Inside, they mine for strange crystals that work as arcane foci, but are prone to breaking.
Off we were, riding into the sunset. For a whole week.
Once inside the loosely guarded city, we checked into the best inn available and had a talk with the rich merchant folk. They were not keen on talking about the mining operation, but a few drinks loosened their tongues. But the real treasure trove of information came from Leandro Sedhar, our contact in the city. A tabaxi playwright, of all things. We met him in the giant skull inn, first introducing myself as Weeberry Fudgeface, playwright and art critique. Once introductions were done, he told us all about the elf archivist Rilago, who first discovered the giant's tomb, then promptly disappeared. Soon after, the mining and the earthquakes started. Inquiries at the mayor, Tavio, and his sister, the captain of the city guard, Arminta, gave up nothing. Leandro also supplied us with a map sketched by his elven friend, and we identified several clandestine entry points into the tomb complex.
My first plan of attack would have been a talk with the mayor, but all we got was an appointment for Foofy Messywhistle.
So we descended into the workers' district, and paid for a few lunches and beers to hear the story of the creepy tunnels, filled with murals and statues, where the mining takes place. Dingpants Woolfeet, a travelling archaeologist and vulcanologist from Waterdeep, was keen to hear all about the rock. However, it turned out that the workers are actually chopping up a giant statue made of crystal. The material is extremely hard, and they can only get small amounts of the stuff. Yet they work round the clock.
Finally, we talked to a few adventurous souls regarding the sites of possible secondary entrances. We identified a cave with an underwater creek and a mountainside where another cave contains a barred door.
First thing in the morning, we went rock climbing. With all the equipment and my Boots of Spider Climbing, we made short work of the tough climb. Grog and Thaldor broke apart the bars, and we descended deep into the bowels of the earth. There was another set of bars, which I used acid vials on, and pop! we were inside.
We explored a ruined shrine with a hidden door. We heard voices on the other side, so we went the other way, right into an overgrown garden.
So overgrown with mushrooms and spores, that the thick vegetation itself animated to fend us off.
We struck at the shambling mound and retreated into the tunnel, holding off the lesser beings.
At this point we concluded the session and reconvened in a week... with miniatures! I missed the first hour or so, during which the guys beat the mushroom creatures, with some effort. I got in just in time to lockpick the trapdoor above the garden, and let us crawl out into some sort of decorated meeting room/sleeping space.
We discovered a secret door, and a corridor leading into a room. I heard voices, so we turned back.
The antechamber held food items, and an invisible stalker. I gave it some Faerie Fire, and we beat it to death.
The corridor opened into a large circular room, with a gigantic crystal statue being chipped at by workers. Silver made Grog and myself invisible, and we stalked to the other side. A couple of workers were playing cards, and I made a play at the locked door. Obviously, it held a gas trap, which knocked me out. The workers ran away. Grog slapped me back, and we went into the room to discover two treasures filled with gold. We put both into the Bag of Holding, when I heard voices. We tried to get the already visible Grog into the bag, but the guards entering still saw his legs going in. I was still invisible, so I just climbed to the ceiling. The guard captain was smart though, and refused to budge, even sending one worker for reinforcements. That left her, a wizard, 2 guards, and a worker in the room with us, blocking the door.
Fortunately, our comrades noticed something was up and charged in, preceded by a Silence spell. I then dropped Grog on the wizard in the room, and started shooting the boss lady.
Combat dragged on, but we successfully beat them down. However, reinforcements arrived from both ends of the corridor.
And to think, that all this would have been avoidable, had I grabbed Grog's ass just a bit more forcefully, and shoved him into the bag...
We ended another session there and reconvened in a week to beat all the guards' asses. On her last leg, the boss lady grabbed her sword, made it glow and started slashing at us madly, then promptly died with mad laughter in the background. Surely, nothing untoward. The worker-looking-shapeshifter-being tried to flee, but Armatio blocked the exit. The dude-thing went down on the ground, so Grog just beat him to death. We shot and stabbed and Spirit Guardian'd our way out of this situation as well, with many guards fleeing after some particularly gruesome criticals. We chased down and murdered as many as possible.
Always go-happy, I picked up the sword, and promptly had a talk with a demon living inside it. Sounded nice, but it was a longsword, so I gave it to Thaldor. We looked around the room, took the accounting papers, and moved on.
With some minor loot in the chambers, we finally got to the mausoleum, where a ghostly voice warned us against coming in. So I shouted back about needing to explore the place to set the crystal. This made Rilago's ghost materialize, and he gave us the steps to do the deed. First, we needed to recover some other crystals, where the evil wizard locked the spirits of the adventurers buried here. Obviously, the wizard's study was guarded by a clay golem.
We killed the golem, took the crystals and melted them back into the giant-body-turned-statue. It was a fun dance, with Armatio closing in, stepping back to bait out the attack of opportunity, stepping back in to lock down the golem, and everybody waltzing in to hit, then step back to avoid the area attack.
Back at Rilago, obviously he was the only one able to place the crystal back into the giant's heart (he was the one who took it, the fool). So I let him possess me and do it. Apparently this solved everything, and the crystals will now be indestructible once more. Rilago dissipated.
For fun, we went into the crypt and beat the crap out of 4 more ghosts. Armatio turned one, so we took them out in turn.
We rounded out the adventure by climbing the mountain back up to town. I did some disguises just in case, and we gave the details to our tabaxi playwright contact. Thaldor desired fame, so I embellished the story with a great number of wizards, golems, kobolds riding mushroom monsters, and so on.
Back in Waterdeep, we got our not-perfect-but-good rating. Unfortunately, the demon sword proved too much of a liability, so we banked it. At least we got a bucketload of money.
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