Session 24: Down in the Depths


 * Base stuff! We all put in 50 GP to a communal kitty → 300 total. Hire 12 mercs (Reef Guards, all Warrior 1) and a leader (Geremiah, Fighter 1) as guards.
 * Sarienne also buys studded leather armor for all of the mercs (12), 4 crossbows, 12 signal whistles, badges with her own money. Vesun buys 12 wooden shields and spears (108 GP).
 * Defenses: glyph of warding by stairs, listener stones set up around the base (to Mogen), fusillade targeting the front door (mechanical switch to deactivate inside shark’s mouth), arcane lock on vault door.
 * Dax has been dissecting the warforged. It was definitely built recently - within the last year.
 * Ir’Tain gala in 6 days, fanciest party in city, in richest part of town. Jana is an Ir’Tain and will be there; anyone who is anyone in the city will be there. She wrote “invite to gala” next to Jinnah of Renan on an article re: House Sivis. (SOMETHING TO DO WITH WARFORGED MATERIALS BEING SHIPPED TO AUNDAIR AND KARRNATH?)
 * Current ideas about how to get in: sneaky folks try to hide in carts with caterers, maybe get invites somehow?
 * We go see Lady Edna.
 * Sarienne asks about the Ir’Tain Gala. She has never been invited (and is bitter about that) but appears to be in awe of it. Apparently the invitations are spectacular and personalized. - She says her grandma was brought here by a nasty wizard; he was in love with her and she inherited the estate. - She calls the butler Clancy over and cleans us up.
 * She brings us to her favorite (pricey) tailor, Ricardo. Sarienne gets a fancy evening gown, Cornerio gets a fancy suit, Mogen wants a power suit (+2 diplomacy checks).
 * We go to scope out the Ir’Tain manor. There’s a wall surrounding it. There is a guard there who we talk to.
 * There are laborers there, and carts, and people decorating. The Queen will be there.
 * Sarienne talks the guard into giving us a tour. She points out a “stargazing spot” where the Queen will likely be during the gala. (There is also another sleeping guard.)
 * Sarienne invisibly flies up to scout, and somebody with robes and rose-tinted goggles spots her. An archer draws at her, and it’s clear they’ve seen her. She flees and lands, disguised as the sleeping guard, and a knight rides up and asks for help looking for fugitive.
 * They go off on a goose chase with Vesun pretending he has teleported into their vault.
 * Meanwhile, Vikrit sells the Hide Armor of Shadow and Tork hires a rotund hobgoblin with a bandolier of spices to be our cook (Getafix)
 * We discuss the plan, and one of the guards comes and gets us - there’s a young human man who has a scroll in a scroll case who has been shot by an arrow - dying. It looks like he was shot from above somewhere.
 * “Come see me in the Temple of the 6 - Cavallah” - leader of Daask; in Khyber’s Gate.
 * Vesun starts patching him up and keeps him from dying. He says a member of Daask told him to deliver the scroll.
 * 2 of the goblin guards want to stay inside now and keep watch through the slit windows.
 * We head down to Khyber’s Gate.
 * There’s a small tavern/slaughterhouse/butchershop etc that caters to monsters.
 * We go to the temple. Vanesse is there with her mentor, who is tuning her out. The gnoll (Keshta) we’ve seen before is there too–he leads us into the back where there’s a large atrium.
 * A lot of weird monsters are here. Minotaurs, basilisk, medusa…
 * Ogre mage is sitting in the back with a gold crown. She’s Cavallah. She says Dax’s debt has been repaid, asks us if we want to help with other stuff. Says we can have dragon’s blood, gold, etc. and help us sell things.
 * Vikrit makes a point of mentioning wanting to elevate monsters in city.
 * The (male) medusa (Nev) is her second in command. Wants us to clear out a shit-tunnel (goblins are getting killed), slum near forgehold.
 * We head out to Ashblack, industrial area. There are pipes spitting out refuse into a pit. A gnome gestures us over - he’s got crap on blankets. - Cornerio says it’s false advertising (‘rat market’) and Vikrit catches one. Offers it to goblins on side, they spit on him, so Vikrit shrugs and takes a bite. - Vesun asks if he’s heard anything about disappearances. He wants a bribe. Vesun maneuvers him into 12 silver. He leads us over to stone pit with grate - entrance to sewers. Goblins and humans have been disappearing when going down into it to scavenge.
 * We go down the stairs.
 * It STINKS in the sewer. There are valves. Some of the party hears someone muffled whimpering in pain. There’s a body lying facedown in muck - a female goblin. Vesun jumps into the water - it’s weirdly pale (exsanguinated), and definitely a corpse. Tork notices a human sized black spider falling onto Vikrit.
 * It bites him - and starts sucking his blood for CON damage [new max HP = 25]). Tork magic missiles it. Mogen tries to slash with the kukri and drops it. Vesun recovers the kukri and tries to stab it. The middle valve opens, but misses us. Mogen grabs the kukri from him and slashes it. Cornerio manages to run along the wall like a ninja and then, rolling a 1, wipes out into the muck.
 * Vesun cures most of Vikrit’s con damage but still down to 1 HP. Cornerio rolls another 1 and chucks his kukri across the room. Tork lightning bolts the spider and then backflips out of the way when one of the valves turns on. The spider tosses Vikrit to the side when it finishes draining him and goes for Vesun, who smacks it on the face with his mace, but it jumps on him.
 * Tork magic missiles it again. Cornerio rolls very poorly on punching it. Vesun tries to struggle free. Sarienne guts it. Vesun heals Vikrit.
 * We find a huge hatch with a stylized anvil and hammer and find another hallway with rubble at the end.
 * Someone’s been living down here. Rubble is old; has been disturbed recently. There’s a secret door with a small switch. Sarienne opens it.
 * There’s a huge relief of a demonic face. We hear a gong. At the top of the stairs is a red thing - triangular viper-style head with glowing eyes, writhing in a mass of black smoke. Vesun casts Protection from Evil on Sarienne. Mogen loads a sticky bun.
 * Vesun summons a celestial dog and has it run up the stairs. From the top of the stairs, hear: “WHO ENTERS THE LAIR OF THE MIGHTY DRAGON DRAXION!”
 * He hears “shut up, it’s not a real dog!” and calls for us to surrender. Sarienne has Vesun use invisibility and she starts creeping up, but she makes a noise and they hear her. They say “That’s it!” and the dragon shoots flames out. The dog gets vaporized.
 * Sarienne gets up to the top. She sees 2 humans there behind the dragon-thing (one operating it). It opens into a bigger area – where there are poison dusk lizardfolk. One comes up to talk to them. They try yelling at us to surrender again.
 * Sarienne shoots the alchemist’s fire flask and dives away. The guy screams and runs toward the lizardfolk. Mogen fires a sticky bun - and someone gets caught. Sarienne gets up and takes out her sickles.
 * We hear a bunch of yelling. Cornerio and Vikrit move up. The guy close-by pops out right in front of Sarienne and Vesun and drops his weapon. The guy says lizardfolk have captured him. We hear a loud sound and Vikrit turns around. The poison dusk lizardfolk have run around and flanked us with a human, who is intimidated by Mogen. The lizardfolk poison Tork for 1 Con damage. Mogen blasts them with a hot potato and Tork destroys them.
 * We get them to surrender. While the others interrogate the captives, Cornerio finds some cool stuff. They are unhelpful and lie.
 * The human lies and says they’re commoners. One of them says they found statue and says they figured they’d do a trick on them, but lizardfolk showed up with spider thing. The lizardfolk supposedly agreed to work for them. They have been robbing people. The lizardfolk deny working with the spider thing - one calls it Chellasera? They mention a weird door - House Cannith thing? (Doing something with the spider to open the door?)
 * We say we’re going to bring everyone to the goblins for retribution. The lizardfolk mentions that the spider thing was trained to seek out lizardfolk blood.
 * We come back up with the prisoners and bring them to the goblins. No one comes out, so we tell them to go fuck off. The lizardfolk form a group and try to leave, and the humans get surrounded by a mob of goblins.
 * We go look at the door again. It’s an ancient symbol of Cannith. Sarienne and Vikrit get blasted when she tries to open the door (and when Vikrit tries smearing the spider thing’s blood on the door).
 * Vikrit gives a couple silver to a kid to keep an eye out, an adult takes it from them.
 * Re: Vanesse - “She’s a loose affiliate.” “She’s very stupid.”
 * Says we should go to Wounded Dragon - shop where we can fence stuff. Cornerio asks if he can get us into the gala.
 * “Hey Torvak!” (minotaur looks up) Walid: “I look up too.”
 * Sarienne fences the music box (10,080 gp), will get paid later.
 * Cornerio found: jewelry, 20 plat coins, bearer bonds worth 1000 GP, medium fancy vest (vest of escape - secret pockets with different lockpicks (+4 bonus to open lock, +6 escape artist)). We agree to split things 10 ways and 20% goes into party pot. Cornerio really wants a stupid boulder trap. He also wants to keep the vest and get it tailored but eventually Sarienne convinces him to give it over.
 * Loot: 1740 gold total. 174 each, 348 to kitty; 558 gp total kitty.
 * Drug Stuff: We have lots of Dream Lily. House Boromar controls it, Daask controls dragon’s blood.
 * LEVEL UP TO 7!
 * LEVEL UP TO 7!