Illythan and Orias make idiots of
themselves trying out the dance to open the door– Orias not so much
because he's using an illusion spell and not really doing it himself.
None of our attempts (even when rolling a 22) were successful. Eorin
cast Eagle's splendor and guidance on Illythan, but it still did no
good. The Hell-knight, Aerodus, thinks we're all idiots. And then we
sang a song about trapeze artists. Graham threatened to cock-slap us,
so we got off our bikes.
After an hour of dancing, Illythan
finally got it right, and the face laughed at us (and really, we
deserve it) and the mouth stayed open. There was a very dark hallway,
with another door. Made of wood and iron, with a lock. Orias set off
a trap when trying to pick the lock. He did not dodge and got sprayed
in the face with acid. Then the trap re-filled. Orias looked a little
closer and figured out where the lock is actually, instead of the
fake trap lock. He tries again and successfully opens the door.
Darkness blooms from one spot in the
room, indicating magical darkness. Eorin casts “light”on a rope,
and they leave the hobgoblin to hold the light end in the doorway.
Illythan figures out it's a Thassilonian version of the “darkness”
spell to not only make it permanent, but also will restore itself if
you cancel it. Kyle goes to investigate, holding onto the other end
of the rope.
The rope stops moving, but hasn't
fallen, and Kyle doesn't answer when called for. However, no
resistance when the rope is tugged on gently. Eorin follows, and
disappears in a similar fashion. ((Eorin's P.O.V: A voice asks: What
is your dream? Eorin answered: To become a priest of Pharasma)) After
a few moments, Zelara went in after Kyle and Eorin. She doesn't come
out. After waiting a few minutes, and discussing if they should just
abandon the others or not, Orias gets kicked in by Gansukh, and
Illythan follows. A voice asks them “what is your dream?”
The darkness ends up only being paper
thin, and the party emerges on the other side in the order they
entered, finding a room with extremely accurate maps, a globe, texts
on Pharasma, maps pointing out locations in Ustalav and books on
phylacteries, a small box, and an arcane mark on the ceiling.
Illythan pockets the box. The arcane mark may have belonged to one of
the Thassilonian Rune-lords of pride. Arcane marks are usually only
visible via detect magic, but Orias could just see it without.
A butler comes through – construct
(maybe homunculus) w/mustache, pipe, green cardigan, but no pants. He
calls everyone “Wesley” and his name is “Mr. Butlernoculus.”
He has a butt, but no genitals. Instead, he has a knob/handle type
thing that he refuses to talk about, despite Zelara's questioning,
because it's rude. Signs say it's okay to look & touch, but not
take the things in the room, except for notes. Illythan attempts to
leave to go and let Gansukh know that the party is okay and will take
a while to copy down the information we found. It takes significantly
longer going back out than it took going in. He exits, and tells
Gansukh that everyone is not dead.
Meanwhile, the party nerds out and
takes notes/ copy the maps. Illythan gets Aerodus to lug a
grandfather clock under the door so Gansukh doesn't have to hold it
up anymore. Gansukh glares at Illythan, then glares at the darkness.
Illythan tries to get Aerodus to take some time off, upon which the
Hell-knight reminds him they are hunting an army. They have a
discussion about the necessity, or lack there of, of R&R.
Aerodus grows tired of the
dilly-dallying and goes into the darkness. Illythan re-enters the
darkness as well, and answers the “dream” question with “I want
to find my father to kill him.” Illythan emerges into the room and
finds a pistol on a desk with a note “Put the barrel to the globe
on the name of this town.” Illythan asks Eorin what the name of the
town was, Eorin replies, and the globe spins, with a pinpoint
appearing on the town. He puts the barrel to the globe and pulls the
trigger. A hole appears through the globe to a town in Qadira. The
holes in the globe heal.
Illythan reveals that Aerodus went into
the darkness before him, and hasn't appeared in the room. Kyle leaves
the room, and discovers the hobgoblin gone and sees on the clock that
a few days have passed. Kyle searches for Gansukh, and can't find
him, even after asking the frog for help. The hell-knight is no where
to be found either. No longer raining outside. Kyle checks on the
horses that are unhappy because they're running low on food. There's
smoke in the distance, probably about a weeks ride away.
Kyle writes a note and wraps it around
a rock and tosses it into the room. It tells the party that time is
moving faster on the outside. Party leaves immediately (Eorin got ¼
of the way through the religious texts), but it really takes 30
minutes for them to emerge from the darkness. We decide we need to
find the army, hell-knight, and hobgoblin. Zelara decides to stay and
make sure the horses don't die.
Eorin re-enters and says his dream is
to find Aerodus. Eorin finds the hell-knight in the darkness, who
reveals the handbook says they are not tell personal information to
mysterious voices that cannot be identified. Eorin leads him out of
the darkness.
Kyle goes in to find Gansukh and is
teleported to a mysterious country – Gansukh had said his dream was
to go home. Kyle says goodbye and goes back into the darkness, but
something latches onto zer back just before ze steps through.
Illythan goes into the darkness asking
where the 8th Army of Exploration is, and finds the room
with only the desk, globe, and pistol on it. He follows the same
instructions as previously, but the hole spreads like veins over the
globe. Blood spills out at points in Garund, Avistan, and within the
Dragon Empires (Tianxia). One of the towns is “Melancholy Hill.”
Everyone re-emerges 30-45 minutes
later. There is something horrible on Kyle's back, it may be a small
child. Eorin figures out it's an oni (aka ogre mage). It speaks Tien,
but despite pleas to let go, it refuses. It gets lighter when Kyle
walks around. The oni demands piggy back rides and to go home. Kyle
returns to the darkness, and says zer dream is to take the oni home
and get it off zer back. Kyle exits the darkness into a horde of
orcs, with a wall to zer back instead of the darkness. The oni is not
letting zer go. The orcs look surprised. It's a shrine to Lamashtu,
and tent is full of female orcs: Kyle came in during a birthing. Kyle
exits and finds zerself in an orc camp. Kyle helps an orc woman birth
a litter. They assume Kyle is an avatar from Lamashtu. Kyle finds the
darkness exit and leaves.
Two hours later, Kyle returns, the oni
still on zer back. Kyle has accepted zer fate, and we move on.
The party decides to ride toward the
smoke as Illythan tells the party how royally fucked we are, b/c the
8th Army of Exploration is traveling through the
“under-dark” to span the globe. Illythan remembers 7 towns
specifically and points them out on Kyle's map – Eorin identifies
the names and Aerodus relays the information to the hell-knigts via
the imp-skull radios. The hell-knights tell us to report back to
Korvosa.
The party decides to investigate the
smoke (week away) first. We avoid an encounter with bandits because
the Oni scares them away. The party makes it to Podunk a week later
(we've been there before). The oni has yet to dislodge, so Kyle
sleeps very uncomfortably. It gets heavier the more you pull on it to
try and get it to dislodge. It's an evil, native outsider.
The entire town of Podunk has burnt to
the ground, all 4 buildings. There are corpses and skeletons on the
ground. There are three people not found (no child corpses and no
corpse near a shovel). The wood-cutter, his son, and Starchy the
Grave-digger might be okay. The party investigates the wood-cutter's
house, and find him home. He has a cross-bow and uncouthly points out
the “horrible monkey” on Kyle's back.
He saw the town burnt down. First
thought they were orcs & the guards took care of it. Then more
came with weird sticks that shot fire (flame-thrower) & armor we
identify as belonging to the 8th Army of Exploration. They
gave no reasons and said nothing, just killed and burnt everything.
The party goes to the mausoleum Starchy converted into a workshop. It
smells of moon-shine. Starchy has horns and a tail, and before the
party can kill him, the wood-cutter tells us that Starchy dresses up
as the devil for the autumn festival (which was they day of the
attack). The head-band holding the horns on soon becomes apparent.
The party takes time to bury the bodies
& say rites. We return to the haunted house to use the darkness
to travel to Korvosa. We pop out of the alley next to the Naughty
Imp. Korvosa has a unique population of vermin, Imps which flood in
from the Academy, and pseudo-dragons whose migration path is through
the city, and the two clash in the air and kill each other as often
as possible.
Kyle goes to the Academy to see if they
can help get the oni off zer back. The Academy is guarded by
Tieflings. Guards get Captain Normandy, who borrows one of Kyle's
arrows and tickles the oni off Kyle's back. Oni gives Kyle a belt (+2
str & dex). Man walks off with the Oni, and tells Kyle to stay
put to fill out paperwork. Creepy ass wizard brings Kyle a receipt to
fill out, and then gives Kyle a box. Wizard says it's part of their
exchange program. There is something alive inside, but Kyle is too
nervous to open the box all way open. There's a very large beetle
inside. Wizard doesn't know what it is either, and leaves Kyle with
the box o' beetle.
Eorin recognizes it as being similar to
a large beetle that crashed in Ustalav 22 years ago, which originated
in Geb. It bites Eorin when he picks it up. Kyle and Zelara have
better luck. The party argues about if they should just let it go or
not. A person at the inn refers them to Miss Ares, who is always
looking for rare and exotic animals. The party brings the beetle to
her. Eorin geeks out at the animals in the menagerie and natters off
facts to the party. Miss Ares isn't there, but the butler buys the
beetle from us for 20k gold.
The party decides to spend the night at
the Naughty Imp.
The thing that bothers/worries you
is....” Count: 2
“Here comes the fun part...” Count:
1
“The good news is.....” Count: 1
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