MAL Ep. 17

An intriguing session today, as the team struggled to decide who they should and should not trust in Ruastin.

1) First, the party talked to the dwarves they had just fought the monsters with. The dwarves provided some ale, and Jon composed a song in honor of the dwarf, Doron, who was killed fighting one of the demonic skeleton cats. The warrior who had rallied the dwarves against the monsters, named Arsanus, wanted to question Zadkiel about his angelic transformation, but Zadkiel didn't have any answers for him. A dwarven clan leader named Hondor came out to assess the situation and asked the party what they were doing in town; they decided not to tell him about Seven or the League of Snakes, instead asking about Skenebrax. They received the rumor that Skenebrax was a cannibal and the suggestion to talk to Beyond Jessery to learn more about the plague he caused, and also learned that someone had set off a bomb at city hall last week, though no one was killed. The dwarves were not willing to speculate about who might have done it.

2) Meanwhile, in Nick's absence Adriel went with Aler to tail the one-winged draconian Aler had spied leaving the scene of the attack. Aler observed him upstairs muttering into a crystal ball in a language he didn't speak. Adriel knocked on the door and engaged the draconian in conversation while Aler tried to sneak in the upstairs window. The draconian told Adriel his name is Alomar, he is a tinker, and he had no idea what the monster was, in fact he asked Adriel what it was. Adriel gave him her real name, but fibbed to him that the monster was a demon. Meanwhile Aler didn't find much, but he did pinch a letter in Draconian, which Adriel translated as being about Aluon. The letter writer, named Kafrak, seemed concerned that Aluon had disappeared, leaving his weasel behind, which made Kafrak think he had left the plane; he also asked Alomar to try to find information about the "Hidden Ones," who an earlier letter from Chavalk had suggested were League of Snakes members. Adriel tried listening in on Alomar's crystal ball conversations, but didn't get a great roll and caught only two snippets: "the fat little gnome" and "may be the one you're looking for." Those were not part of the same sentence. Adriel guessed this might be related to the Order of the Dragon, but didn't recognize the names Alomar or Kafrak.

3) Then the party continued on to the Center of the Third Eye. They passed the Silver Scorpion Inn, where they rented rooms. They also found a restaurant serving overpriced gyros, a shop called the "Adventurers' Friend," the police station, and the Wizard's Guild. The Third Eye is a secret society and wouldn't let non-initiates inside, but name-dropping Petros was enough to fetch Eyewoman Terreira, who met the party in a private office in the Wizard's Guild. She confirmed Adriel's curse as a high-level Abyssal curse and said that it could be countered by a high enough level abjurer (suggesting the Eye of the Night at the Center of the Third Eye in Asture) or by killing the caster. Jon told her about his curse, and Terreira told him more about the illithids and their little-known psionic arts, concluding that magic was unlikely to be able to reverse this malady, and that killing the illithid who did it would probably not help either. She believes only another psionic can undo this damage, and that the only human she knew to have mastered this discipline was a mad mentalist named Anselm near Delsin. The other option would be letting another illithid into Jon's brain to repair the damage, which she wouldn't advise. Asked if she knew anything else that might connect these curses, she became thoughtful and recalled one of the King of Clock's men ("or whatever they are") coming in to the Wizard's Guild several weeks ago to have a cursed potion identified, being very focused on knowing what it did and whether it was fatal. Terreira eventually determined that the potion had the effect of sabotaging one of the target's skills; she did not know which one. She identified the Clockworkers as "strange people" from Averdale (a theocratic eastern kingdom where magic is outlawed; Dayant Arakin referred to it in her letter to Holden,) but she thinks there are more of them in Hastenport than Ruastin. The group decided to trust Terreira with information about Seven's kidnapping. Terreira checked Third Eye records about extraplanar gates during the two days Seven most likely disappeared and gave the party the location of an Abyssal gate on the 28th (not entirely matching the data you have which is that Seven disappeared on the 26th or 27th, though Terreira acknowledged the timestamp on Abyssal gates is sometimes inaccurate) and an Elemental gate the evening of the 26th (probably exactly when Seven disappeared, but Seven identified her abductors as demonic, not elemental.) Terreira didn't know anything about Zadkiel's angel form, suggesting that he talk to a master of religious history, like Father Valerian in Hastenport, to learn more about whether this kind of transformation has happened in the past. Finally, she mentioned that a drow necromancer named Thrane Do'Ezzen (a name both Jon and Aler had heard before) had arrived from Asture on the 26th, though she does not know what he is doing here or whether it's related to Seven.

4) Then the party had a long conversation about whether or not to go to the police station. Jon eventually prevailed, but only under the caveat that he not tell the police about the elemental gates. Jon and Red spoke with Captain Ames, who confirmed that Captain Black had sent him a telegram, said that no one of Seven's description had yet been sighted, and asked whether the party had a description of the abductors. They said no, but they were shapeshifters anyway so it wouldn't matter if they did. They did not ask or tell him about anything else (including the incriminating letter to Beyond Jessery or the monster they had fought in the dwarven neighborhood), instead suggesting that they might return the next morning, which Ames was happy with. Jon also showed Ames his papers from Magistrate Tell authorizing him to investigate the cult of Sholaith, and explained that Tell had been murdered and the party was investigating his murder. (Note, Tell's authorization ONLY mentioned Jon, Red, Adriel, and Aler. The other party members weren't there then.) Ames said that if you found the murderer in Ruastin and had proof you could extradite him to Hastenport, but "don't be a cowboy out there." Jon agreed that he knows he's not really a policeman. Cartino reminded him after they exited that it's Duchy law that citizens can use force against a crime in progress, so if they find Seven's kidnappers, they don't need police authorization to attack them and rescue her... but they would need to be right that Seven's in there.

5) The party decided to check out the elemental gate, though Jarth felt quite sure Seven knew the difference between a demon and an elemental, her knowledge/planar isn't like Jon's or anything and anybody could get a bad roll, especially under stress. The elemental gate traced to a home in a suburban neighborhood. Jon used clairvoyance to peer inside the home, seeing an altar with a fire symbol and a burnt offering on it, a pentacle with skulls, and some glowing red gems. There were also a blond woman in a skirt and sweater and four other women in red leather dresses with tall jackal headdresses. Red sniffed around the house to try and catch Seven's scent, which she didn't. The blond woman came outside to see what Red was doing, and Jon quickly pretended she was his pet dinosaur and led her away. The party decided they didn't have enough information to break into the house since they didn't see Seven, and went to check out the Abyssal gate site.

6) The party found the ruin of a round temple. There were two crystal statues which Zadkiel identified as Tessera, the old goddess of dreams who Arthon's ancestors had been worshippers of. There were also broken pieces of crystal on two other plinths, where the statues had presumably broken off. The ruins looked pretty old. Red began scouting for Seven's scent outside the temple, not finding anything.  Khirg walked into the temple and looked at a blue eye sigil, which Jon recalled seeing another of in the cove of the dead selkies, and Seela had identified as a symbol used by people who worshipped the fey or studied their magics. Khirg remembered having seen such a symbol on one of Tanya's books. Zadkiel examined the blackened outline of an arch on the wall near some rubble, and called over to search for secret doors. Aler found no secret doors, but was able to find a trail of hoofprints leading from the outline across the temple.

7) Then the party was attacked by invisible archers, who turned out to be gorgon-like devils. Jon was taken down by an unlucky critical hit, while other party members were damaged. A four-armed Ker devil decloaked and stabbed Zadkiel with a deepsteel weapon, preventing him from spellcasting for a round. She proved immune to most of the party's weapons, to Khirg's frustration. A demon portaled in and shoved Bay out of the way of getting potentially killed by the devil; the two kept up a running back-and-forth bitchfest in Abyssal for the rest of the combat, which only Jarth understood (he narrated it to the rest of you later.) They did not mention Seven at all, instead disagreeing about whether or not Chavalk was okay with killing Bay or not. Aler took the opportunity to shoot the Ker while she was distracted, and paid the price as five of the six devil archers unloaded three shots apiece into him at point blank range. Ten minutes of furious retconned math later, Aler was determined to be merely mostly dead, not all the way dead (in the future, you only get healed if you write the healing down on your character sheet, not just if the cleric says he offered to heal you earlier--but with Nick on the other side of a computer screen, there was an understandable communication barrier to accomodate.) Bay lost control of the chaos force, which started breaking things in the vicinity including the masonry of the ruined colonnade. The Ker clearly gave a command to move out, which the archers all obeyed; Adriel managed to kill one of them with attacks of opportunity on the way out, causing it to be banished back to the Nine Hells. The demon weathered an attack of opportunity by Khirg and also gated out.

8) Jon managed to use Bay's wand of calm emotions to recontain the chaos force (though not without a DM hint, so no XP for that, sorry), and the party quickly finished searching the ruins. After his brush with death, Aler successfully searched the rubble near the gate and found a ring Jarth identified as Seven's. Red found Seven's scent on the ring, but nowhere else, and concluded that she must have been riding on one of the horses (catching the scent of a person whose horse ran through an area once a couple of days ago is beyond Red's scent tracking ability.) Aler tracked the horses back to the road towards Ruastin, where they became lost in the traffic.

9) The exhausted party returned to the inn to sleep, but first a visitor arrived to see Jon. It was Messana, the creepily suburban housewife he had observed earlier in the house with the elemental gate. She addressed him by name, said she had heard he was a bard who knew much of "strange creatures," and asked whether he could determine the nature of some unusual undead being that had been harassing her coven for the past week and a half. The witches have clearly sensed its necromantic energy, but "speak with dead" has given them only strange bursts of static in response. The being has attacked them twice, dealing wrackingly painful wounds but being driven off by Light spells. It has also stood merely observing them on multiple occasions, and appeared to try to communicate on a few others. Messana assumed it wants to be laid to rest, but nothing the coven tried has appeased it. It usually appears between midnight and 4AM, but appeared once during an overcast day as well. She gave directions to the dancing copse where the creature keeps manifesting. Jon asked her if she'd seen three horses with a young woman on one of them, and to please keep an eye out for them and tell Jon if she saw them, to which she answered "There are many young women riding horses in town. Can you be more specific?" and Jon said "No," so she shrugged and left.

And there we broke for the day, none the worse for wear from a session that skated perilously close to a TPK for a few minutes there.

Onward!