Have Fun Looting the Castle!

“Is this really worth it?” Jax grumbled. He kicked the iron statue of Kazavon that had attacked them, just to make sure it was really dead, then hopped on one foot for a bit, waiting for the throbbing in his big toe to subside. “I mean, I never like to turn my back on a bit of loot, but this place is huge, and who knows what else is waiting for us? There’s more gold than we can carry back in the Lord’s Tower – why don’t we just go load that up and be done with this place?”

“No!” Nat objected strenuously. “We should search the whole castle! There’s probably all sorts of really cool magical stuff just laying abandoned here – we need to check every single room!”

Serithtial Recovered!

“She’s a cleric!” Nat shouted as he shook off the effects of the Unholy Blight cast by the latest gug who’d come to the party. The other two were bellowing at the top of their lungs; if they were shouting words, it was in a language unlike any he’d ever heard. If these things worshipped Rovagug, then he didn’t want to find out what other surprises they might have in store for them. With adrenaline-fueled quickness, he summoned a Cold Ice Strike that sent slivers of ice slicing through everything in front of him: the two surviving gugs and their Gug Savant cleric, but also one of the Shadowcount’s Earth Elementals. He followed up with a Cone of Cold that turned the two gugs into fallen snowmen, and left icicles hanging from the elemental’s and Savant’s nose and ears. Having done his part, he zipped through the air to hide behind one of the gug’s stone huts.

Into The Depths

“Do you think they’re all gone?” Jax asked warily.

“Who?” Erin asked.

“The rest of the spirits.” Jax replied. As Mithrodar had died, the curse on Castle Scarwall had apparently been lifted. They’d heard a rush of wind and wailing from throughout the Castle as the spirits who had been trapped there for so many centuries were at last freed. Even the shadows in the corners seemed slightly less dark. “If those spirits are gone,” Jax continued, “what about the spectres, haunts, and other undead? Are they gone, too?”

Lifting The Curse

“I have an idea,” Nat whispered. No one was listening. Shadowcount Sial was edging away from the open door into Scarwall’s chapel to his god, Zon-Kuthon, terrified of what lay inside. “Isn’t there some way we can do this without … getting close?” Jax asked. ‘This’ was destroying the final Spirit Anchor. They’d already taken care of three of them: the first, the umbral dragon Belshallam, had all but begged them to free him, and flown off as soon as Wren had cast Dispel Evil to break the Chained Spirit’s hold on him. The other two – the undead knight Castothrane and the ashmede devil Nihil – had not been so accommodating, but both had fallen to their blades and spells.

The Prelate’s Fall

“Look away!” Nat shouted, as he drew back his arm. A ball of flickering light formed in the palm of his hand and he flung it at the Mummy Lord who had once served this unholy place as a Prelate of Zon-Kuthon. The Empowered Orb of Light struck the Prelate in the chest, exploding into a blinding flash that seared an after-image into his friends’ vision. It seared much worse into the mummy, leaving his wrappings blackened.

Into The Donjon

Even before Nihil’s lifeless body hit the floor of the tower, Wren was flying downwards at full speed. She landed beside Erin, and gasped as she realized the full extent of the dead paladin’s wounds. The woman was all but beheaded, and her entrails bulged from the horrible gash across her midsection. “Pharasma – please grant me the power to revive my friend!” Wren prayed earnestly. She closed her eyes briefly, seeking to commune with her goddess in this unholy place. Then she bent and kissed Erin lightly on the forehead, gently parted her pale lips, and exhaled into her open mouth. A golden light flowed out of Wren and into Erin as the Breath of Life passed between them. Erin’s wounds began to close and slight color returned to her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered open, and she drew in a ragged breath. “By the gods – that hurt!” she gasped.

The Lord’s Tower

With an ear-splitting roar, the umbral dragon lowered its head, beat its wings, and flew screaming down directly at Tomas. It withheld its breath weapons as it flashed over the party, but raked its claws at Tomas’s head. He ducked, and the claws narrowly missed. He heard the rush of its passage, and felt the cold air batter him as the mighty wings beat. But something just felt a bit off, and as he squinted up to draw a bead on the great beast, for just a moment he could see the morning sun shining through it. “It’s an illusion!” he cried.

Another One Bites The Dust

Erin was grateful that Nat’s Fly spell was still in effect, because otherwise she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand. The Greater Shadow that had emerged from the wall of the castle gatehouse had sapped her of so much strength that her armor felt like it was made of lead. She couldn’t imagine taking another hit like that, so she stepped back away from the smudge of undead darkness, and then lifted off into the air, coming to rest on the gatehouse roof, near Tomas. “Anyone need healing?” Laori called from her perch atop one of the nearby towers. Erin waved her hand weakly, and Laori was off in a shot, landing lightly on the roof beside her. “I need my strength back,” Erin said, her voice hoarse. “Zon-Kuthon to the rescue!” Laori cried, giggling, then called upon the power of the Midnight Lord to perform a Lesser Restoration. The paladin of Iomedae grimaced as the unholy power washed over her, but she wasn’t too proud to accept the newfound strength that coursed through her limbs.

On The Offensive

“Erin! Duck!” Tomas shouted at the paladin to try to get out of his line of fire, but she was bobbing and weaving, struggling to avoid all four arms of the Gargoyle Brute attacking her; she couldn’t also worry about Tomas’ position in the three-dimensional combat. Cursing under his breath, Tomas started shooting around her, shifting his own altitude as she and her attacker danced in mid-air. His first two arrows flew wildly over the Brute’s head. The third narrowly missed striking Erin. Taking a deep breath, he fired again, and the arrow sank into the gargoyle’s side. With a screech, its wings stopped flapping, and it tumbled end-over-end to the rocky shoreline below them.

The Curse of Scarwall

“Shit! More ghost things!” Jax cried from the top of the stairs. They’d ascended to the top floor of the War Tower, and the dark room at the top of the stairs had appeared empty when he’d first entered. But with an eerie moan, four spectral figures had appeared out of the walls and were floating towards him, bony hands outstretched.

War Tower of Power

Jax gaped at the horse-sized hound that had just sunk its flaming fangs into Nat. Erin was still battling something in the next room, and now this monstrosity had leaped up the stairs from the level below. They’d come into Castle Scarwall’s war tower expecting to find someone who might be willing to help them, but now it seemed they might be slaughtered before they got past its entryway. Unsure what else to do, he cast Haste, figuring his friends could use all the help they could get.

Dragon Times Call for Drastic Measures

“Get ready! Whoever was shooting at us will probably come out after us!” The tenebrous worms they’d fought were still twitching, but Erin had rushed back to the doors they’d come in through, peering out through the crack between them and expecting attackers to rush out of the castle at any moment. But a minute passed, and then another with no onslaught of foes appearing in the castle courtyard.

Pulling Weeds

 ‘Four enthralled in lost Scarwall’

Tomas was trying to recall the words of the song that Zellara had sung, looking for clues. “There was something about someone waiting in a tower, and another in a kennel. One of the spirits was still at his post, probably a soldier. And something ‘on a stone, mid ash and bone’, whatever that means.” Tomas was focused on trying to decipher the rhyme. “Zellara must have told us where we need to go – we just have to figure it out.”

Blind Wraith

Something’s wrong.

Wren wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Ever since they’d flown over to this accursed castle, she’d felt like they were being watched. But now … now she felt a malevolent focus on her, a palpable hatred that seemed to pulse from the very walls. She shivered – had it been this cold when they came in? Her breathing quickened, and her breath formed puffs of vapor. She felt a vibration from her pocket – it was Zellara’s Harrow deck. With trembling hands she withdrew the box of cards, and it was covered with a thick layer of frost. A puff of breeze blew her hair into her eyes, and she brushed it away idly, then looked up with a start. Why was there a breeze in here?

Have Fun Storming the Castle!

“I’m out of here!” Tomas gasped. He had easily half a dozen arrows sticking out of him, and he’d just taken a pair of vicious cuts from the orcs’ greataxes. One of the orcs who’d ambushed him was down, but the other was drawing back for another swing. Tomas spun away, then dashed back down the path and around the corner of the gatehouse, panting and weak from blood loss.

Welcoming Committee

“Lovely neighborhood,” Jax muttered as the party took in their new surroundings. Nat’s Teleport had landed them deep within the wastes of the Hold of Belkzen. To the east lay a tangle of badlands, with scrub brush and wind-gnarled trees the only vegetation. To the west rose the Kordar Mountains, a range of volcanic peaks rising against the gray sky. They were on the lower slopes of the nearest mountain, its peak sheared off. “That’s Mt. Dou-Bral,” Nat said solemnly, pointing up at it.

An Uneasy Alliance

“I told you I was going to take my time with you the next time we met!”, Rolth Lamm snarled. His eyes were fixed on Tomas with a stare of hatred so intense that the ranger involuntarily took a half step back. They’d found the son of their nemesis hiding out in the Red Mantis headquarters deep beneath Korvosa. His last hideout had been with the derros in the Dead Warrens, and they’d found grotesque evidence of the necromancer’s obsession with creating undead constructs there – bits and pieces of half-constructed or failed experiments in building new creatures from the remains of the dead. He’d obviously continued his work here, to greater success. Two huge creatures blocked the corridor between the party and Rolth: one looked like it had been sewn together from fragments of half a dozen or more different corpses, while the other was an amalgam of bones from a dozen mismatched skeletons.

Inner Sanctum of the Mantis

Jax was invisibly flitting about the pillars supporting the cave roof; he had his wand out and his eyes open for the sniper who’d been harrying the party as they fought. The sniper was in one of the small caves near the ceiling and would only poke his head out long enough to fire his bow. Just then, he saw movement at the farthest end of the cave, and heard the twang of a bowstring and the whistle of arrows. Jax started to raise his wand, but before he could, three more arrows flew from Tomas’s bow. The two archers' arrows passed in mid-air, and there was a scream from the distant cave; two seconds later there was a thud as the sniper’s lifeless body hit the ground.

Kicking the Mantis Nest

“AIEEEE!” Wren’s scream echoed throughout the cavern. She’d been climbing up to the top of one of the ledges flanking the entrance, hoping for a better vantage point to look for potential dangers, but she’d apparently found one instead. Now she came hurtling back down the rock face. She landed hard, apparently unhurt, but flat on her back. The cause of her fright followed right behind her: a horrid creature came flying down the cliff after her. It looked like a naked woman from the waist up (save for the vulture wings growing from its back); from the waist down … well, there was no waist down – just dangling entrails where it looked as if she had been ripped in half.

The Avengers

With a slightly disorienting jolt, the party appeared in the seldom-visited region of the Gray District that hid the secret headquarters of Korvosa’s budding rebellion. After communing with his ancestors to reveal the secret history of the warlord/dragon Kazavon, whose fangs now adorned Queen Ileosa’s crown, the Shoanti shaman, One-Life, had agreed to travel to Korvosa with the party, to consult with Thousand Bones and Field Marshall Kroft on how the Shoanti might be able to aid the rebellion.

The party descended into the mausoleum that housed the secret entrance, and spoke the password – ‘Blackjack’ – that allowed them to enter. As they came into the headquarters’ meeting room they saw Cressida Kroft sitting at the table, her head down and cradled in her hands. Bishop d’Bear stood behind her, her hand on her shoulder, while Thousand Bones and Boule stood off in a corner, eyes averted. As the group entered, Kroft raised her head, and her eyes were red from crying. “Vencarlo Orsini is dead!” she sobbed.

The Saga of Kazavon

One-Life, the Shoanti Sun-Shaman, marched in silence with the party as they made their way away from Citadel Vraid. The party stayed well away from the village of Colmar, remembering their anti-Shoanti bias. Several of them tried to make small talk with the Shoanti, but their efforts earned nothing, not even a grunt.

Jailbreak!

 “We obviously need to report back to the Lictor,” Wren insisted. They’d gone to Hell and back (literally) in order to get Lictor DiViri to agree to release the Shoanti shaman, One-Life, into their custody only to discover that the Hellknight jailer who’d been guarding him had apparently traded him to some devil in exchange for a Hell Hound. At least that’s what the other prisoners had told them. Either way, One-Life was nowhere to be found, and to Wren’s mind, that was DiViri’s problem, not theirs. “We had a deal with him, and he hasn’t held up his end of it. He seems like an honorable man – or at least someone who believes in rules. Once we tell him his man cheated us out of our prisoner, I’m sure he’ll send his people in to get him back.”

To Hell And Back

“But all your pain could be gone,” the devil purred.

“My pain is what makes me what I am!” Shadow snarled with uncharacteristic venom. “Take your contract and shove it!”

“You could save Brigitte,” Chyvvom promised.

“Only to have her fall to Blood Veil, or some other horror,” Erin countered. “Your offer is a hollow lie.”

“I’ve been a slave to others,” Jax snapped. “I won’t be a slave to you!”

One by one, each person heard the Contract Devil promise them the very thing they’d most longed for – and one by one, they turned it down. With a sigh of sadness, Chyvvom strolled back to the magic circle in the center of the rotunda, where he’d stood when they first saw him. He gave the party one final, sad smile. “Alas – you had the opportunity to remake your lives, to save those whom you loved. Now you will spend the rest of eternity wondering why you threw that opportunity away.” Time resumed its normal flow: breathing and heartbeats resumed, and the summoning circle again crackled with arcane energy. Chyvvom nodded with a slight bow, and vanished from sight.

A Deal With The Devil

“We need to put these back!” Nat said urgently as he struggled to put the two scrolls they’d found back into the hidden pocket in the dead man’s sleeve. His hands were trembling so badly that it took him several tries; ultimately, he just wadded the papers into a ball and shoved them in. The others watched him in shock – they’d never seen Nat pass up the opportunity to grab some magical loot. The wizard saw their looks. “The Lictor! He told us not to take anything! We don’t want to leave any trace we were here!”

The Lictor’s Price

“Let’s just let Shadow do the talking,” Erin told Nat firmly as they hiked up the road leading to Citadel Vraid. They were still debating strategies for convincing the Hellknights to release their Shoanti prisoner, the shaman One-Life, to them, and some of Nat’s suggestions were, well, a bit out there.

“I still think all we have to do is convince them that we’re working to undermine the Queen, and they’ll jump at the opportunity,” Jax offered. He remained optimistic that the Knights of the Nail would be willing allies. “We all want the same thing.”

“We don’t know what they want,” Wren snapped. “These are Hellknights! We don’t know who’s side they’re on, or what their motives are. We don’t have any idea why they left Korvosa. All we do know is that they answer to Asmodeus, and that means they can’t really be trusted.”

Assassin Ambush

Nat’s ears were still ringing from the screaming crossbow bolts that had just flown past Erin. He saw an arrow strike a nearby tree, the shaft quivering. A pit had suddenly opened up right beside him, swallowing their fire and plunging everything into darkness. They seemed to be surrounded by enemies, but he couldn’t see anyone. It seemed to be a well-planned and coordinated ambush, which meant the bad guys thought they had them right where they wanted them. Time to change that. Dancing along the crumbling edges of the pit, he grabbed Erin and Wren each by one arm. “Heading about a hundred feet north-northwest!” he yelled out in Elvish (praying their enemies wouldn’t understand him) then cast Dimension Door.

Hunger Games

“This isn’t good,” Nat said with a worried look. He’d just examined Marcus Endrin, who Tomas had discovered locked in a secret cell in the Gray Maidens’ prison underneath the Longacre Building. The once proud and confident commandant of the Sable Company Marines stared blankly at the wall behind Nat, a thin trickle of drool running down his chin. “I’m pretty sure they’ve cast Feeblemind on him,” Nat concluded. “If that’s what it is, we’re going to need someone with more powerful magic than anything we have to cure him.”

Maiden a Big Deal Out of It

“Intruders! We’re under attack! Come help me now!” The party had been on a mission to infiltrate Deathhead Vault, the Gray Maidens’ headquarters under the Longacre Building, rescue Thousand Bones and Commandant Endrin, and do as much damage as they could to the Gray Maiden leadership. They were currently in the process of doing just that, having caught their second-in-command, Kordaitra Destaid, by surprise in her quarters. But now she was screaming for help at the top of her lungs, and they knew there were more Gray Maidens behind a closed door at the end of the hallway, just yards away.

Deathhead Vault

The group was once again settling in for another night in Gaedren Lamm’s old hideout, the Old Fishery. They’d managed to rescue Vencarlo Orsini and Castle Korvosa’s Seneschal, Neolandus Kalepopolis, but seemed no closer to being able to overthrow Queen Ileosa. Neolandus had warned them that the Queen’s power might stem from some artifact she’d found in the vaults below the castle, something he’d heard called Midnight’s Teeth, but he had no idea what it might be or what power it could have given her. His only suggestion was to consult Thousand Bones, the Shoanti ambassador – his people had guarded the pyramid on which the Castle was built for centuries before the white men arrived, and he might know something helpful.

Neolandus’ Tale

On the journey across the Jeggare River, Neolandus Kaleopolis began to pump the party for information on what had been happening in Korvosa over the last few months – he’d been in hiding or captivity during the entire time of the riots and plague, and had only the most general sense of what’s been going on. Their description of everything that had happened since the King’s death continued after they’d made landfall. When they described Ileosa’s actions during Marcus Endrin’s failed assassination attempt, he became extremely agitated.

“It’s even worse than I feared! That fool harlot has brought our doom with her greed, and likely her own as well.”

Escape from the Labyrinth

The party was still trapped in the Arkona’s Vivified Labyrinth. They had come seeking to rescue Vencarlo Orsini and Neolandus Kalepopolis, Castle Korvosa’s Seneschal, but at this point they’d have been happy just to find a way back out. The maze held a number of levers, and each time they pulled one, the layout of the labyrinth seemed to change. They couldn’t discover any rhyme or reason to the arrangement of rooms, and were now just pulling levers repeatedly, hoping to find someplace new. And they did. The floor shook, the wall in front of them moved, and when it opened, they were looking into a throne room of sorts. They caught a glimpse of an unconscious Vencarlo hanging from manacles in one corner, but their attention was focused on the creature in front of them, a thing with the torso and face of a woman, but the body of a lion and the wings of a vulture.

The Lady of the Labyrinth

“You! What are you doing here?” Vencarlo Orsini crouched behind the column of black marble, a kukri held ready in his hand, gaping up at Jax. His shirt was dirty, his face bruised, but his hand was steady as it gripped the knife.

“We’re looking for you,” Jax replied with a grin. “And yes, I know I’m wearing your cloak.”

Mazed and Confused

“Do you think this thing’s safe?” Jax asked warily, shaking the ropes that anchored the bridge to the ledge. It descended into the gloom ahead of him, and he could barely make out its far end in the darkness. A light suddenly illuminated the area as Wren cast Light on a pebble, then tossed it out onto the bridge. It rolled down the steep incline for a little ways before rolling off the edge, then grew fainter and fainter until it finally vanished with a distant splash.

“If the Arkonas use these for bringing smuggled goods up from the sea, then I’m sure they’re strong enough for us,” Tomas said confidently. Jax still wasn’t sure, and he asked Wren for more lights. She was creating Light rocks as fast as she could, and he chucked one across the open pit. It landed on the far ledge, beyond the foot of the bridge, and bounced a short distance before coming to rest against a wooden door. He realized that all his friends were gathered behind him, looking at him expectantly. Succumbing to peer pressure, he ventured cautiously out onto the swaying rope bridge.

Family Secrets

The party awoke feeling much better, and with a clear plan for the day: they were off to visit the Arkonas. Salvator Scream had told them he’d taken the Seneschal, Neolandus Kalepopolis, to seek refuge with the Arkona family, and they suspected that Vencarlo Orsini had also gone there, seeking Neolandus. With any luck, they’d find both men hiding out on the Arkona estate, and they could report back to Cressida Kroft that they’d accomplished their mission.

Looking for Loot in All the Wrong Places

“He’s in here!” Jax heard Nat shout from the bedroom behind him. ‘Emperor’ Pilts Swastel had vanished as they’d attacked his pint-sized bodyguard, Jabbyr, but Nat, using his Red Mantis mask, had apparently found him. Jax had been coming back to help with Jabbyr, but he’d just seen him take Tomas out with three swings of his oversized battleaxe. Gee … maybe the Emperor was the bigger threat. Yeah, that’s it – I need to take out the Emperor first. Hoping that Jabbyr hadn’t noticed him, he reversed direction and headed back to the bedroom.

Blood Pig!

“Welcome to the Empire of Old Korvosa!”

A New ... Friend?

“I’m telling you, we need to wait for these suckers to come back and then … pow! We take ‘em off the board.” Shadow was eager to ambush the next pair of Red Mantis assassins who were due to show up in a few hours for their shift lying in wait for Vencarlo Orsini, and Nat was right there with him. “Yeah – I want some payback. I mean, they caught be by surprise last time; I wasn’t looking, and it’s not fair to stab someone in the back when they’re not looking. So I say we wait until they’re not looking and then…”

Wanted!

“I think we need to look for a new place to live,” Jax said. It had been two days since Queen Ileosa disbanded the Sable Company so violently, and the group was still reeling from what they’d seen. “We haven’t made any secret of where we’re staying, and you have to believe the Queen knows we were involved in taking down Dr. Davaulus. That means she knows that we know she was involved. I don’t think we’re safe.”

The Third Harrowing

As soon as the group returned from Queen Ileosa’s bloody proclamation, Wren felt a stirring in her pocket. The dust in the room began to swirl, and Zellara’s insubstantial form materialized. “The spirits!’ she moaned. “There are so many of them. They call out for justice, and in warning. Please – my deck. I must perform another reading.” Wren removed the Harrow Deck from its box and placed it on the table, and the cards sorted themselves. “The suit of Books – it holds the power we need this day.” Each person drew one card from the selected suit, then Zellara shuffled the cards together and began to lay them out in three rows on the tabletop.

A Crown Revealed

Two weeks passed after the party penetrated the Temple of Urgathoa deep beneath the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. Using the notes they’d recovered, the city’s religious orders and surviving alchemists worked together and within a few days had developed, manufactured, and distributed a cure for Blood Veil. Because of the mystical nature of the disease, not only did the cure halt the disease and confer immunity to future infection to those who received it, each cured person actually spread the immunity to all those they came in contact with, similar to the spread of the disease itself.

The Daughter of Urgathoa

The party stood guard outside the elevator through the night, but no one emerged from the Temple of Urgathoa hidden beneath the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. As they waited, Wren studied the notes they’d recovered from the body of Dr. Davaulus. “We need to get these to the Temple,” she said when she’d finished. “They’re incomplete, but I think they could help more experienced healers develop a cure.”

“But not until we’ve finished with the Urgathoans,” Erin said grimly. “According to that vampire, Lady Andaisin is still down there somewhere, and she’s the one behind all this.”

The Halls of Pestilence

“How you doing out there, Tomas?” Nat whispered through his Message spell. After Rolth Lamm’s disappearance, everyone had barricaded them in themselves in the room Rolth had vanished from, worried he’d come at them again from a new direction. But Tomas had taken off chasing the necromancer’s familiar.

“I’ve almost got that damn rat,” Tomas replied as he nocked an arrow to his bowstring. “Be back in a minute.” He loosed the arrow, drawing a squeal of pain from the rat. But instead of continuing to flee, the creature suddenly reversed direction and charged directly at Tomas. Surprised, Tomas was unable to avoid its attack, and it clawed at his ankle. Tomas felt the discharge of some magic as its paws struck, and his muscles began to cramp. In an instant, he was totally paralyzed.

Battle Royale

Wren was casting healing spells on Erin and Tomas, helping them to recover after the ambush outside the elevator doors, while Jax gulped healing potions he was looting from the dead cultists’ bodies. The enemy had clearly been expecting their arrival, and this was just the beginning. In the room to the north, which looked like some sort of Queen’s Physicians’ locker room, Nat pulled down one of the bird-like masks hanging from a peg on the wall, and clumsily pulled it over his head. “That’s a good look for you!” Girrigz said with a laugh, but Nat wasn’t dissuaded. “These things make you immune to Blood Veil,” Nat said seriously. “I’ve got a feeling that could come in handy before this is all done.” Grizz cocked his head in thought, then shrugged and pulled on a mask of his own. Better safe (and silly looking) than sorry.

Something Rotten in Korvosa

“Well this is just great,” Erin muttered, looking back and forth between the dead body slung between her and Tomas and the note tacked to their door. The body was one of the Queen’s Physicians, one of several they had just slaughtered, along with a number of the Queen’s personal guard, the Gray Maidens. And the note said that Field Marshall Kroft wanted to see them – now. As a paladin of Iomedae, she felt like she’d been skirting the line of ‘lawful’ behavior lately, but she was pretty sure that murdering healers was somewhere on the other side of it. She scowled at Grizz, who had gotten them into this mess; he saw her looking at him and gave her a big wink and a toothy smile that made her skin crawl.

Stir The Pot

As the party left the Gray District after questioning the dead elf again, they felt as confused and unsatisfied as they had in weeks. People were dying all around them, and they had no more idea what to do about it than they had when the plague started. “I thought you assholes were supposed to be finding a cure for this shit,” Girrigz snarled. The others just continued walking in silence, heads down; they had no response.

More Questions Than Answers

“This is what we get for trying to do someone a favor,” Nat thought as he blasted a zombie with a Force Missile. “Some pretty girl shows up looking for help to find her missing brother, and the next thing you know…” Now they were in a zombie-infested mansion, with some crazy elf-girl trying to kill them. Nat thought he’d turned the tables on her when he used See Invisibility to spot her, but then she’d somehow spun and tumbled past both Jax and him, leaped over the 2^nd-floor balustrade, and disappeared into the cloud of poisonous smoke obscuring the first floor below. Trusting that Jax could finish off the zombie he’d just zapped, Nat rushed for the stairs, figuring the biggest danger was now downstairs; Shadow followed, hot on his heels. Jax lived up to their trust; his blade cut the zombie down, her mask falling aside to reveal an elegant matron nearly a week dead.

The Case of the Missing Musician

Wren, Erin, and Tomas were relishing some (almost) alone time. The others had gone off on some hare-brained pursuit of the Queen’s Physicians. Wren and Tomas didn’t see what that could possibly accomplish – the Physicians were just trying to help people after all – so they’d returned to Zellara’s. They hadn’t realized how cramped this place was with six people living in it (seven since the arrival of Girrigz), and now they were enjoying being able stretch out and take a little mid-day nap.

Trail of Blood

Erin crouched awkwardly in the low crawl space beneath Giotorri’s Toys, watching the others move into positions around the cellar. Movement in the cramped space was difficult with all the junk that was piled almost to the low ceiling: stacks of mismatched lumber, half-empty cans of paint, broken tools, bolts of faded cloth. But nestled among the junk were four wooden coffins, and she was certain they were not empty.

The Hungry Dead

The party continued their debate about what to do with the supposed “cure” for Blood Veil that they’d purchased at Lavender for most of their hike back across Korvosa. Some wanted to take it to the Temple of Pharasma to be analyzed by their clerics and alchemists. Others wanted to do the same, but at the Bank of Abadar. Nat offered to analyze it himself, but after some questioning from the group, his confidence in the depth of his alchemical knowledge began to wane. Finally they circled back to their original idea: Go to Cressida Kroft and drop the problem in her lap.

Plague Rats

“Do we have any way of knowing who owned that ship, the Direption?” Nat asked. They were still in Kroft’s office, trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the ship that had been sunk almost two weeks ago, near the start of the epidemic of Blood Veil that had engulfed Korvosa. They’d found evidence tying the ship to the cult of Urgathoa, but nothing to indicate the ship had carried the plague - or anyone or anything else for that matter.

The Wreck of the Direption

With Ishani Dhatri disguised to hide his identity as a cleric of Abadar, the party had little trouble escorting him away from the desperate mob around the Bank of Abadar and across town to Citadel Volshyenek. Once away from the Temple, the city’s normal hustle and bustle seemed more subdued today: the waterfront seemed less hectic, market squares had fewer market stalls and only scattered shoppers, and a handful of shops were shuttered even at mid-day. When they reached the Citadel, the guard at the gate recognized them and gave a friendly wave. “You’d better hurry,” he urged. “The briefing’s already started!”

Shadow's Search for Healing

After Shadow had updated Cressida Kroft on the potential of a brewing outbreak of disease, he hurried back north across town again. He knew that Wren's Wand of Remove Disease only had two charges left, and he worried that that wouldn't be nearly enough. He hoped that his old friend the Professor might be able to hook him up with more.

Infection

Feeling discouraged by their inability to crack the case of Horatio Plumbottom’s murder, the party tried to find some semblance of a normal routine. Much of their time was spent selling off the items they’d accumulated over the last few weeks of adventuring, and securing new items for themselves. The rest was spent restlessly playing cards and rehashing the meager clues they’d found at the murder scene.

Murder Most Foul

The days after Trinia’s botched execution were chaotic. The enraged Queen raised the royal bounty to 5000 Gold Sails for the capture of the King’s murderer, and the princely sum brought out hordes of new bounty hunters scouring the city for the missing artist. In addition to the typical assassins, mercenaries, and hopeful common citizens, some new figures joined the hunt: women clad in full plate armor, their faces hidden behind full-face helms, who claimed to be acting in the name of the Queen.

A Second Harrowing

Two days after the aborted execution, the party was preparing to bed down in Zellara’s home; it was dark, the night foggy and damp. “Did you hear that?” Wren suddenly asked. The hair on their arms and the back of their necks began to stand up, and the air in the room, already chill, grew frigid. The dust in the air began to swirl, and formed into a translucent figure – Zellara Esmeranda!

A Beautiful Day for an Execution

The party squinted as they emerged from the darkness of the Dead Warrens into the brilliant mid-day sunshine. They had managed to retrieve the body of the murdered Shoanti youth, Gaekhen, hopefully averting a war with the Shoanti. And they had finally confronted their mortal nemesis, Gaedren Lamm, whose body now lay beneath Gaekhen’s dismembered corpse.

Justice At Last

“Everybody ready?” Jax asked, getting nods from the rest of the group. He nodded back, then set off down the western corridor from the room they’d just searched. It quickly turned to the right, and he found himself looking into a large room, its ceiling soaring 20’ overhead. Against the far wall was a four-poster bed; near it were a dresser and a full-length mirror propped against one wall. A writing desk was against the near wall just to his right. But Jax didn’t see any of this. All he saw was the old man seated on the foot of the bed. It was a man he knew well, a man who had been the author of all the pain and suffering Jax had experienced in his short life. It was Gaedren Lamm.

Dance of Death

The ever-present stench of rot and death was wearing on Nat’s nerves. He felt as if he would never be able to wash it off him. Desperate for relief, he cast Prestidigitation, and the air around him took on the faint scent of roses. ‘Ahhh,’ he thought with a smile, ‘that’s better.’ Then a blubbery voice from the next room rumbled “Warm food!”, followed by “Oh shit – an otyugh!!!” from Jax. Maybe it wasn’t all that better after all.