“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.
Her screaming was getting on Tomas’s
nerves. Taking a moment to extend his Hunter’s
Bond to his friends, he nocked a pair of arrows on his bowstring and let
them fly. They struck Kordaitra in the throat, sending her staggering back
against the wall, her screams turning into gurgles. His third arrow punched
through the steel of her breastplate, and she slid slowly down the wall,
leaving a smear of blood in her wake.
“Serves you right, bitch!” Erin
muttered, giving the body a vicious kick; Kordaitra had said some very offensive things about
Iomedae as she had Challenged the
paladin, and Erin wasn’t one to forgive and forget. But she knew she had other
problems on the way, and she rushed back out into the hall and to the door that
Nat was pointing a shaking finger at. Jax had listened at this door a few
moments earlier, and heard the sound of someone being tortured inside, so they
knew there were enemies close at hand. Jax followed her out, sword at the
ready, leaving Griz behind, rummaging through Kordaitra’s pockets for
valuables. There were a stack of papers on her desk, but a quick glance
revealed them to be mostly gibberish, although there were some handwritten
notes next to them – something about a ‘Korvosan Rebellion’. Boring stuff.
Sure enough, the door flew open and a
Gray Maiden all but collided with Erin. If she was surprised, her full-face
helm hid it, but her wild swing suggested she hadn’t expected the danger to be this close. She was standing in a
caged-off area of a larger room, separated by a wall of bars with a locked gate.
The chamber behind her was grim, outfitted with all manner of implements of torture:
a rack, several cages, a cramped stockade with spiky bars, and shelves full of
thumbscrews, iron boots, and the like. Two more Gray Maidens had bows out,
pointed at the door. Two of the cages held frightened looking young women,
while a third victim was strapped to a table in the center of the room. A
horrible creature floated above her; it had the head and face of a woman, but
where her body should have been, only her internal organs dangled, glistening
wetly in the torchlight. The thing’s intestines seemed to be caressing the
bound girl, provoking screams of terror and agony.
 |
| Before ... |
For Nat, time seemed to stand still. He
was standing well back in the corridor, and could only see a narrow slice of
the room, but he had a clear view of the flying creature. Its narrow, pinched
face and haughty features were seared into his memory, and he could still hear
her dispassionate voice ringing out over the background of his mother’s
anguished sobs: ‘I find Natan Dorré
guilty of murder, and order that he be sentenced to death by hanging, sentence
to be carried out on the morrow.’ This was Zenobia Zenderholm,
Head Arbiter of Korvosa! Or at least it had once been; whatever this creature
was now, it was clearly undead, and it was hard to imagine that such an
abomination could have passed as Head Arbiter.
But Nat wasn’t thinking of that now; all
he could think of was his mother’s sobbing, and the tears streaming down her
face as he was led out of the courtroom. That was the last time he had seen her,
and her grief was his final memory of her. With a bellow of pent-up rage and
loss, he let fly the Magic Missiles he
had held at the ready, and they blasted into the Zenobia-thing.
Zenobia responded with a Flame Strike centered on Nat. It also
caught Wren and Shadow, but Tomas managed to evade its effects. One of the Gray
Maidens opened fire on Erin, standing in the doorway, while the other rushed to
a door in the south wall of the torture chamber. Flinging it open, she began
shouting for help: “We’re under attack! Get in here!!!” Seconds later, another
Gray Maiden rushed through the open doorway, feathering Erin with another
arrow.
 |
| ... and after |
Erin knew that as long as most of the
group was bottled up in the hallway behind her they would be prevented from
engaging the enemy – and that she’d be the only target. She tried to Bull Rush the Maiden blocking the door
out of the way, but she held her ground; her orders had originally been to
prevent anyone from getting into
the private area blocked off by the cage, but now she was equally determined to
prevent these intruders from getting out.
Tomas feathered her with one of his arrows, but she absorbed the blow
stoically. “C’mon guys!” Erin urged, remembering how easily they’d cut through
the guards at the Hospice. “They’re just Gray Maidens – they’ll go down easy!”
Most of the team was far enough back
from the doorway that their view into the larger room was very limited. Like
Nat, they could only see a narrow slice. Jax sent his own volley of Magic Missiles into Zenobia, but Shadow
was wrestling with a moral dilemma. Every fibre of his being wanted to torch
them all with a Fireball, but he
could see their victim lying bound and helpless on the table below Zenobia, at
ground zero. Could he deliberately sacrifice her in order to get the others? ‘These women all used to be soldiers,’ he
thought, remembering who the Maidens recruited from. ‘They know that this sort of risk comes with the job.’ With that
rationalization, he unleashed his spell, and the room was filled with searing
flame. The bound victim was incinerated, but by sheer luck, the other two
prisoners in cages on either side of the room (who Shadow didn’t even know
about) were just outside the flames’ reach.
The Gray Maiden blocking the door swung
her longsword at Erin, and the paladin’s best efforts weren’t able to deflect
her blows. Her sword cut deep gashes into Erin’s flesh, and Erin realized that
these Maidens were in a different league from the rookies who’d drawn guard
duty at the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. Here, in the heart of the Gray
Maidens’ inner sanctum, they were facing their most seasoned and fanatical
fighters.
Nat was consumed by a lust for revenge,
and didn’t waste a second worrying about possibly hurting innocent victims. His Fireball was even more intense than
Shadow’s, and three of the Gray Maidens fell to its flames. But the one
blocking Erin’s path still stood, as did Zenobia. The creature glared at Nat –
whether it recognized him or not was impossible to say, but she knew he was a
danger to them all. Her entrails writhed as they somehow made the arcane
motions for casting a spell, and Nat suddenly felt his mind filled with horrible,
blasphemous thoughts that threatened to overwhelm his ability to think of
anything else. For a moment he was lost to them, but then his mother’s face
floated up through the haze of heresy, and his grim determination to avenge her
death pushed the thoughts aside. He lifted his face back up to find his target
again, but Zenobia was already flying through the doorway to the south, out of
his sight.
Two more Gray Maidens rushed past her
into the room, firing arrows at Erin; one glanced off the bars of the cage, but
another found its mark. The surviving Maiden at the back of the room, despite
seeing three of her comrades turned to cinders, rushed to the gate of the cage,
firing arrows through it and preparing to provide the next line of defense
should the one blocking Erin’s path fall.
Which she did, both eyeholes of her helm
pierced by Tomas’s shafts. Erin dashed into the cage area, but the gate was
locked, so she had to settle for stabbing at the new guard through the bars.
Jax was right behind her, and he had Boule’s key in his hand. Saying a quick
prayer to whatever gods would listen that it would fit, he slipped the key into
the lock. The Maiden cursed, dropping her bow and reaching for her sword, but
she was too slow, and the key turned easily, the lock clicking open. But the
gate was still closed, and the fanatical Gray Maiden was determined to fight to
the death to block its opening.
Girrigz had abandoned his search at the
first sounds of battle, and now finally had a chance to get out of this damned
hallway. “No!” Nat shouted as he snarled. “We need to guard the secret passage!
Zenobia might be headed around to the back!” But the wererat was also consumed
with a lust for revenge; these Gray Maidens had slaughtered his people, and now
he had a chance to even the score. He rushed to Erin’s side, and stabbed madly
through the bars. Shadow, however, thought Nat’s advice was worth heeding, and
he slipped down the lower hall. He made sure the secret door was shut, and then
backed up a step, preparing to blast anyone who opened it.
Nat, seeing Shadow on guard duty,
slipped into the back corner of the cage. More Gray Maidens were rushing into
the room, but he held his fire for the moment, waiting for just a few more – or Zenobia.
Arrows were flying through the bars at both Erin and Grizz, and one of the
newcomers drew her sword and rushed to the bars to stab through at the wererat,
her blade sinking deep through his matted fur. Grizz stabbed her back with a
snarl, and Tomas followed the others into the caged area and sent an arrow of
his own into Grizz’s new foe.
Erin had been at the front of the battle
since it began, and had been absorbing grievous amounts of damage from both
swords and arrows. Saying a silent prayer to Iomedae, she momentarily pressed
her left hand against her breast, feeling a surge of healing from her goddess,
then slammed her sword forward into her opponent’s gut. Jax, standing at her
side, slid his rapier through a seam in the Maiden’s armor and she collapsed to
the floor with a sigh. At last the way into the room was clear, and Jax wasted
no time in throwing the gate open and rushing into the room. Erin followed him
out, just as Wren tapped her on the back with her wand of Cure Serious Wounds. One of the Maidens hit Jax with an arrow as he
ran, and another stepped forward to engage Erin. Erin, feeling reinvigorated
and with room to finally swing away freely, chopped her down with a pair of
vicious blows. There were still lots of enemies facing them, but now they had a
little room to maneuver.
Nat did a quick survey of the room, and
decided the fighter types had this under control. He retraced his steps to lurk
just around the corner of the intersection with the corridor leading to the
secret door. He was worried that Zenobia was trying to flank them, and knew in
his heart that she was the greatest threat they faced. Ahead of him, Shadow was
quietly casting defensive spells in case Nat was right; a few moments later, he
blinked out of sight.
Nat might have had confidence that the
fighters had things under control, but they weren’t so sure. One of the Maidens
had taking Zenobia’s place behind the table, firing away with her bow, but now
Jax rushed her and poked her with his rapier. Throwing her bow aside, she drew
her longsword and Jax quickly learned the hard lesson Erin had been absorbing:
these were not the same Gray
Maidens they had faced at the Hospice. Her cuts left him bleeding out. “Medic!”
he cried, but Wren was busy healing Erin, who was taking yet more damage from
still another Gray Maiden who had stepped into her fallen comrade’s place.
Realizing there was no help coming from that quarter, he stepped back and cast Greater Invisibility on himself, hoping
they couldn’t hit what they couldn’t see.
Back in the corridor, Shadow heard the
sound of doors opening back in the room where they’d fought the Mother of Thorns, and then at the other end of the secret passage. Seconds later, the
secret door in front of him opened and Zenobia Zenderholm flew through,
colliding with the invisible sorcerer. Forcing down his revulsion at her
hideous form, he cast the spell he’d held at the ready, and a blast of murky
darkness shot from his hands, engulfing her in freezing shadows. But she
shrugged off most of the cold damage, and Shadow was now visible. An evil
smile played on her lips as her intestines reached out to caress his pale face.
But he wasn’t there. One of the spells
Shadow had cast as he waited was Blur,
and now Zenobia’s entrails were grasping at a spot where he wasn’t. She
shrieked in rage as her Slay Living spell
failed to fell the half-elf, and she prepared to reach for him again, the dark energies
of the spell still seething on her glistening guts. But before she could, a
series of blue bolts of energy flew down the hallway, as Nat’s Empowered Magic Missiles slammed into
his hated enemy. She looked up to find the source of the spell, only to see
Tomas slide to a stop at the end of the hallway. He’d rushed back at Nat’s
shouted warning, and now he raised his bow and squinted down the shaft of his
arrow. The bowstring twanged, and the arrow flashed down the length of the
hallway, directly into Zenobia’s beating heart. It exploded, spraying blood all
over the walls and floor, and she collapsed into an oozing pile of organs.
But there was no time to celebrate. A
Gray Maiden dashed through the open secret door, colliding with Shadow. She
swung her sword, but slipped on the greasy guts coating the floor and her blow
missed. Shadow could hear more feet pounding down the secret passage and decided
this was not what he’d signed up for; he took a step back, pulled out a wand,
and Dimension Door’d back into
Kordaitra’s bedroom. Nat leaned around the corner just far enough to toss a Tangefoot Bag down the hall at the Gray
Maiden. Somehow, it hit, and the female fighter found her feet glued firmly to
the floor. “More incoming!” Shadow shouted from his new spot of safety.
Back in the main room, the battle was
still raging. Grizz had been trading blows through the bars with one of the
Maidens and she finally fell. Seeing Jax vanish, he dashed to the spot Jax had
vacated, taking on that enemy. Since moving out of the hallway, he’d been
taking almost as many hits as Erin, but his innate resistance to any but silver
weapons kept him far healthier than her. For her part, Erin just kept absorbing
blow after blow, counting on Wren at her back to deliver healing fast enough to
keep her in the fight. Wren had cast Spiritual
Weapon earlier in the fight, but for the most part it just swiped
harmlessly at the heavily-armored Gray Maidens; now however, it managed to come
down with a ringing blow on the head of the one facing Grizz.
In the hallway, Tomas was feathering the
Maiden who was glued to the floor. She didn’t waste any time trying to escape;
instead she dropped her sword, drew her bow, and sent her own arrows flying
into Tomas. Then another of her mates rushed through the secret door. She
bulled past her immobile friend and rushed Tomas, but he ducked under her blow.
Shadow, standing in the doorway of Kordaitra’s room, had a clear shot, and his Empowered Scorching Rays, left her plate
mail glowing cherry red. Over the last few months, Tomas had been in more
combats than he could have imagined before, and he had been honing his skills
in each. By now, he had mastered the skill of firing his bow point-blank at an
enemy while still avoiding and parrying their blows. Now, he fired a trio of
arrows directly into the Maiden in front of him, sending her spinning back down
the hallway, dead.
But then a new enemy appeared through
the secret door. She was wearing the same plate armor as the other Gray
Maidens, but unlike the others she wore no helm. She was an elf, though one of
her pointed ears had been sheared off, perhaps as part of her ritual scarring
during her Gray Maiden initiation. She charged at Tomas, and as she ran the
blade of her sword burst into flame. The blazing blade bit deep, and Tomas was
left gasping in pain. “I need healing!” he cried out, and Wren swung her head
around, trying to decide whether to keep helping Erin or go to Tomas’s aid. But
it turned out to be unnecessary. Shadow stepped out from his hiding place and
waved his hands in a series of arcane motions, and the elf Maiden suddenly
found herself surrounded by a Resilient
Sphere, a spherical wall of force. Her eyes bulged as she pounded her
flaming sword again and again against the invisible sphere, spittle flying from
her lips as she shouted things that, fortunately, no one could hear.
The Resilient
Sphere not only took the elf out of the fight for now, it blocked any
arrows from the Maiden who was glued to the floor at the far end of the hall.
Nat laughed at the furious elf’s predicament, then turned his back on her to
fire off a round of Magic Missiles at
the Maiden who was currently harrying Erin.
With the party able to focus all their
power on one front, the outcome of the battle was all but assured. Jax used his
Greater Invisibility to slip behind
the Maidens fighting Grizz and Erin, backstabbing them repeatedly as they tried
to fight their visible foes. Between all their blades, the fight was over in
seconds, and everyone gathered around Wren for healing. She Channeled the power of Pharasma for some
group healing, then spent time providing additional cures to Erin and
Tomas. As she worked, Grizz went to the double doors leading back out into the
cell block, to watch for any reinforcements coming from that direction.
Once everyone had had a chance to catch
their breath, they quickly formed a strategy for dealing with the trapped elf.
As they returned to her corridor, the saw she had stopped her enraged and
futile attempts to escape. She eyed them warily, slowing her breathing and
dropping into a combat crouch, ready to attack at the first opportunity. They
also saw that the Maiden who’d been glued to the floor was gone; she’d used her
sword to cut herself free, and had made her escape.
Jax was still invisible, and Nat held
his hand and used Dimension Door to take
them both to her rear. Tomas stood directly in front of the elven fighter, his
bow drawn. From around the corner where she couldn’t see (or hear) him Shadow
counted down from three, then dispelled the Resilient
Sphere. Tomas immediately fired three arrows from his bow, as fast as he
could. The first rebounded off the sphere of force, which hadn’t quite gone
away yet, but the others to sank to the fletching in the elf. Quick as a snake,
she struck back, dealing two terrible cuts to Tomas. Erin stabbed from around the
corner, her blade sinking to the hilt in the elf’s gut. Jax stabbed forward
from behind, and a gout of blood erupted from her throat as his invisible
rapier burst through it. Blood was spurting in jets from her throat, but the
fire still burned in her eyes as she drew back her flaming blade for another
swing. But Shadow blasted her with a volley of Magic Missiles, then followed up with more Quickened Magic Missiles. Nat, at the back of the hallway, pulled
out his Selective Metamagic Rod, and
fired off a Lightning Bolt that ripped
up the hallway, but somehow managed to loop around Jax, Tomas, and Erin,
hitting only the elf. At last the fire went out in her eyes, and she slumped to
the ground, dead.
As Wren delivered still more healing to
Tomas, Grizz spotted a figure rounding the corner at the far end of the long
cell block hallway. It was a Gray Maiden, but she was moving slowly, her feet
still sticky with glue. She ducked into the set of double doors at that end of
the corridor, and Grizz rushed to head her off. The room from which the Gray
Maiden reinforcements had emerged looked like it had originally been the
prisoner processing room; there was another caged-off area with desks and
tables where paperwork for admitting and releasing prisoners might have been
processed, and there was a barred door to a stairway leading up. The last
surviving Maiden was making for the stairs, but Grizz easily headed her off.
She hesitated, considering her options, then charged (slowly) with a war cry.
Grizz easily dodged her blow, then ran her through with his rapier.
Wren had managed to get everyone, if
not healthy at least healthy enough.
Nat, as usual, was detecting magic wherever he could. Most of the bodies had
various magical trinkets, but he detected a much stronger aura from within
Kordaitra’s room. There was a large painting of Korvosa hanging on the wall; it
was a masterful work, easily six feet long and three high, and the glow was
coming from behind it. Jax removed the painting, and found a large iron door
set in the wall behind it, with a complicated-looking lock securing it. He started
to pull out his lockpicks when Shadow said, “Here – try these,” and tossed him
a ring of three keys he’d pulled off Kordaitra’s belt. One of them looked just
like the key he’d gotten from Boule, but the other two were different. The
first key he tried fit the lock perfectly, and he pulled the door to the wall
safe open. Inside was a large cherrywood chest, and Jax needed help pulling it
out. The chest was not locked, and he raised the lid. It contained a number of
velvet-lined compartments; many were empty, but the others held a trove of
magical items: potions, wands, vials, scrolls, and a large silk bag that looked
empty but felt suspiciously heavy.
Nat was eager to start identifying
items, but Tomas interrupted him. “We can do all that later. We need to find
Marcus Endrin!” They’d still seen no sign of the former commandant of the Sable
Company, and Cressida Kroft had been certain he was being held here.
“There’s another big door at the bottom
of some stairs down there,” Erin offered, pointing past Kordaitra’s room to
where the corridor turned and widened out. “Maybe they’re keeping him down
there.”
Shadow suddenly snapped his fingers. “Hang
on a minute!” He began quickly flipping through the papers he’d found in the
Gray Maiden’s document repository. Among the lists of recruits, descriptions of
their grotesque indoctrination procedures, and records of executions, he’d seen
a list of prisoners. He found it, and began flipping through its pages. “Here!”
he cried, stabbing his fingers at one of the entries. “’Marcus Endrin: Traitor. Hold for the Queen’s pleasure. Cell 21’”
“Where does it say Thousand Bones was
being held?” Tomas asked eagerly
Shadow consulted the list again. “Here
he is – ‘Thousand Bones: Enemy of the
State. Cell 19.’” He gulped and looked up at the group. “He was scheduled
for execution tomorrow.”
Tomas raced back into the cell block,
and around the corner to the cell where they’d found Thousand Bones. It was the
last cell on the right hand side. The corridor ended in another empty cell. Tomas
stood staring at the empty cell. “That would be Cell 20. There is no Cell 21.” He stood there
for several seconds, brow knitted in thought, then stepped into the empty cell
and began a careful search of every stone. His efforts were soon rewarded: one
of the stones on the right wall popped out in his hand, revealing a keyhole. He
gestured for Kordaitra’s key ring, and tried the keys one by one. One fit, and
when he turned it, the wall in front of him slid away.
Behind it was another cell, with a crude
cot and chamber pot. A figure lay curled in a fetal position on the cot. Tomas
recognized him immediately as his former commander, Marcus Endrin, but this was
not the proud, imposing figure he had known. He lay curled up on the cot
whimpering like a frightened toddler, tears and snot running down his face. He
looked up as the wall slid away, but gave no indication of recognition; indeed,
he barely seemed aware of the party’s presence as they gathered, staring at the
man who had tried to assassinate the Queen. Wren moved into the cell and knelt
by Endrin’s side, examining him gently. Then she looked back, shaking her head.
“I have no idea what they’ve done to him.”
The PCs earned 17,333 XP for this
massive battle, putting them at 102,843, with 105,000 XP required for Level 11.
That means you’re very likely to reach 11th level next session, so
have those characters ready to go.
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