Session 10: The Undercity

February 17, 118 SE

Ash-Daughter leads the party down through the Undercity, and they travel for about an hour. As they go, she points out various dangerous areas that they're bypassing, including areas full of monsters, dangerously unstable areas, and areas controlled by rival gangs. Finally, she indicates that they've arrived in the general location where she believes the necromancer to be.

The section that they're in seems to consist mostly of long, winding corridors, so after scouting out several branches, they pick a direction and follow it. They soon come across a broken statue of Vorn lying across the floor. The investigate it and find that it was once seated in an alcove, but has fallen out and broken. Kaplan, with his knowledge of masonry, can tell that this whole area is somewhat unstable, and it's possible that a nearby collapse could have shaken the statue down. He takes the head of the statue in case it comes in useful later.

They continue following the passageway, and it continues winding along, until next they find a shaft in the ceiling leading up. The shaft is about three feet across, so it is wide enough for someone to climb through. Ellyanna casts Light on Kaplan's grappling hook, and he throws it up. The light reveals that the shaft goes up for about thirty feet, but the grappling hook doesn't catch on anything. Kaplan, as the most athletic member of the party, decides to shimmy up the shaft instead. Calanon boosts him up to the ceiling and he climbs up, trailing the rope behind him for the rest of the party to use afterwards.

At the top, Kaplan finds himself in a mid-sized room with several exits. The nearest point he sees where he can hook the rope is a door handle. However, the room is not unoccupied - in the center of the room is a horrible, amoeba-like beast covered in mouths and eyes and gibbering madly. Ellyanna later identifies the creature as a Gibbering Mouther, though Kaplan doesn't recognize it at all.

Raising his shield, Kaplan advances past the creature and towards the door handle. He manages to hook the rope on, then shouts to the rest of the party to get ready - he'll lead the creature down to them. However, the creature spits a chunk of its own flesh at Kaplan, which explodes in an intense flash of light which blinds him. Combined with the creature's continuous, maddening noises, Kaplan is too confused and disoriented to act, and the creature easily dispatches him in this state.

The rest of the party down below hear Kaplan's screams, and realize that he's not coming down, so they decide to come up instead. Fortunately, he managed to hook the grappling hook so they can use the rope to climb up. Grrrr Yip goes first, followed by Ash-Daughter and Calanon. When Grrrr Yip reaches the top, she sees the creature attempting to envelop Kaplan, presumably to consume him. She heals him with a spell, and he rolls out of the creature's reach.

Grrrr Yip shapeshifts into a bear, and she, Calanon, and Ash-Daughter advance to attack. Down below, Elvish attempts to attack the creature using Vicious Mockery, although the fact that he can't see it to tailor his insults impairs his efforts. Dark Star and Ellyanna both have trouble making it up the rope.

Above, the creature's maddening gibbering is affecting the party, but together they manage to badly hurt it. Kaplan and Calanon work together to protect the party from its attacks, but after several sneak attacks from Ash-Daughter, it turns its attention to her and nearly drops her in a single blow. She retreats out of melee range just as Dark Star finally manages to reach the top of the rope, and Grrrr Yip strikes the killing blow.

With the creature dead, Ellyanna and Elvish climb up to join the rest of the party, and they heal Ash-Daughter's wounds. Ellyanna identifies the creature, and informs the party that such creatures are generally the creations of mages. This makes them wonder if it's a creation of the necromancer who they're looking for.

The party search the room but find nothing of interest, so they begin searching the nearby area. In a nearby room, the find an unfinished statue of Vorn; it's surrounded by rotting old wooden scaffolding.

Eventually, they decide that the necromancer is more likely to be on a lower level than a higher level, so they return to the shaft and climb back down. They decide to leave the rope and grappling hook in place in case they need it again, then they head out to continue exploring the lower level.

Session 9: Still In Vornheim

February 16, 118 SE

Having rested at an inn for the night, the party plan their activities for the day. Ash-Daughter doesn't know how long it will take to plan and execute a rescue for Kaplan, but they have all day at the least. They decide to split up and gather information, with Grrrr Yip staying behind to keep in contact with Ash-Daughter. Among everyone else, Dark Star looks around for an occult shop of some sort, Elvish visits the College of Bards, Calanon asks around at the various local temples of Vorn, and Ellyanna returns to the scene of the Arch-Prelate's murder in order to try to determine where the killer went.

Dark Star has no luck for the first half of the day; he is directed to various alchemy shops and the like, but nothing that can help with the obscure knowledge that he seeks. Finally, in the afternoon, he arrives at a small shop in the Outer City, tucked into a narrow alley and near-impossible to find unless you know exactly where it is. Inside, he is greeted by the proprietor, a grizzled old tiefling called Demon's Gift, who is missing one leg below the knee.

Dark Star asks the tiefling about Zargon the Returner, the entity who has granted him his powers, and Demon's Gift is the first person he's met who recognizes the name. He says that Zargon is one of the "Outer Gods", one of several incredibly ancient beings who supposedly ruled the world long before the time of humans. Zargon is called the "Returner" because, as the stories go, he will one day return and cleanse the world of its current life and return it to how it once was.

Dark Star asks if Demon's Gift has ever heard of one of the Outer Gods contacting someone; the tiefling explains that these beings are unable to directly contact mortals, because the Gods ward them away. However, it is possible for the reverse to happen: with the right knowledge, it is possible for a mortal to contact an Outer God. Demon's Gift produces a tome that supposedly contains this knowledge, although it was written by a madman and may be difficult, or impossible, to properly interpret. Dark Star cannot afford the price of the book, so he offers to trade the grimoire that they found in the catacombs beneath Frosthaven's graveyard. The tiefling asks to keep it and read it overnight in order to assess its value; as collateral, he lends Dark Star a tome concerning the metaphysical nature of the heavens and the hells.

Meanwhile, Elvish is at the College of Bards, visiting the library and looking for any tales that concern the undead. He spends the entire day researching, and though he finds many such tales, all of them are very light on detail, and contain no specific knowledge that could possibly help them.

Calanon spends the day travelling between various temples of Vorn, trying to get a feel for the current situation in the city. He learns a bit about the organization of the church; there are currently five prelates, and all senior priests each get a vote in determining who will be the new Arch-Prelate. However, the vote will only take place after a majority of the prelates have indicated that they are ready, which in this case means three prelates. The previous Arch-Prelate was only elected a few years ago, and the ranks of the prelates have not changed since then, which means that the most obvious candidate is gone, which is why the political manoeuvring before the election is even worse than usual. Many of the priests believe that it could be weeks, or even months, before the new Arch-Prelate is elected.

Finally, Ellyanna makes her way to the center of the Old City, where the Arch-Prelate's murder took place. She begins trying to track the progress of the murderer - since he was seen performing the act, and seen fleeing the scene, someone must have seen where he went. This is a slow and laborious process, as she must interview many people in order to discover where he went. As he fled, the murderer outran the news of the crime, so many people saw him run by before learning about what he had done. Progress is slow, but Ellyanna manages to track him through the Old City to the wall, past the gate and halfway through the New City, before night falls and she is forced to return to the inn.

Back at the palace, Kaplan has remained imprisoned throughout the day; every few hours, he is taken out and interrogated by a different group of people. Each time, he sticks with his story, explaining that he was nowhere near Vornheim when the murder occurred, and therefore could not have been involved. Finally, near the end of the day, he is taken out once more, but this time the guards take him past the usual interrogation chamber. Asking them what's going on, they explain that they are taking him to the torture chambers below the palace.

The group never make it down to the torture chambers. As they are passing down one of the palace's many corridors, a band bursts out of a passageway from behind them and attacks - it's Ash-Daughter and two street thugs, although Kaplan only recognizes her as the tiefling from the day before.

As the thugs charge the guards, Ash-Daughter slips through the lines, cuts Kaplan's restraints and hands him a cudgel, at which point they both join the fight. Two of the three guards go down quickly, taking one of the thugs with them. The last guard tries to flee; Ash-Daughter shouts at Kaplan to run, but instead he chases down the guard and knocks him out first. At this point, they lift the unconscious body of the wounded thug, and head back down the passage from which they launched the ambush.

Ash-Daughter leads the way through the maze-like passages of the palace, eventually descending directly into the Undercity. After about fifteen minutes of fleeing, they finally stop to catch their breath. They take a look at the injured thug, but unfortunately he has succumbed to his injuries and is dead. Once they're ready to proceed, Ash-Daughter leads the group through the Undercity, back to her group's hideout, a journey of several hours.

When they finally arrive, the tiefling sends a messenger to the rest of the party, who arrive shortly in order to discuss their next steps. Ash-Daughter explains that, in addition to planning Kaplan's rescue, she also managed to look into local wizards who might be able to help the party understand the undead threat. She came up with two leads. The first is Zorlac, a local wizard who is reputed to have the largest and most complete library in the city. However, is also known to jealously guard his library, allowing no-one but himself and his apprentices to use it. Thus, if they went for Zorlac, they would most likely be breaking into his library and stealing the information they needed.

Her second option relates to rumours of a necromancer living in the depths of the Undercity. She doesn't know his name, but stories persist of the existence of a necromancer below the city, who periodically sends his servants up to acquire supplies and accomplish other tasks. Dark Star confirms that, while he was talking with Demon's Gift at the occult shop, the shop owner mentioned a similar individual. Based on the stories and her knowledge of the Undercity, Ash-Daughter has a rough idea of where he must be.

After a short discussion, the party decide that this mysterious necromancer is the better option. The have a few things that they wish to finish in the city first, so they plan to set out around noon the next day. Before they retire for the night, Ash-Daughter asks to join them in their quest to stop the undead. Since she's been a help so far, and since her skills of subterfuge and thievery fill a gap in the party's own skills, they accept.

February 17, 118 SE

The next morning, the party finish their business about town. Dark Star returns to Demon's Gift's shop, where the tiefling tells him that he will trade his book for Dark Star's, if Dark Star throws a bit of extra money on top. Dark Star agrees and the exchange is made. Ellyanna continues tracking the killer, and manages to finish tracking him to the main gates of Vornheim. This confirms that he did, in fact, flee the city, and direction in which he fled may prove to be useful information.

Elvish continues his research at the College of Bards, but as with the previous day, he finds nothing of value, while Calanon asks around in order to learn if news of Kaplan's escape his circulated through the city yet. Evidently, the answer is no, as no one he asks has heard this news.

Finally, back at the thieves' lair, Kaplan equips himself as best he can, since his weapons were not returned to Calanon when the paladin was set free.

When noon arrives, the party, along with Ash-Daughter, regroup and prepare to head into the Undercity and track down the mysterious necromancer.