Session 45 - Burn, Baby, Burn... Literally.

Tue 6th Apr 19:30 - 00:45

In-game timeline: Uktar 23 - Nightal 10 DR1489

Our "Heroes" regather - both physically and mentally. Redback the werewolf, now transmogrified into a large, rather buff, human male, lies dead at their feet, but Lispeth the somewhat rat-like gnome 'girl' has escaped through one of the pictures.

Surprisingly, the group delay at least 5 minutes before looting Redback's body. Primarily because Devon and Grarth are both racing to one of the rooms in order to grab loot (or, as they would claim, find useful items for the group's benefit).

Over the next 20 minutes or so, the group find all sorts of useful items in the two bedrooms that obviously belong to Lispeth and Redback, as well as a set of keys on Redback. They spend some time working out how the portal bracelets work with the pictures. As they are about to try them out, Drogan, who was getting a little bored at the constant 'looking for stuff' rather than 'killing stuff', wandered back into the dining room area and focussed on evaluating the nice ruby brooch that Alwaith had grabbed off of Redback's body.

He was so focussed on the jewellery that he didn't notice the grate in the floor behind him opening up and a strange, disfigured humanoid creature rising from the stairs below, calling for Lispeth. A fight!

With Drogan in a state of poor health, and his friends in the next room, unable to immediately help, it was lucky that this creature missed Drogan with the initial swings of his heavy, spiked chain. Drogan makes a useful hit on the creature before turning and running towards his fellow adventurers, hoping to escape the dangerous chain. Alwaith hears Drogan shout and run away from something in the next room and decides that he doesn’t want to risk his full health, and blinks out of this plane. Grarth readies his maul and swings at the creature, which they later realise is the "Deggmir" referred to in the papers Alwaith found. Grarth and Deggmir exchange hits - Grarth is looking pretty beaten up after the previous fight and is unaware of the terrible risk he is taking, standing between Deggmir and Alwaith.

The risk, however, is not from Deggmir. While Devon helps his new friend by causing Deggmir to fall to the floor in fits of laughter - a strange sight in one so deformed - Alwaith reappears in this plane and fires an Eldritch Blast at the creature, who is now mostly hidden by the large frame of Grarth. As seems to be becoming a common occurrence, Alwaith's blast misses its intended target and instead hits Grarth in his back with full force. Grarth is close to losing consciousness, primarily through actions of his 'friend', but stays where he is, blocking Deggmir's movement towards the party.

Drogan, now with the support of his party around him, runs back in towards Deggmir and lands a perfect on the still-prone creature. Unfortunately this hit is rewarded by an attack from Deggmir's chains that takes Drogan into unconsciousness, for the third time today.

Luckily Devon runs in and connects with a hefty, roguish blow and Grarth, almost unconscious himself, follows this up with a mighty hit from his maul which takes Deggmir down before he has a chance to take another party member down, and before Alwaith can share out more friendly fire. Devon uses one of their precious few remaining healing potions to revive Drogan.

Alwaith picks up the flask that Deggmir was carrying and sees a swirling mist within. Suspecting that it may be the soul of some poor creature, Alwaith unstoppers the flask and releases the soul, which dissipates in the slightly stale air of the ruins.

Wanting to take advantage of the remaining time of his Blink spell, Alwaith descends down the stone stairs into the darkness beyond to check out the room from whence Deggmir came. Once he is certain there are no more bad creatures down there, he fetches the others and they descend back down with him, though Devon stays behind just long enough to blast himself with acid from a trapped lockbox that he was discretely fiddling with.

The single room below contained a disturbing and unnerving sight. The unmoving body of a contorted human male was strapped to a table, with a chained up female elf, unkempt and bedraggled, looking on at the body with tears in her eyes and a scream upon her lips. When she was finally calmed by the group, she told them in a broken and strained voice that she was Starwyn and that she and her husband Horgarth Greystone had come looking for their daughter, Suriel, and had been captured. As her voice started to break at the story she was telling, she pointed towards a chair by the table, covered in a large mass of wire and bloodied chain, stating that there was something in there. Something alive.

Quick as a flash Drogan grabbed a torch and flung it at the chair. The wire did not burn, but it did get hot very quickly. The wood of the chair started to char, but something within the mass of chain and metal did catch and burn. As the group looked on, mainly in surprise at Drogan's instinctive reaction, they all heard a child's painful scream coming from within the chair. A scream that was quickly and ominously curtailed.

Grarth beat out the flames, and Drogan looked into the mass of still hot wire. He saw the small, blackened, lifeless body of a small humanoid, with piercing white eyes - frozen wide open in its last moments of terror. A silence descended upon the group.

Devon spotted a padlock within the wires. They found a key upon Deggmir's body upstairs and Devon used his Mage Hand to unlock the padlock from within the steaming wire mesh. The tangled cage opened to reveal the body of a young boy - scarred and marked with welts and cuts of quite recent origin, but with ragged clothes still burnt into his now blackened and charred body. Attention turned to Drogan, who threw the flame, and to Alwaith, who left it a little late to share information with the group regarding the possible use of children as 'batteries' for a soul stealing device. Recriminations were saved until later, but the lifeless body of the young boy added a rift between the group that may take a little time to heal.

As if needing a distraction from what had happened, and from the still smoking body of the young child,  attention turned to the device itself, which they had noticed when they entered the room, but had not investigated until now. On a table between the smouldering chair and the torture table, with tubes connecting it to both, lay a small, metal cage, about a foot in diameter and height, made from an unknown metal. Within this cage there seemed to be floating a dodecahedron device. Alwaith recognised it as a Necromical, but would say no more to the others about his knowledge of such things other than that is was used to extract souls.

Disconnecting the tubes, but avoiding touching the device itself, Alwaith gathered up the object in some rags and placed it carefully in his pack. Then, taking only the body of the man on the table and the elven woman, our group of "Heroes" left the chamber - the smell of burning flesh and the sound of screaming children still haunting their senses.

The group discover how the paintings work, and decide to use them to transport the children back to the town of Moonfall. With Alwaith and Grarth resting in Lispeth's room, Devon and Drogan use the paintings to appear in the lizardfolk shaman's room at the top of the ruins, and then they head down to where they left the children. They then discover that they had completely forgotten not only the secret knock that they had agreed with Talfen, but also Talfen's name! Unsurprisingly, they get no response when they try to ask the boy whose name they could not remember, to open the door.

Devon heads back down to fetch Redback's keys from Alwaith, who, in a surprising display of openness, shares Talfen's name with Devon, though he too did not remember to make a note of the secret knock.

Back on the first level below the surface, Drogan uses the keys to let himself in and is faced with Talfen holding a sharpened stick at his face. Talfen is unimpressed that he was the only one who remembered the secret knock they had agreed, but soon all that was forgotten, and the group of adventurers managed to use the portal bracelets to transport the children back to Moonfall, where they were very gratefully received back by the town, though the four missing children were obviously noticed, and missed.

The party had not finished in the ruins, however. They suspected that more souls were being kept in storage, as implied by a note they found addressed to Lispeth (which also mentioned a figure named Sperax, who seemed to be the intended recipient of the souls). They decide to tackle the room containing the stained glass knights once again.

With Grarth and Drogan feeling decidedly unhealthy and exhausted, it is left to Alwaith and Devon to tackle this room. These two are unused to being even slightly injured, and the front line is not somewhere they feel very comfortable. They hatch a plan.

Alwaith turns both himself and Devon invisible. As Alwaith opens the door, Devon slips inside, using his halfling size and roguish abilities to avoid the stained glass knights who are standing where they were left just inside the door, but who are unable to see either target. Devon runs to the torch that is still burning on the floor and uses his prestidigitation to extinguish it, hoping that will cause the knights to disappear. Unfortunately, as Devon's becomes visible once more at the use of a spell, he didn't spot the lit candle high above him near to the ceiling, which seems to be casting light through a small, coloured glass plate and thus still feeding the stained glass knights with their needed pastel light. They turn to face the now very visible Devon!

Fortune, however, favours the brave. And, it seems, the less brave. And the lucky. Devon acts quicker than the knights and uses his faster reactions to re-cast his prestidigitation to extinguish the candle from a distance. Immediately, with the last of the light in the area having gone out, the stained glass knights disappear and both Devon and the still invisible Alwaith breathe a sigh of relief.

They check out the room beyond in darkness, not wanting to trigger the return of the knights. They find a number of bottles, sealed and with labels containing dates and races. Alwaith surmises that these are captured souls and proceeds to unstopper them all and release the gaseous contents. The mists rise from the bottles and seem to sigh in relief and gratitude as they dissipate into the air. Alwaith feels happy with his good deed though, as usual, his outward demeanour remains surly and mysterious.

The two of them find a number of silvered weapons at the back of this room, and an unsilvered warhammer, which Alwaith uses to throw up at the candle to knock it over to hopefully prevent the knights from reappearing should the mirror above catch any more light. The candle is knocked away from the focal point of the curved mirror, and both it, and the thrown axe, lie on the ledge above out of harm's way.

Before the group decide to leave the ruins, they want to check out the strange device in the room on the second level. They light the brazier in the centre of the room and the room becomes bathed in light, revealing metal discs in the walls portraying what some of them recognise as constellations of stars in their sky. With some investigation, they work out that the device is some sort of orrery that can be used to show the phases of the moons of their own world, as well as the progression of their world around the sun, and can be used to accurately predict eclipses, both past and future. They proceed to use the device to find out the date of the double-lunar eclipse that is due to happen in the coming year, and find out the exact date - Ches 12, Dr 1490. Alwaith quickly sends this information on to Ripley who can pass it on to the Order of the Planes (who she works for) and Council of the Veil (who they have links to). Alwaith is proving to be very communicative all of a sudden.

Having found out all the useful stuff they can think off from this room, and from the Ruins of An-Sen as a whole, the party head back to Moonfall for a well-deserved long rest.

In the morning, the town is in good spirits, having received back most of their children, though they are concerned about the four missing ones. The party tell Elder Eldred that one of those children may have died at the hands of Lispeth and Redback (admitting no liability themselves, of course), though they don't know which one (Hansel,  Godfrey, Chuck and Ingrid were the names of the children taken, according to Talfen). The villagers club together and hand over all their currently stored wealth, a total of 500gp, in recognition of the help given by the party. They also hand the Poem of Moonfall and the Cryptex to Devon (who promptly manages to open the Cryptex using his well-honed problem solving skills, to reveal the impressive Titanic magic within). The party then hurriedly say their goodbyes, collect Dwarrowsteel's body from The Hunter and head back to Neverwinter, via the stone circle and Oakhurst, to ensure they get to Neverwinter before the Gentle Repose spell on Dwarrowsteel runs out.

Back in Neverwinter they use the last remaining time before Dwarrowsteel's body decomposes too much, to debate whether or not to raise him from the dead. This proves to be a difficult decision, involving lots of soul searching from the characters, and discussions with the Temple of Berronar. After all, it will cost them 1400gp, which is most of their spare cash (after levelling up of course! If it had eaten into their levelling up kitty there would have been no discussion at all, I'm sure).

In the end it is decided to at least give it a go, though the deciding factor seemed to be the money they would save on trying to remove their lycanthropy curse from Drogan, Alwaith and Grarth - this would have cost them 100gp per attempt, but if Dwarrow is raised from the dead, then they could get each casting for half price!

The attempt to raise Dwarrow from the dead succeeded and Dwarrow has returned to them, though his personality has undergone a few changes, they suspect. Once he recovered, and had a good meal, his first actions back in this plane was to remove their curses. They are reminded of Dwarrow's limited abilities when it takes 6 attempts to cure the three of them - they wonder whether asking a more competent cleric to do the job may have been cheaper in the long run, but outwardly they express thanks.

Grarth is given a share of the treasure and rewards, though as usual for Grarth, he in no way receives a quarter of the loot. Luckily he is unable to count, let alone add up, and he is quite happy with his pocketful of magic apples which seem to make him laugh when he eats them. So he is relatively content. He is also able to level up to Level 6.

The rest of the party, other than Dwarrow who is busy recovering from being dead for over a week, all LEVEL UP TO LEVEL 7 and get all their magic items identified using the last few gp of their spare cash - though Devon seems to have a curious ability to produce gold coins upon request despite others being stripped down almost to their underwear to pay for things… hmmm.

And so we leave our "Heroes" in Neverwinter, learning their new skills and preparing for the next adventure. They seem to have finally realised that the antics of the Order of the Black Sun are potentially quite serious and world-changing, and there is talk amongst the group of discussing next steps with the Council of the Veil. Dwarrow expressed a desire to return home, if only briefly, to see his family and his betrothed, Silvermoon, and Drogan, upon hearing that Dwarrow came from a place close to the fabled Mithril Halls, wanted to tag along. With the date of the upcoming double-eclipse looming, they (should be) wonder(ing) what they need to do to prevent Malar from returning, and a Second Corruption from occurring…