Introduction
Some sessions are defined by what the party kills. This was not one of those sessions. Instead it was defined by what the party found out. When operating in a hostile city without a definite picture of what you are looking for, every conversation could provide valuable information, or end in combat and death.
This was a very interesting session to DM in that everything came together out of player character scheming and applying the knowledge they had already gained, combined with the desired to answer certain questions to set up future actions elsewhere in the world.
Timekeeping
This session began on March 26th, with the player characters adventuring until the 28th. Downtime for these characters begins on the 29th of March.
Player Characters Present
Sever the Wrathful (Level 10 Pegasus Corps Ranger Lord of Machodor, wielder of Were'shbane and the Rod of Lordly Might, wearer of the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, rider of Libertas) with henchman Thomas (C7), Poindexter (M6)Steelvein (Level 7 Fighter, Henchman of Giuseppe, mutant who requires constant feeding)Dead-eye Donny (Level 6 Monk)Connor Lugh (Dual class bard hopeful Fighter Level 5 Thief Level 1, strummer of Fochlucan Bandore)Edvard L'Claire (1/2 elf Cleric/Fighter/Magic User 2/2/2)
Downtime
Session Report
The party followed their usual route out of Minas Mandalf. It was a foggy day, so they soared above the cloud cover until reaching the hidden cave approximately a mile south of the Halls of the Fire Giant King. From this vantage point they observed, in the middle distance, twenty mounted figures being admitted through the great onyx doors. The temptation to intervene was noted, discussed, and set aside; they had a job to do, and the lava tubes were waiting.
After last session, where their heavy footfalls had drawn the attention of purple worms, the heroes decided to leave their giant subterranean lizard mounts behind in the cave and proceed on foot. A merchant caravan passed them in the primary passage of the lava tube, but as the adventurers were travelling invisibly and chose not to react, nothing came of it. They made it all the way to the Basalt Gate Tower without significant incident.
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| Basalt-Gate Tower |
Sever, operating under the pseudonym Lance, was in the middle of talking his way past the bailiff at the Basalt Gate Tower when Edvard, new to the operation and apparently unaware that the situation was already under control, cast friends.
The spell worked. On the bailiff. He waved them through with considerable warmth. The lieutenant standing beside him, however, made his saving throw, and the spell produced its well-documented opposite effect on him: he became noticeably less well disposed toward the party than he had been just moments earlier.
The party were back outside and crossing the causeway to the city before this presented a problem. Whether this is the end of the matter is a question for another session.
The party made for their usual lodgings in the Foreigner's Quarter, the Drake's Ember Rest, an establishment that has seen enough surface-worlders pass through its doors to have developed a professional incuriosity about them. Most of the time.
Vsskara Emberdrake, the barkeep, welcomed them back with the particular warmth of someone totalling up what they were about to spend. Her eyes moved across the group with the practised sweep of someone who knows every regular face, perhaps checking for one that was not present. Whether she was looking for Fluid specifically was not confirmed, but one player was certain anyway.
In the morning the party crossed into the Slave Quarter and sent word to Chandrar. The factor was more than happy to leave his desk; the previous 100gp gem bribe had apparently made a strong enough impression that he greeted them in person, and with genuinely feigned warmth. Once he understood their goal, securing some of the Irish prisoners they had seen on a previous visit, he was all business. For another 100gp gem, Chandrar laid out three options, all of whom had come in with slaves and were still in town:
- Vrassik the Boaster, a Blazenewt soldier known to frequent the Soulforge Saloon on Slavers Path. He had been on the Castle Irish operation and had not yet learned to keep his mouth shut about it.
- Ssavarka the Meticulous, a licensed Firenewt factor at the Chainstreet Licensing Office, a few floors up from Chandrar, who handled paperwork on the cavalry lot and could potentially facilitate a legal transfer, given the right introduction.
- Gruthakk the Restless, another Blazenewt veteran of the Castle Irish assault, currently drinking his way through the Strider's Hoof on Stable Causeway.
The adventurers decided Vrassik sounded like the easiest place to start.
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| Vrassik the Boaster, boasting. |
City Encounter #1: Vrassik the Boaster
Rounds: One long morning
Result: Party win
Highlights: The Soulforge Saloon was exactly as Chandrar had described. Vrassik sat in his corner with a large black drink in front of him and no suspicion that a group of surface-worlders in heat-cloaks were about to debrief him across a table of Efreeti Blacks (local top-shelf alcohol).
As usual, it was Donny who did the talking, a man of considerable foresight for having learned Lizardman from McScales over the course of a year, a skill that pays dividends every time the party visits Cthugarak. Donny spoke throughout as the representative of his master Lance, deferring at key moments to Sever, who would occasionally grunt in a manner befitting a wealthy and slightly disinterested surface-world employer. It was a convincing performance. Steelvein enquired with the barkeep as to food and drink recommendations, purely to soften up Vrassik and not at all out of personal interest in the menu, and she suggested the hot wings.
Edvard and Connor cased the joint and kept an eye out for trouble. The division of labour suited everyone.
Vrassik talked, and talked, and talked. He had led the initial assault through the secret tunnel, and he told them about the southern extent of the north/south lava tube, beyond where the party had explored before, which led to a junction where several branches split the tube, with one going nearly all the way to Castle Inferno, where it had been connected to the supposedly secret escape tunnel by firenewt engineers directing purple worms. The party extracted so much information, at the price of more bat wings (revealed to be bat, not chicken, just as Steelvein was tucking in—it did not stop him) and Efreeti Blacks, that they were soon looking for a means of getting him to stop.
Then everything changed.
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| Edvard shows his mettle |
Result: Party (Edvard) win
Highlights: Having chosen to investigate Vrassik, the heroes were not expecting Ssavarka to interrupt them. Tension immediately spiked when she arrived at the Soulforge Saloon, but it turned out she was there for the entirely mundane purpose of getting him off his stool and down to the Chainstreet Licensing Office to sign his portion of the auction paperwork before the morning's bidding commenced. She was oblivious to the party at first.
Then she noticed them.
The conversation that followed was brief and carefully conducted on both sides. At some point the name Lance was mentioned, Chandrar having apparently described him and the party to her earlier, and the moment Ssavarka connected the name to the group before her, her manner shifted entirely. She became all business and moved to drag Vrassik out of his seat before he could give away any more inside information on the slave trade to the surface-worlders.
Edvard L'Claire took Ssavarka's hand and kissed it in the manner of a surface-world courtly greeting (a move I was certain would start a fight). I commented that I had thought such behaviour was a Fluid (the character) thing, but apparently it was a Fluid (the player) thing. He got a ridiculously positive reaction roll instead, and the firenewtess actually seemed to blush.
Sever faced the salamander down across the bidding floor and outbid it, shouting and gesticulating in an attempt to intimidate the creature. It made no scene; if anything, it seemed confused by Sever's antics and had no wish to cause a scene of its own. The exchange was brief and entirely without resolution; the salamander's identity and purpose remain unknown, though it will remember Sever.
The chief auctioneer of the Slave Quarter, the Venerable Fleshpeddler, ancient and apparently entertained by the surface-world competition, brought down the hammer. The party collected their twenty Irish captives and set off with them to their warehouse in the Outcast Quarter.
Highlights: Waiting at the warehouse was Orrathis the Rake, a half-human, half-reptilian intelligence broker. He had come to thank the party for dealing with the mezzodaemon that had been extorting and killing his people in the Outcast Quarter. The party had first encountered him during downtime, and this was the first time his name had to be pronounced aloud at the table. The obvious reading sounded uncomfortably close to "orifice," so, on advice from the table, the emphasis was shifted to the middle syllable instead.
The party then turned their attention to their expensive acquisition: twenty men in varying condition, all bearing the marks of Cthugarak's processing. Their commander, Morodio George, was far from certain of the intentions of those who had just purchased him at auction. The atmosphere changed the moment Morodio understood that Lance was, in fact, Sever the Wrathful, a name well known by reputation to the knight.
The heroes departed Cthugarak with the freed captives on the morning of the 28th, and reached Minas Mandalf without incident. The session ended with no combats at all, even though any one of the encounters except the last could easily have produced one. All three slavers had bodyguards, and I fully expected some sort of fight, maybe an ambush in a back alley, but the heroes kept the big picture in mind and did not want to risk being shut out of Cthugarak.
Session 103 brought to you by Efreeti Black, on tap at the Soulforge Saloon; 200gp worth of Chandrar's goodwill; and the continuing question of what a fire salamander wanted with twenty cavalry troopers.
Session Statistics:
Combats: 0
Rooms mapped: 0
Combat rounds: 0
Losses: 6000gp
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