- what is the extent of thepower of the diadem of Zosiel (wisdom +2)
- what is the relationship between the ancient war of the wind dukes and the resurgance of the worms?
- is there a way to stop the worms?
- is there a mother-worm, source of all worms?
- what is Kyuss?
- what is the relationship between Ilthane the Black Dragon and the worms?
Eligos says he will try to answer these questions, but it will take time a research. He has friends, including a very good friend who is a powerful paladin, who can help look into these things.
The party checks in a the Crooked Inn, meeting Redgar, a fighter of Kord, who joins their party. They spend three days in the free city, full of adventure. Redgar brought Rancik and Aurthur to hear the Madman Rainbarrel, raving about the worms and undead dragons, and go on to Hog’s temple, where Arthur tried to steal something. A strange attack of killer diseased spiders happened to the party after a dense and distrustful exchange with Hog. Redgar’s armor super-eroded and Arthur got diseased with red ache. On the third day, the party encountered a chimera in a parade in the street, which Arthur netted and Vasco used evard’s black tenticles to subdue while Redgar impaled it. These violent encounters ended up with the city watch coming to them, helpful, but doing a very full investigations. Vasco writes a letter to the city officials calling for a Mistmarsh truce with the lizardfolk.
Each night the fun and friendly Tarquin asks the party for tales of their day and celebrate with drank and singing. Rancik was suspicious about the dark bottles from Ilthane the Black Dragon’s Kobalds, and took them for a bardic check which turned out OK. A comedic performer poured the contents of one potion out, revealing it to be contaminated with a worm. All the potions are given to Eligos to check over.
The party went to the Blueberry Theater and learned a bit through comedy and satire about Racknain , the city lord in charge of the Champion Games. They visited the spa and got 24 hours of fortitude. After the party went to bed, a stir in the Inn occurs, and Arthur (who had pinched an emerald off a noble) was accused of stabbing Tarquin the friendly bar keep in cold blood. A huge brawl starts against Arthur, Rancik heals the stabbed Tarquin, who is grateful but mistrustful of the party and espeically Arthur. The city guard apprehends the group.
On the way to the cells, the group is manacled, with Vasco and Arthur locked up in once cell, Redgar and Rancik in another. Arthus is pulled away by the guards, bet unconscious. He comes back and is revived by Vasco and escapes. Hidden dobbleganger guards fool Arthur, attacking the party and putting them back in their cells. Redgar escapes and lets the others out. A huge battle ends with all guards dead, other prisoners escaped and the party united with the gear and rewards.
The party explores a room with a mimic in the building where they are locked up. A goofly long battle with the mimics was ended with summoned apes and spiritual weapons. Arthur and Redgar head down the water shaft along with a summoned squid and have an almost fatal (to Arthur) battle with a giant octopus. Redgar finally defeats it and Arthus is healed by Rancik and Vasco. Vasco has a magic missile not go off at the bottom of the shaft. The party, after coming out of the Octopus Layer, sleeps uneventfully. On recovery, with Vasco at the leads the party enters a new room that has much of the floor in ruins and quite far beneath, rusted spears and broken swords poking out of the water below. Detect magic does not work for Vasco in this room, though Rancik’s detect magic works, just before Rancik is hit hard by invisible stalkers. Arthur and Redgar are killed in battle with the stalkers, with Vasco joining in the battle, shooting arrows at Arthur.
Vasco follows Rancik, who has retreated to the corner of a cell to drink a potion of invisibility and cast Air Walk to retreat. He makes it out alive and Vasco does a coup de gras on Redgar. Rancik returns to Eligos’ mansion, seeking advice. He gets a loan from Pollard of 27,000 gp to do a true restore on Arthur from a toe nail. He meets Malleus the monk at Eligos’ palice, and Eligos shared information about the Spawn of Kyuss, which are medium undead whose writhing undead worms may enter into the body of anyone struck by their slam attack, burrowing into the flesh of the target and making its way to the brain. A remove curse or remove disease will destroy the worm, or dispel evil or neutralize poison will delay its effects for 10d6 minutes. Those who do not make it become Spawn of Kyuss or zombies.
The new party of Rancik, Arthur and Malleus prepare, based form Tarquin’s lodge, for rebattle, and agree to summon an ally from another plane, a formian task master and they hire 7 level 1 fighters to work as backup. The new group storms the Sodden Hold, hilling 2 doppleganger guards ad engaging the invisible stalkers in the rotten floor room. One is dispatched and the formian task master controls the other’s mind. Rancik ensures that Redgar and Arthur’s bodies rest respectfully in a cell.
The party storms through the lower levels of Sodden Hold, pounding through doppleganger undead, devious pit traps, illusory walls. The party discovers a room with 4 Vascos all bound up. 2 escape their bonds and start to plead with the party. Rancik gives an ultimatum and the third Vasco breaks the bonds and knocks the real vasco uncoouncious. A battle ensues with all dopplegangers defeated.
The party, now reunited, works throught the mirror maze, dealing fatal attacks to three dopplegangers, with final one saying on his death “Our gang leader Telarkin shall crush you all!”. The party is left in the maze considering their next options.
The party enters into Telarkin’s hold, where they find Allustan, who casts powerful spells against the party. When the combat comes closer, Allustan morphs into their old friend Ubu the barbarian, who rages. Malleus takes damage but Arthur’s arrows and Rancik’s spiritual weapon finally slay him. The room’s traps are sprung and Telarkin’s treasure, including several special looking gems, costumes, and magic, is recovered. So was an assassination note from Zyrxog which reads “I have a task for you, thrall. Meet me at the sewer junction beneat the cold forge and I will give you the details. There are some troublesome small minds that must be removed.”
On exit, the party meets Zyrxog the mind flayer and his 2 drow thrall who are all waiting to ambus them. The drow die in battle, but the mind flayer mind blasts everyone and plane shifts away. Out of the Sodden Hold, the party reveals all to the city guard, clearing Arthur’s and their own good names. Vasco comes to realize that the special gems are actually mind clones, but resists reading what he thinks is Arthur’s mind clone. He keeps them on his person.
Rancik organizes a large funeral for Redgar. The following description of this great funeral was a point of much discussion and fanfare amongst DM’s on the Paizo website:
First a bit of background. The fighter died a hero, trying to save two others from near death. The party elf wizard had been absconded by the dopplegangers and was out of the picture. The Rogue, Cleric, Fighter and doppleganger elf-wiz had just come back from a very serious entanglement with the giant octopus. The ‘elfs’ spells had ‘failed’ during the octopus fight, and the party asked him to try it out a simple detect magic in the Stalker’s room, which they had not yet been in. The tricky doppleganger muttered the password and failed the spell. The cleric came in and managed to get off the detect magic before being thumped hard by the Invisible Stalkers. A round of attacks ensued with the Stalkers only attacking the rogue and cleric at first. At last, the conspiring dop-elf-wizard turned on the party, sneak attacking the rogue, doing serious damage. Everyone was completely surprised. A massive battle followed, with the rogue and fighter dropping completely dead and the cleric, below 10 HP and almost out of spells, doing a very hasty, invisible, flying retreat out of Sodden Hold. He was not followed. He had, fortunately taken bits from each player early in the Campaign and was able to borrow from Pollard (Eligos’ assistant) the funds for a resurrection for the rogue (who he always spars with, but hopes to redeem). Alas, there were not enough funds for the fighter, so he was lost in battle. The party regrouped, went in and saved the real elf wizard and got thoroughly spooked by the mind flayer foreshadow experience.
Now, before going to search for the mind flayer, the cleric has the idea to sell the 19,000 GP assets of the fighter and hold a big public funeral. He’s contacted some performers from the Blueberry theatre (detailed in the Dragon wormfood article, with which they had a very funny bardic lore experience sorting out Ilthane’s tainted dark vial potions) to re-enact the scenes of the fighter’s life. He contacted the church of Heironeous to organize a big public funeral march procession, and the church of Kord to obtain appropriate miliary-like funerary goods (monuments, tombstone, coffin drapery, etc). Of course, there are also his own diety's interests in death he has long respected. Because they had made contacts with city officials, handing Telekin over with all the revealing papers, there is expected quite a crowd of public officials and others. All of this is in the heavy backdrop of whipping up the public for a new set of potential heros for the champion games.
The funeral was held for our hero last night. The streets of Midnight Muddle started to fill, with the members of the Blueberry Theatre moving through the quarter telling people to watch for the parade of a great fallen fighter. The city guard kept close watch on the crowds, providing assurance and assistance to the procession that was assembling. While fellow fighters and old associates from the temple of Kord made the final preparations and adornments of the caskets, dawning their finest armour and marching with polished swords, acolytes of Heironeous, always vocal and popular with the public, made preparations for lively, praiseful services. Quietly in the background, the party cleric, a solitary follower of Wee Jas felt satisfied. This was to be a signal of unity of gods in honour of a mysterious death.
The funeral procession began, and as it did, on-lookers were surprised to find that not just the local crowd were assembled. In their ranks city official, prominent business people, minor nobles, were all standing in tribute. The actors of the Blueberry Theatre recounted on a street stage the major strokes of the fallen fighters life, drawing applause and awe at the feats of a life of just under 40 years. Then, after the body was laid to rest with the crisp traditions of Kord striking contrast with the effervescent sermons of Heironeous, a spontaneous series of speeches ensued. A few of the prominent city folks used the forum to clear their names from the deceit of the dopplegangers. More however, focussed on the Champion Games, inciting the crowd to see and experience heros like this one life and fall by their skill, resources and temperament. By the end, many gathered built intense anticipation for the games (others spat cynically, quietly at the whole foolish games-loving lot). On the lips of everyone was the idea of hoping to see the fallen heros comrades compete in the games.
Then the debts were called in. Kord Temple officials detailed 1300gp of finery and services. The city administrators required 900gp for closing the streets and providing the safety of the city guard . Heironeous acolytes took the cleric quietly aside, demanding a shocking 5000gp for their part of the event. And the actors troop, having done an impressive work which really glued the event together, did not leave before collecting their 4586gp fee.
After dealing with all the concerns of the funeral, the party researches about mind flayers at the library. They also learn from a reference book that a place called the Cold Forge has a possible entrance to the sewers below. The party goes there and after a rude and surely conversation with the owner found the tunnels. The party couldn’t make track checks and after an hour floundering was attacked by gricks. They went out and hired a 5th level ranger gnoll to help. Slinking through the sewars and attacked by carrion crawler and a huge gelatinous cube, they finally make it to Zyrxog’s layer, the gnoll leaving. Shriekers let out an alarm and drow ambush the party. Vasco’s fireball kills yellow bold, shriekers and drow (making the group sick from fungus).
The party meeting Fassash, a spirit naga who they negotiate with, but not offering enough for passage. Vasco and Rancik aggressively hit her with lightning bolt and dispell invisibility, with Malleus eventually killing her.
The party turns around to find six more drow readied for battle, with their cleric leader saying “you have defeated old Fassash, but the line through which you want to pass is drawn here”. Vasco casts web and a huge entangled, silenced, deeper darkness’ed melee ensued. Finally, after grueling combat, the party ends the battle with the drow cleric and her acolytes with Rancik’s summoned apes crushing them at the end.
Pressing on a glyph of warding blasts the party with Acid and three Octopins – medium terrestrial invertebrates with powerful crab-like claws. Another challenging battle with these, but they are eventually dispatched. Vasco’s unseen servant unbarred the door to the Mind Flayer’s inner layer, and from a distance, Rancik and Vasco used force spells and lightning to blast the stone brain (which was revealed as a nasty dominate person trap) to pieces.
The party, now accompanied by 5 zombies commanded by Rancik, walk into Zyrxog’s Sanctum, encountering his pet, a large, advanced octopin. He walks out of the pool and starts clipping zombies. Arthur and Malleus move in for close combat. Thrashing and ripping at those who damage it, the advanced octopin strikes Malleus with two claws, doing major damage. Malleus is grotesquely rended in two by the creature before the parties horrified eyes. Arthur’s sneak attack finally kills the beast. 9th level is attained.
The party regroups and alarms the first octopin chambre. 2 dwarves Huan and Nabiros come in, led by the gnoll ranger. A tense meeting, but the party is reformed with the new dwarven friends. They check out Zyrxog’s library and research notes, and become worried about there being more giant mollusks. Arthur sneaks through a viewing pool and catches Zyrxog unaware. A huge ranged battle follows with magic not working against Zyrxog, but hard weapon being quite efficient. The mind flayer gets off a couple of good lightning bolts, but his psionics are not successful. Finally Arthur kills him, and the room is cleared of 2 more octopins, and a large stash of bizarre treasure if found, including some evil magic books and items, and 4 beholder eye-stalks. The party finish exploring Zyrxog’s private chamber, recovering his treasure and a ledger of recent business transactions in rare and dangerous items with patrons throughout the Free City, including payments for the sale of an ancient relic listed as the Apostolic Scrolls to Loris Raknain, director of the Free City Arena, and a note that Racknain paid Zyrxog to assassinate the party.
The party takes the first day back to sell the common items, make inquires as to legalities of certain magic items, where Rancik gets thrown out of the magic shop for trying to sell outlawed items. They go to the library to hand over Z’s book of 100 demon names and maps of the Free City Underground (Vasco), sells the petrified pseudo-dragon (Arthur), rests and eats (Nabiros).
