Category: Graveyard of Empires: The Islands of Curabel

SESSION 192 February 28, 2018

River of the Damned/Dammed

7:00 PM 21st Senrilden

Dwarven Apocalypse Clock: 000.00.01.24

(1 month and 24 days until the dwarven space armada arrives. That’s 7 weeks and 3 days. Remember to subtract 1 week for training, 1 week to get to Lonely Isle, and 2 weeks to modify the ship – AFTER we get control of it, leaving 3 weeks and 3 days of wiggle room….)

While still in the Council Chambers of Feldmark, we learn that the inquisitor who replaced Greta had no direct support from the Dragon Empire. The heavy hitting dervishes, we took out when we interrupted the assassination. All that are left are the low level operatives any decent sized polity would have.

WOW – The Dragon Emperor sent in a strike force of dervishes to get control of the orbital defences. They failed in that regard, but they brought back a piece of Prixithalma to the mainland, and since they have plenty of dragons to get dragon blood, they raised her. Serithaz doesn’t think that we can raise Prix if she is alive elsewhere. It would waste our supply (one shot) to try.

Upon learning this news, Nash was inspired, and asked Serithaz if we could sacrifice DVLs instead. Serithaz didn’t see a reason it wouldn’t work, as the ritual only specified dragon blood. Serithaz pointed out we know where a dragon is…. (Lonely Isle – Lysander).

Not having a dragon ally to raise, our plans changed.

The council likes out idea and have identified all the clerics and druids in the area that can cast cure disease. They will send a task force to kill any infected, and cover the mouths of the task force when they burn them. The job of the clerics and druids is to keep the task force healthy. (This means certain death to all the refugees.)

First we want to get to Greta’s house and find any goodies and communication devices/transportation devices (mirrors), other magic, and possible gold & gems. The council gives us permission and sends word.

We arrive and the city watch has just gotten there to surround the place.

We wait for them to do so, then Nash tries to kick in the front door and fails. Rallion easily kicks it open. We go upstairs first. We put the fear of traps and magical death into the guard officer, so they stay outside to maintain the perimeter.

We go upstairs and Nash “hears” someone (with his Psionic clairaudience ability) and we go towards that door. This time Rallion can’t force the door, but Nash runs into Rallion and gets it open.

Inside is an old man burning papers. He stops, not sure what to do. Nash commands him to stop. Rallion stepped forward and put his sword to his throat and told him to ‘Kneel’. The old man complied.

We learned he is the butler of Greta, and was totally fooled by the Inquisitor, and thinks we are agents of a coup by Cuddy.

Nash knocks out the old man. Serithaz confirmed that the old man worked for Greta and had no idea. The papers are all about the boring machinations (what Serithaz thought of them.) of the rope makers guild, in a city where the various guilds mostly got along.

There is a magical mirror that has what appear to be spider web like cracks. Nash puts his hand in and feels wet and resistance. Serithaz questions the copy of the inquisitor, and the other mirror was on the airship that is now at the bottom of the port at Midmark. We ask Kalgun and he thinks a mending might work to fix the other mirror if cast through this mirror. We eye that as a potential escape route. (If we can recover it without flooding someplace.

Nash is nearly petrified by a magical trap on the door to Greta’s private quarters, as he had taken off the skull cap and not asked Serithaz to question the copied inquisitor. Inside we find the chest with a false bottom, that we previously learned of via Serithaz. The false bottom has 500 gp in Midmark coin, and 15 standard 1,000 gp gems. We pocket that, and put everthing else back, even the gold necklace of office as guildmaster of the ropemaker’s guild.

We turn over the house to the guard, giving them the all clear.

We go to the Evenkeel temple and Lambertus, AKA ‘Sam’, the vault inspector, cons a young acolyte, in combination with a charm person spell from Laris, to show us the tombs and vaults.

After conning him out of the vault key, we learn that there are 10 scrolls with some cool spells, even resurrection! More importantly, there are three chests, each with a DVL/magical trap. Only the key of the Patriarch (who is actually the Matriarch) will open them safely. Laris and Bavmorda make an impression of the vault key.

We leave and Bavmorda’s new henchman puts a sleeper hold on the lad, and Nash has Serithaz erase our visit from his memory. Rallion grimly shakes his head….

The rest of us sneak out, those with elven or dark elven cloaks don them first, after Kauri casts invisibility on Nash, who sneaks in and uses Serithaz to zero in on the “Patriarch”. Scanning the mind of the Patriarch Nash learns what the key looks like so he can draw it out. The Patriarch is in a meeting with other clerics making plans to go with the city task force tomorrow at noon.

Rallion keeps pointing out that he thinks we should head down river and at least take care of the whale. He is willing to go forward with the shard to see if it works on the diseased undead. We know it will work on the whale, since we turned it. We can also see if cure disease works or not, but it should based on the experience of Thorfus and Axel after returning from the pathology lab under Xen Khel.

Our other option is to take the sub to where the Hull and Sheaf fleet is and commandeer one of them, if we can’t quickly save the city for Bavmorda and Laris to complete their training….

SESSION 190 – February 14, 2018

Prior to going to share our message with the council, we move to the square to have a noisy place to discuss our plan. In the square is the normal hustle and bustle of such large groupings of people. The Fishwicke people are there flagellating themselves.

Suddenly a pregnant woman does a waddling run into the middle of the square screaming about death, fishes, and other strangeness. This intrigues the Fishwicke people, while a group of assassins (Imperial Dervishes) shadow step to go after the people the woman was with. [We later learned the woman was Em, and the people were those who fled Midmark in Thorfu’s submarine.]

The assassin’s only hit one of their intended victims, the Matriarch of Merendur’s temple in Midmark, Alesta Dracul, and she only fell because of their poisoned blades. Strangely, the other’s missed.

Lambertus recognized these people, and Rallion had seen some of them before on his trips into Midmark before being sent on his mission. The party springs into action.

We shield Em from her attackers, as she was also on the assassin’s list. We quickly brought down the weaker killers. One managed to hit Laris, and he also fell due to the effects of poison.

Oskar rushed forward with the chest and opened it, removing the magic from all the assassins, as well as those we hoped to aid. Including removing the spells from the aged elf, Aldus Runnelbrook, who could only look at Oskar wondering what just happened.

The assassins were unable to hit any of their other targets. Their targets fought back, and with our aid we quickly subdued them. One exploded, but we got everyone clear before that happened. Two of the shadow steppers were left alive, which Rallion later regretted, as we had no opportunity to question them. Rallion later urged their eyes be put out to prevent their escape. Lambertus cast slow poison on Laris, and Nash cast it on Alesta to buy time to save their lives with remove poison.

Baswick the Midmark Harbormaster revealed as an agent of Feldmark, interceded when Nash didn’t want them touching Em. We ended up in the same room under guard with the party from Midmark and we revealed some of what we know.

While she was still unconsious, Nash had Serithaz insert into Alesta Dracul’s memory that he and Bavmorda were who she was to meet to deliver the sub. After she awoke, she was sticking to that story. Rallion continues to rub the bridge of his nose, at all this. During the fight, while Em was safe with Nash, Nash told Serithaz to fix Em. Em now is in her right mind, and understands where she is.

A priestess from the local temple of Baldrick Evenkeel cast slow poison.

We make a plan with the Midmark group and they make a poor argument that does nothing, and we deliver a message about not burning the disease victims to prevent spreading the contagion via the ash. We don’t trust councillor Grete Kygh of the Ropemaker’s Guild, who has had a sudden change of opinion about helping Midmark. We make a suggestion about helping through the temples, so it is not a political issue, which the Feldmark Council adopts, and the Hull & Sheaf ships are to be left out of it, to prevent further political entanglements.

We meet up with Baswick who delivers us to a safe house under control of the Feldmark secret police. We suggest to Baswick if they won’t put out the eyes of the shadow steppers, perhaps they could cast continual light in their eyes, so it isn’t permanent. We hole up for a week and train.