Eberron Adventure: Thirty-Fifth Session

So there they were…

The dragonborn fighter Rhogar, the gnome druid Whudyalookadah, and the human wizard Kyllar were breakfasting in Ghallanda Hall after a restful night, discussing now how best to follow up their pursuit of the Wizened, a near apocryphal order of monks, who had apparently taken up residence in Sharn, as well as in interest in necromancy.

Their previous leads had led them to believe that the Wizened were few in number; and were doing interesting things with necromancy, like actively preserving the zombie corpses and thus prolonging their usefulness,  as well as using the DieFi rods to exert some modicum of control over a larger group (quantity of undead servants over quality) via Command-style spells. The group also learned that the DieFi rod will glow when in the general area of necromantic magic, and flash as the spells it was designed to relay and amplify are cast.

The previous evening, the group was leaning towards returning to the Grayflood district, when they first encountered the zombies, which apparently didn’t sit well with the elf cleric Professor Thorntongue. She traveled back to her office at Morgrave University, leaving the trio to investigate without her.

Over a hearty breakfast, Rhogar again outlined the various places the party had encountered the Wizened, either directly or indirectly.

·         Agor, Turnin’s “Arm’s Dealer”

·         Unknown spire rooftop (where a monk received the SMS)

·         The Chapel of the Silver Flame (cleric massacre)

·         Street Urchin Neighborhood

·         Merfolk Neighborhood

·         The District of Grayflood

The trio had decided unanimously on visiting Grayflood, but presently caught the eye of Buddy Miller.

Buddy was their usual bartender at Ghallanda Hall, and he walked over to their little table. Kyllar was interested to see if there was any word yet on the compensation due the party for finding secret places in Sharn, and Buddy started a story. Yes, in fact! He and his superiors in the House were worried that their contact was taking so long to get back to them, and had taken some precautions. Fortunately, their contact had gotten back to them, and there was a deposit dropped off in Turnin’s room this morning and-

-and the party didn’t care. They had been illiquid for weeks, according to their party accountant, the human monk Turnin. The absconded immediately towards Turnin’s room, clattering utensils and plats bouncing on the table at the speed of their departure.

Turnin shared a two-bedroom suite with Kyllar, and Kaz. The trio worked their way through the little shared common area, past the little shared bathroom, and opened the door to Turnin’s room. There was a bed, a desk covered in ledgers and assorted papers, and, on the floor, a large sack of coins as well as a small scroll case.

The windfall was pillaged; 1/3 for Rhogar, 1/3 for Kyllar, and 1/3 left for Turnin to account for. With snickering from Whudyalookadah, Kyllar left the accursed Bag of Devouring on Turnin’s desk. Knocking aside a stack of papers, he also uncovered Turnin’s rolodex, and after flipping through nearly a dozen entries for the various “Steves,” encountered by the party, managed to get to the beginning of the alphabet, and find the entry for Agor, the graverobber and “arms’s dealer,” who had done business with both the party and the Wizened previously. On each card, Turnin had scrawled “WHO ARE THEY WORKING FOR” in red ink, with some suggestions. Agor’s stated that he could be working for the Wizened… but it was probably just a business arrangement, not a full-fledged alliance. Agor was probably in business for himself.

The trio examines the scroll case. It is cracked open, and the contents shaken out: a key, and a deed to an apartment in Grayflood. The trio is bamboozled by this discovery, and has no idea what to make of it. After careful consideration, they pocked the deed, the key and Agor’s card.

They return to the bar, and talk over Buddy Miller, who attempted to continue his update for the party. With a host of questions on the table, Buddy is eventually allowed to continue.

So, the party had been keeping an eye out for secret passageways in Sharn. One of the entities interested in that knowledge was House Orien; the dragonmarked house that did work with overland travel and the delivery of messages and goods (like via the electric rail). They were slow to respond to the inquiries of recompense to the party… and Ghallanda Hall had started to worry that House Orien might be planning to double-cross the party (which would reflect poorly on House Ghallanda), and so had secretly taken steps recently to protect the five-strong party (Turnin, Rhogar, Kyllar, Gnofulk and Shadowale). The politics was a little above the comprehension of the party.

However, they understand the gist. House Orien is interested in opening up a kind of tram or subway around Sharn, to allow speedier travel among the lower levels, and with the findings of the party, are sure they can do it. The gold is a hefty sum, and constitutes both payment from House Orien for exploring, and the first payment of a retainer’s fee; calling for the party to make themselves available, should House Orien need them to forcefully clear out any ancient crypt or den of monsters as their project gets underway.

The party also understands that House Ghallanda had been looking out for them; and had assigned a Blink Dog from their House kennels to each member of the five-strong party. The dogs are intelligent, loyal, and most importantly, have the ability to repeatedly teleport short distances, allowing for brutal and unsuspecting pack attacks, should anyone wish the party harm.

The trio is impressed, but curious how long they’ve been being tailed, exactly. The thought of being followed unnerves them a bit. Through further conversation, they deduce that the hounds attempted to find them the night of the storm and the showdown with Zyn but couldn’t enter the Fey Wild. The hounds picked up the trail again, and have followed their respective charge the last few days. Furthermore, while the dogs can understand some humanoid languages, communication is not a two-way street. The dogs are protectors; not spies.

The trio questions Buddy Miller about the deed, but the bartender knows nothing specific; just that Turnin received several things recently: the bag of coins and a small scroll case.

The party convinces Buddy to tell Turnin about the Bag of Holding they found on their sojourns, and to make sure the monk knows that they left it on his desk, and then prepare to get on with it.

Kyllar swings back up to his room, and rouses Kaz the Kobold, who immediately takes a dislike to Whudyalookadah. The feeling is entirely mutual. Daggers are stared back and forth. Attempting to intimidate Kaz, the gnome conjures the image of a dead kobold, pointing at Kaz. As the gnome prepares to jump on the image and drive the point home, Kyllar conjures a wall to block his scaled manservant from seeing anything. For better or worse, Kyllar succeeds, and Kaz doesn’t see Whudyalookadah slip and fall on his little gnomish face. Kaz is given the DieFi rod, with instructions to notify the group when and if it glows or flashes, and Kyllar does his best to convince the kobold to ignore Whudyalookadah and “be good,” despite the naturally lawful evil inclinations of the species.

Rhogar is ridiculed for returning the skiff to his friend, and the trio resort to walking, like chumps, down towards the waterfront district of Grayflood.

And boy has it changed.

The party had first come here in the dead of night, during a major public scare. It was almost entirely abandoned. That is far from the case this time.

The trio heads south into the district of Grayflood. On their left are the varied shops, bars, brothels, and avenues snaking deeper into Sharn and the residential sections of this district. On their right, they see the massive warehouses. On the levels below them, large cranes are seen extending out from the towers and pulling up cargo from the ships anchored along the Dagger River far below. Levels above the trio have small platforms for skiffs to transport cargo to the more distant Sharn districts. At their current level in the city, there is a very broad street, crammed with cargo, sailors, porters, and passengers, all shuffling about towards a myriad of destinations.

In short, it is a very busy place these days.

The trio walks down the broad street, moving in and out of crowds. They recognize “Half the Time Shipping” and Rhogar relates the party’s almost-run in with the halfling mafia when the party was investigating the disappearances.

They continue on, and wander into “The Naked Dwarf” – the bar named in memory of the current owner’s late husband, a drunk dwarf that usually got rather naked, and eventually did so on a fateful evening and fell to his presumed death. The trio walk in, and find the place is quite busy. Still, they are able to find the owner, the elderly but stately dwarf Elmora, washing glasses behind the bar.

She remembers the fighter and the wizard, and the trio learn that business is great. The disappearances stopped, business returned, and things are generally back to a hectic normalcy. A light lunch is ordered, and Rhogar and Kyllar introduce the elderly dwarf to spry gnome, which proves detrimental to their appetites. Elmora credits the sea breeze for her wonderful, radiant skin – thanks for noticing Whudya; and Whudyalookadah discretely credits moisturizing lotion, occasionally a few times a day, with why his hands are so darn soft. Battling a little nausea, the fighter and wizard attempt to separate the short, flirtatious couple and get back on with their business.

The party pays, tips well, and departs, continuing south through the district and towards Turnin’s apparent acquisition, which was laughed at by Elmora. It’s apparently not a great place. As they approach, Kaz tugs at Kyllar’s robes – the DieFi rod has started to faintly glow. As they each the apartment building, it flashes twice.

Whudyalookadah swears, and scoffs at the situation. It’s gotta be a trap or something.

Attention back on the strange gnome, Kaz growls angrily. Kyllar attempts to distract his manservant with an apple – which the kobold will only get if he knocks it off. Right. Now. Kaz licks his lips. Kyllar turns back, and the trio attempts to formulate a plan. However, Kyllar soon hears a quiet, almost secretive munching sound, and the wizard turns to find Kaz eating the apple, apparently stolen the wizard’s very pocket.

Mage Hand fails to steal the apple back, and triumphant but found out, Kaz goes full Mr. Peepers on that apple.

Dismayed, Kyllar attempts to get the kobold to release the rod, but the green conjured imitation doesn’t interest the kobold. The wizard resigns to having a bad day with Kaz, and lets him attempt to lead the way, tugging at Rhogar’s gauntleted hand.

The apartment building is organized like a bulbous octagon, two units on each edge, and largely boarded up. The kobold isn’t the brightest, and while the main entrance is unlocked, the kobold is unable to get his bearings, leading them first down into the “basement” levels of the apartment complex, then back to 1, up to 3, then 6, then 2, then 5, and then back down to 1, where the party sees an old man, in a white, tight and stained sleeveless shirt and spacious shorts, shuffling back to his room with his morning paper.

The party accosts him.

The trio learns that the building is set to be condemned soon, that this old man fought in the Last War, has been living here for “too long” and plans to move in with a war buddy down the street when he gets kicked out and renovations happen in a few weeks. However, he has seen a guy in orange coming and going at odd hours, though has never spoken with him, nor knows where he lives, exactly.

The party leaves the old man to his day.

Kyllar pulls out the deed, and guesses that Turnin’s Apartment 316 is on the third floor, and the party returns to that floor, Kaz’s DieFi rod flashing occasionally. As they go to stick the key in the lock to Turnin’s Apartment, Rhogar stops them. He hears something in Apartment 315.

The party walks up to the door of 315, and Rhogar knocks. The shuffling around inside the apartment stops. Rhogar knocks again. And from within, the whispery voice of an old man tells them to go away. Kyllar shouts through the door, asking the old man where he plans on moving too when the place gets condemned, but receives no response. Kyllar sends his familiar outside, but can see nothing through the boarded windows.

Rhogar tries to kick open the door, and while it is bows a bit under his strong legs, it remains both on its hinges and locked. The DieFi rod flashes again, and then Rhogar’s mace shatters the knob, and the battered door swings open.

The common room inside is filled with zombies. Whudyalookadah, peering around the dragonborn notices that the zombies have not only been preserved with their dry desiccated flesh, but that they appear to be being augmented with pieces of metal. Knives have been stitched to hands, and used to splint some broken bones, and to reinforce others. The lifeless eyes of these flesh and metal abominations regard the party.

Kyllar, peering over Rhogar’s shoulder, gets a good look at this stupid monk. The robes are indeed orange, and the monk appears to be carrying a short sword and satchel. His wrinkled ashen skin looks surprisingly taut; the wrinkles not actually loose flappy skin but rather folds vacuum-sealed against the lean, wiry body underneath. A pointy black beard juts from the lean skull, and while the hood of the robe is up, Kyllar thinks that the monk was once human.

The wizard launches into a tirade, chastising the monk for stealing such a sweet Bag of Holding. The monk mockingly gestures to a bag, peeking out from his satchel. Apparently the monk agrees. That was a pretty sweet Bag of Holding. The monk brags about his wonderfully written taunting notes… and the group calls him an idiot for giving the notes to a merfolk. All the ink ran off and the notes were illegible. The monk insists that they were fantastically written, deeply cutting words.

Given such a heads up, the monk is prepared for this incursion, and after this verbal back-and-forth, immediately ducks out of the common room, to somewhere down the hall. Kyllar lobs a fireball into the room, and the zombies, while not felled, are immolated, and they lurch, burning, towards the hallway. They paw ineffectually at the fighter, who fills the doorway, and bats away one flaming zombie with his shield before whacking a larger one (with a DieFi rod) a few times until it falls.

Whudyalookadah, still peering around Rhogar, casts Thunderwave into the common area of the room. The zombies shrug off the boom momentarily, before crumbling; their bodies devastated by fire and percussive force.

The party hears a smash, and Kyllar, through the eyes of his familiar sees the monk launch himself out of a hallway window, and attempt to tuck-and-roll while landing three stories down in the wide street below, shards of glass pattering against the stone street.

Kyllar prepares Feather Fall as the group runs down the hallway, ignoring the small bedrooms with still-burning zombies, and casts it as the group throw themselves from the hallway down towards the monk. The monk is up and running as the group floats down slowly and safely to the street below, immediately attempting to give chase.

As they give chase, the party sees a familiar-looking group of goblins with a large, familiar looking cauldron with familiar looking heraldry on the side. Good for Zoop! It looks like Zoop Soups has started to deliver, or set up a food cart or some-such.  Unfortunately, these look to be low-level workers, not Zoop himself. Also, unfortunately, the crash has startled them, and they have tipped their cauldron over spilling hot and slippery soup (it looks like the “not meat” variety) onto the street.

The monk springs over the spill, as does Kyllar, who fires a Frostbolt, but it goes wide. But Rhogar, Kaz and Whudyalookadah slip, with Whudya also failing a cast of Entangle near the monk’s landing site. Rhogar is able to recover and gain some ground with a surge of effort.

The monk continues to run ahead, winding his way through a dense crowd, with Kyllar not far behind, and with Kaz and Whudyalookadah following in Kyllar’s path. Kyllar’s Frostbolt again goes wide, striking a random passerby, and Whudyalookadah Rhogar attempted to shout a way through the crowd, but is apparently winded, and his urgent wheezes prove ineffective.

Hindered, the monk skids to a stop, whirling to face the party. Kyllar closes, and manages to land a Frostbolt against the monk. Rhogar also closes, and attempts to grapple the monk, with whispers and a orange robes flapping, the efforts of the dragonborn are slapped away. Whudyalookadah, angry, calls forth lighting, which proceeds to snap from the sky and crackle near the monk. Miraculously the lightning avoids both Rhogar and all nearby bystanders, though the monk is able to avoid much of the electrical discharge.

The Wizened monk strikes Rhogar twice with open fists while whispering to himself, and the Dragonborn spasms and falls over. The monk again flees.

A large stained glass window with a Silver Flame had entered the street, pushed on a floating disc and tended to by several workmen, moving it slowly through the crowds. The monk ducks, and slides beneath it, orange robes whipping behind him, though despite the fancy footwork, he catches a Frostbolt from Kyllar for his trouble.

The party continues to chase, with Kaz scampering behind as best he can.

The workmen were startled by the dash of the monk, and Kyllar attempts to slide under the stained glass wall too. Unfortunately, the wizard miscalculates, and catches his head on the bottom edge, knocking himself over, and probably giving him a nasty concussion. Even the adversary of organized religion, Rhogar roars after being helped up by Kaz, and attempts to throw himself spectacularly through the stained glass. The dragonborn is only partially successful. He slips, and loses a great deal of what little momentum he has, and only just manages to stumble through the glass, to the horrific disbelief of the workers. Kaz lingers near these too, while Whudyalookadah shapeshifts into a teacup boar again, easily charging under what remains of the frame of stained glass, though he is not able to gore the monk.

Ahead, the shattered glass has drawn the eyes of much of the passersby, and the party sees a most unwanted sight: a dumb gnome named Mort. Mort is excitedly leading a contingent of stately-looking elves through the crowd when he spies his friends from the other day. With unfettered enthusiasm, he stops mid-speech to tug at the robes of the elves and point to the group. Holy owlbear, those guys are great – except that forest gnome, wherever he is, and you elves just have to meet them!

Rhogar bellows something at Mort, but it is lost in the din. Meanwhile, Kaz helps Kyllar now to his feet, and the two scamper away from the shocked workers before their disbelief departs and their wits return.  Whudyalookadah, gaining speed as he bolts through the crowds, eyes that stupid city gnome.

Lowering his shapeshifted shoulder, the boar bowls into Mort, sending the city gnome flying violently away. With a satisfied grunt, the rampage continues as the boar catches the monk. The monk however, is able to recover, and lashes back at the gnome with kicks and whispers. The boar is injured, but shrugs off the pummeling, attempting to keep pace as the monk procures a small item from his satchel, throwing it hard into the ground.

With a *pop* smoke momentarily fills the air. From his diminutive vantage point, Whudyalookadah loses his quarry. A ways behind, so does Rhogar. Kaz was just following everyone else. Only Kyllar, and only on account of his familiar, is able to see the monk absconding through the crowd a ways away, dashing with unbelievable speed. They’d lost him.

The group catches each other’s eyes and ducks into a nearby alley, aiming to circle back while avoiding the now surly workmen or other injured bystanders.

Slowly they make their way back to the apartment building, and back up to the apartment units. The fires smolder against the stone walls and floors. Among the ash, the part is able to recover Rods 15 and 16, and Rod 17 from one of the bedrooms, along with a pile of unburned, inactive, but preserved corpses. Kyllar turns these undamaged and unmodified corpses to ash as well as the party investigates.

The group discerns that the Wizened have been working here for a while – it would have taken quite a while to move the bodies in here, and graft the DieFi rods to the spines, and then augment and repair the corpses with metal… and that’s all without even known how the corpses had been dried out and preserved. The monk’s work has been interrupted, though his motives still unknown, for the group had not deigned to ask who the Wizened were working for on behalf of their curious monk.

The monk had slipped through their grasp, but was still on the run. With more DieFi rods, and hopefully a reunion with the rest of the party soon at hand, the group trudged, exhausted, back towards Ghallanda Hall. They were closing in. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with the Wizened.