Session 5: A Shocking Discovery

The party was able to talk their way into the inner keep to see Captain Ventonious, with some assistance from Kafia who was on hand. Inside the war-room of the inner keep, they found a tired-looking but resolute Captain Ventonious. Clancy took the lead in conversation informing Captain Ventonious that the party had information (from “faery folk” and “gnomish ways”) that the gnolls were getting outside help from someone else, possibly humans. Captain Ventonious was suspicious of the source of this information, but admitted that it would explain the cunning of the Bloody Skulls. Meanwhile, Zhang Min was able to get a look at some of the maps on the table and noted one map in particular that showed a location of all of the attacks as well as the location of all abandoned carts.

Leaving the keep, the party headed back to camp and discussed their plans and prospects. After some discussion, it was decided that the best course of action would be to join Jed at dusk. Clancy did send his familiar to track Rannos and Gremag’s wagon the following morning once it departed.

Jed was happy to see the party and quickly set off due west among the foothills of the Spine of the Mountain. The party journeyed at a somewhat slower pace in the dim light of the full moon, but after about four hours, they reached the major river that flowed down from the mountains. As Jed explained that they would have to be careful in traversing the river, Clancy quickly uses his sorcerous abilities to transform water into the shape of a small rowboat and freeze it. Zhang Min was then able to ferry the party across the river one by one. Jed seemed duly impressed.

Jed then followed the river roughly southwest for another hour. He then slowed down and explained to the party that the gnolls hideout would be visible above the next rise. As they crawled to the top of the rise, they saw that the river had carved and wound a path through the hills to form a cliff-face on the north side about a quarter mile down the river. Jed pointed to this as the gnolls hideout, although the PCs could make out nothing.

Jed quickly explained that an illusion of a cliff-face actually hid the gnolls lair. In fact, the cliff was split in the middle with a box canyon running deep into the hills. Terlis sent Fatbat to test out this claim. Indeed, his bat’s echolocation revealed that part way down the river, the cliff face was an illusion and led back into a box canyon. Fatbat flew back into this canyon which dead-ended after about a hundred yards. At the end, he found several abandoned wagons and a cave entrance with a portcullis drawn over it. Inside the portcullis, he could make out a humanoid shape but could not identify it further.

With this information, there was brief discussion of knocking Jed out and heading in immediately, but ultimately the party decided to follow Jed’s plan of waiting for the gnolls to sortie out before heading in. Tired after a long forced march, the party set up a watch schedule and bedded down.

In the late morning, the party got its wish. A large party of gnolls led by a powerful gnoll wielding a flail exited from the illusion and crossed the river. Accompanying this group of gnolls were two shadowy humanoid figures on horseback and a wagon. After ensuring the war party was out of earshot and eyesight, the party headed in, assisted by unexpected magic from Riya that muted their approach.

As they approached the cave entrance, the party saw one gnoll on duty outside. Riya and Zhang stealthily moved forward while Clancy used minor illusion to distract it with a sound from the other direction. Riya first stabbed it in the back with her ninja-to. As it turned around in surprise, Zhang Min bashed its head in with his maul.

Before they could celebrate their victory, Riya and Zhang looked down the mouth of the tunnel and saw a group of five gnolls approaching with a prisoner who was none other than Omar Dobi. They both charged down the tunnel toward this group while the rest of the party moved to the entrance to support them with ranged fire. As Zhang lay about at this enemies with his mighty maul and Riya’s ninjato sang blue and red, crossbow bolts, elemental and psychic energy scythed over their heads. Meanwhile, Omar Dobi fled down a side passage. Mid followed him and was able to use her arcane abilities to calm his nerves as he cowered in the corner of a storage chamber.

Soon, all of the gnolls were down except for one with a large glaive who appeared to be the leader. He caught Riya with a blow from his deadly glaive that lay her out unconscious and bleeding, but was ultimately laid low himself by the combined efforts of the rest of the party. With a healing word from Clancy, Riya was able to struggle back to her feet.

As the party explored the tunnels of the gnolls lair, they came to realize that it was a too finely hewed to be natural or the work of gnolls. It appeared to be an old mining tunnel. The Thumani numerals XI at the entrance suggested that is might even be of ancient Thumani origin.

The party explored several rooms but finally came to an entrance that opened up into a large chamber with a rising ceiling. In the center of the room stood a very large and loose pile of dresium. At the far end was an even stranger site - a full-sized ship such as would be sailed by a merchant upon the Myosian Sea.

Puzzled by this incongruity, the party split into two groups and approached the ship from each side. One group past a side entrance in the cavern and heard moaning from within. Entering, they discovered the remaining prisoners, Liao, Ju, and Postia Ventonius. All three were weak, but Postia insisted on a weapon so that she could wreak vengeance on those who had captured her. The party told Liao](/characters/liao/) and Ju to stay back and be safe.

As the party once again approached the ship, Zhang suddenly felt a drip of something hit him on the shoulder and saw some form of viscus saliva slowly dripping off his shoulder and arm. He quickly pointed up and Clancy used his mage hand to move the torchlight up toward the ceiling of the room. What they saw stuck to the ceiling of the cavern was the stuff of nightmares.

The creature at first glance seemed to be a giant hairy spider, but then the PCs noticed the long eel-like neck and shorter arms protuding from the front. The creature hissed and moved to attack. Simultaneously two other monstrosities arose from the shadows of the ship and moved to attack. Both had an almost insectoid-like appearance. The first was much larger than a human and had a stiff carapace and large pincers surrounding its jaws. Its eyes also appeared strange with an almost dizzying movement contained within their depths.

The second creature was more human sized, but even more alien in appearance. It looked something like a bipedal crab with large insectoid wings. Two large pincers at the end of its arm suggested it was capable of dealing significant damage.

As the creatures moved to engage, the party lept into action. Terlis quickly pointed his hand to the ceiling and with a series of gestures and mumbles, a patch of grease spread out on the ceiling underneath the spider-eel creature’s feet. As drips of grease began to cover the entire party, the monster lost its footing and came crashing down directly on top of Zhang Min. Zhang, however, quickly regained his feet and smashed at the prone creature with his maul, although it ducked out of the way of his fierce blow.

The eel-spider creature regained its feet. Rather than attacking, it instead made arcane gestures that caused its eyes to glow, causing Riya and Mid to be overcome with fear and run for their lives. Meanwhile, Jed, rather than engaging the enemies, ran directly for the ship. Suspecting foul play, Clancy tried to use sorcery to put Jed to sleep, but the spell had no effect.

Meanwhile, the other two monstrosities moved to engage the party. The larger beetle-like creature engaged Zhang and while it missed with both claws, it was able to bloody him with its deadly pincers. The crab-insectoid creature closed with Kiki who immediately noted a strange fungal scent. She struck it a fierce blow, but as she hit it, it released fungal spores that she was only able to dodge at the last second.

As the rest of the party struggled with these monsters, Jed reached some helm on the ship and it began to rise up from the ground, slowly at first, but it soon picked up speed and rocketed out of the large chimney hole above it, disappearing from view.

The party had little time to contemplate Jed’s strange behavior however as they discovered that the beetle-like creature had an additional power. As they caught its eye, they found themselves confused and befuddled. As Postia charged into battle, she slowly stumbled and finding herself confused lashed out at Clancy rather than her intended target. Others found themselves stuck in place or running in the opposite direction.

Undeterred by this, Zhang uttered a fierce cry and bashed in the head of the eel-spider creature so forcefully that half its corpse was buried in the pile of dresium. Meanwhile, Kiki demonstrated her bug-slaying prowess by cleaving the crab-fungal creature in twain. Only the large beetle creature remained, but it seemed a difficult target. Most blows simply rebounded off its thick carapace, while its eyes left many of the party bewildered and confused.

The breakthrough came with Clancy who used psychic energy to injure the creature from within and forced it to retreat. As it turned its back on the party, several members were able to injure it from behind. While Zhang bashed away with his maul, PPP used a more suble and graceful approach to find weak points in its hide.

As the monster ran away, Mid suddenly re-appeared. Having mastered her fear, she rushed forward and summoned a thunderwave of force that rocked the beast on its heels. It was clearly wounded now. It tried to engage Postia, but Terlis quickly launched four magic missiles into the air. Each struck the beast at a different point, driving it back further. The final missile flew directly betweeen its mandibles into its face. Its entire head exploded from within and it fell over, slain.

Rattled by all these strange foes and the disappearance of Jed on an apparently flying ship, the PCs paused to regroup. Terlis explored a nearby room that appeared to have been occupied by two humans and found a spellbook and some kind of scroll written in code. As the party regrouped and considered their next action, they suddenly heard the loud sound of something being knocked down, followed by the easily identifiable howls of gnolls coming through the tunnels. It appeared that the main war band had returned.

Bewildered and unready for another fight, but with no obvious exits, the party prepared itself. The gnoll war band entered the room, led by the large gnoll with a flail. They stood in a line at the other end of the cavern, slavering and howling at the PCs. Flanking either side was a humanoid. One was a pale human man with some kind of tatoo on his forehead. The other appeared to be an elven woman but with an unusual dark, almost purplish-black skin color.

Suddenly the gnoll leader gave the signal to advanced. The gnolls came charging forward but then several things happened at once. Looking up, the PCs could see another ship rapidly descending down the chimney hole of the cavern. At first, they took it to be Jed returning, but this ship was somewhat larger and on board were several familiar figures but no Jed.

As the gnolls advanced, a wall of fire suddenly leapt in their front ranks, driving them back and separating them from the party. Meanwhile, Ramas - the man from the Empty Purse inn - appeared on the deck of the ship and yelled for the party to board as soon as possible. The party quickly obliged as did Liao](/characters/liao/), Ju, and Postia. The party could also see a half-elvish man with his arms wide who had apparently cast the wall of fire and the younger Zwambian woman, Umara, as well as several deck hands.

Umara was at the helm and Ramas motioned her to go up. The ship immediately leapt upward at a rapid pace. Quickly the ship was out in the open air, looking down on the chimney, the river and the gnolls lair. But it didn’t stop ascending. Slowly the ground got further away and the PCs could make out more. They saw the Citadel and the keep get smaller and smaller. Eventually they could see all the way to the Myosian sea, although they were too far away to make out Arkesh clearly. Finally, they reached such a height that something strange happened. They could make out a clear curve on the horizon of the world. The curve got larger and eventually they realized that their entire world appeared to be a large round green and blue ball. Looking around they were surrounded by a black sky and bright stars. There was no blue sky, no clouds, just inky blackness.

The ship came gently to a stop and seemed to hover in place. As the PCs reeled from the profound realizations and confusions of the last few minutes, Ramas sauntered over and said “I imagine y’all have lots of questions.”