Session 20: Infiltration

Ebrut arrived at the Bug House at the appointed time to pick Mid up. He seemed a little confused about why he was there, but also anxious to show her his ship. He took her back to the Den, then through the kitchen, into the meat locker and through a secret door. The secret door led down into a guard room of some kind where two Red Fang guards and a strange monstrous creature were stationed. The creature was tall and lanky with warty green skin, a hideous long nose, and sharp teeth. From Clancy’s description of his familiar’s voyage, Mid gather that this creature was a troll.

The guards seemed upset that Ebrut was bringing someone else down. However, Mid was able to entrance them with a song and the couple slipped past. Ebrut followed the same route as seen before. This time, after he opened the secret door, he stopped two steps down the corridor and came back to flick a hidden switch, saying sheepishly “almost forgot about the lightning trap.” He flicked another switch halfway down the corridor for another trap. He finally arrived at the same cavern that Clancy had seen through his familiar’s eyes. It was a large cavern with several docks that stretched out over a precipitous drop. One end of the cavern vanished from view into the darkness, presumably marking the exit. Only one ship was stationed on the dock and this ship looked similar to Ramas’s ship. As Ebrut hopped on board, Gruzza came out and lit into him for bringing Mid here. Ebrut was confused but Mid was able to talk her way out of confrontation before it escalated into something worse. Ebrut took Mid back to the Den, and they parted ways, Ebrut scratching his head in some confusion over what just happened.

The next morning, the party arrived at the Den, with elaborate plans for sneaking onto the ship. They were greeted by Gragim who had them blindfolded and taken below. Clancy was able to see through his familiar’s eyes that they were following the same path, but rather than entering the second secret door, they turned into a wide hallway that opened into a very large round chamber with a high oval-shaped roof. Arrayed around them was a motley crew of the worst scum in the galaxy. All of the other potential buyers were already here. On one side, they saw Lord Strahd accompanied by his vampire spawn. Next to him stood the strange crab-fungus Mi-Go led by the drow woman. On the other side othe party, stood a party of drow, led by some kind of priestly looking woman, who was accompanied by a drow in dark leathers wearing two nasty-looking scimitars. Next to them stood the strange and alien illithids, surrounded by a bevy of blind and grey-skinned grimlocks. Standing opposite them on the room, the party could see the four members of the Grevious Wound they had seen earlier. Around all of these strange and formidable creatures, a tribe of at least twelve trolls was arrayed around the edges of the room. They seemed to be the elite guards in Famax’s organization. Gragim stood near the center, looking down and waiting for something.

Suddenly, the central floor of the circular room opened and out floated another strange and alien creature. It had a large spheroid body with one great eye and a row of teeth. Its body was covered with small stalks that ended in smaller eyes. The party would have been shocked by its appearance had they not already met one of its kind. It appeared that Famax was a beholder.

Famax greeted the crowd pleasantly, reminded them of the rules of the bidding procedure and started the process. He began by asking everyone to evaluate the merchandise. A concealed door was opened in one corner of the room. This concealed door led to some kind of conveyor belt heading downward. The party heard the sound of the conveyor belt whirring and then a large pallet was deposited on the floor of the room. The guards opened the pallet and revealed a large supply of dresium. Famax asked each of the groups to inspect the merchandise in turns. As the party’s turn approached, Riya waved her hands in the air to cast pass without trace and she and PPP subtly snuck onto the conveyor belt and headed down. It appeared that no-one noticed their disappearance.

At the bottom of the conveyor belt, they found themselves in the large docking cavern. Only one Red Fang guard appeared to be present. While Riya kept guard, PPP used his arcane tricks to make himself invisible and snuck aboard the ship where he placed the tracking device in an out of the way location. On his way back, his invisibility wore off just as he was passing the Red Fang guard. He and Riya caught the guard by surprise and quickly disposed of him, dumping his body off of the docks. PPP then used his magic cape to transport himself and Riya instantly to the area above the Den, where they attracted some notice, before people moved on their way. People on Tortuga usually don’t ask a lot of questions.

Meanwhile, the bidding process was slightly delayed by arrival of a neogi to the meeting. This neogi, named Vuvd, was apparently the contact on Tortuga for the procurement of lifejammer helms and never directly participated in the dresium trade. Now he joined the Mi-Go party, which some in the other goups considered a violation of typical neogi neutrality and division of labor on these issues. After things settled down, the bidding began.

The party partipated in the initial rounds of the bidding, primarily against the drow party and Lord Strahd. However as the price topped 10,000gp, the party bowed out. Now the Mi-Go were bidding aggressively and won the final bid at over 14,000gp, which seemed like a highly unusual above market price. There was some grumbling from the other parties, but everyone turned to go their separate ways. Famax thanked everyone from coming and descended into his hole.

Back in the Den, the party bid farewell to Gragim. As a parting gift, they revealed to him Labnax’s plan. Gragim kept a poker face, but seemed to appeciate this bit of intelligence. Only time will tell if it comes back to help the party.

With their main mission accomplished, the party only needed to wait for the Grevious Wound to part. However, they did have one small piece of business to attend to. They wanted to try to rescue the minotaur Torg from the arena pit. The party headed to the arena. While Clancy used his sorcerous ways to distract and charm Clanga, the remainder of the party opened up the pit trap. While everyone else prepared a rope to climb down, Riya impulsively jumped down, using a three-point landing and ninja skills to break her fall. She landed on a heap of bodies. Some appeared to have been eaten at. On all sides of the chamber she saw tunnels heading off into a labyrinth like set of corridors. Hearing a noise down one tunnel, she went to investigate. A figure loomed out of the darkness. Just as she was preparing her star blade to slice it in two, she realized that it was Torg, the minotaur. A confused greeting was cut short by the sounds of numerous creatures approaching, howling and snarling. Torg and Riya returned to the bottom of the pit, where Torg began to climb the rope that had been put down while Riya simply ran up the wall. As they approached the midway point, they could see a group of trolls emerge at the bottom. Hissing and fuming, they began to climb the rope. Kiki and Zhang pulled mightily at the top to bring Torg up quicker. Meanwhile Riya cut the rope below Torg and the trolls tumbled down. The party was able to pull the minotaur out and shut the door to the pit trap. Wounded and exhausted, but still proud, Torg gave his thanks to the party. It was revealed that he was indeed the minotaur assigned to the Grevious Wound. They had killed his puyg and if the party was going after them, he wanted to be a part of it.

The party took Torg back to the ship where he was greeted by Taurus and Bibi. Shortly after, the party sensed that the Grevious Wound was departing. They pulled anchor and followed at a reasonable distance.

The Grevious Wound headed back toward Oerth. The voyage was uneventful. As they approached Oerth, Terlis recognized that they were heading to a far northern area called the Valley of Ice. It was a desolate area inhabited only by the Frostbeard dwarven clan. The Grevious Wound’s ship wound its way through snow-capped mountain peaks, until they arrived at what appeared to be the gated entrance to an ancient dwarven citadel. The party took their dingy out to get a closer look. The dwarven gates were perched over a deep crevasse. A bridge extended over the crevasse. The Grevious Wound parked their ship near the gate and lowered the gangplank. Several figures emerged from the gate to greet them. The party could see that these figures were dwarflike in appearance but had greyish skin and white beards. They were the Duergar - the shunned and evil eighth clan of dwarves. The Grevious Wound followed the duergar through the gates of their citadel. Behind them, their ship seemed to vanish as they parted. Slowly the gates of the citadel closed behind them.