Long Live King Angrael!
Fireday, 25th of Neth, 4722 AR
The hue and cry of danger rang through Otari. Several buildings on the northern side of the town were set ablaze and smoke began to fill the air. The New Roseguard rushed to find the source of the conflagration.
Following the sounds of shouting and cries of alarm, our heroes found Belcorra’s minions on the attack. A menacing seugathi researcher (like Dave) stood atop the roof of a modest home directing seugathi guards, dreshkan, and a Shanrigol Behemoth to attack the townspeople fleeing in the streets. The massive behemoth was the one the party had faced twice on the arena level of the Abomination Vaults and never returned to vanquish.
The scene switches to a flashback of Belcorra a few hours before the attack on Otari. She watched the New Roseguard as they retreated from the vaults. They had her brother’s armor with them, a vector through which to spy on them. More on that later. She beckoned one of her underlings and ordered them to prepare the Behemoth to be teleported into the town. Even worse, she imbues it with her unholy power to make it a deadlier threat to the New Roseguard. She laughs maniacally.
GM’s Note: The group mentioned a few times they wanted to return to the arena level to face the Shanrigol Behemoth, but never got around to doing so. Belcorra knew how easily the New Roseguard would kill the creature at its current strength, so she infused it with her spiritual might to make it more dangerous. In other words, I leveled up the critter to 12. I also gave it some friends and added a defensive mechanic to the encounter to keep the beefed-up critter from going down in the first round.
Jorne and Trulk rushed to the front line to protect the townspeople under attack. Some of Lardus Longsaddle’s town guards had arrived and were doing their best to protect the town. They were out of their league. As the New Roseguard moved farther into the heart of the battle, they spotted the behemoth and knew their work was cut out for them. Konnor seemed excited at the opportunity to finally destroy this beast.
The creature attacked one of the townspeople and struck them down with a single blow. It then moved to attack the party, closing the distance between them. Konnor, Rasp, and ShaiLu launched powerful spells at the creature as it charged the front-line fighters. To their dismay, the spells hit a purple field of energy, and the damage was shunted off to the seugathi guards and dreshkan. Even worse, the damage seemed to be reduced in the process. They spotted a flash of purple energy around the seugathi researcher and realized it was the source of the magical effect.
Fight their way around the behemoth to the rest of the minions? Climb the building to destroy the seugathi researcher? Dispel the magical effect? These were all options considered and quickly thrown away. Instead, they decided to “brute force” their way through the encounter. While they did take the occasional shot at the researcher, the guards, or the dreskhan, they spent most of their time beating on the behemoth.
GM’s Note: Honestly, I should have seen that coming. I gave the players a means to attack the lesser minions without having to waste time moving to them. Of course, they made the most of that tactical advantage.
One by one the minions fell. A few of the guards and townspeople were killed while trying to escape, but the party’s aid saved most of them. When the last minion fell, the seugathi researcher abandoned his rooftop perch and rushed Hound with his mindfog aura in full effect. The party turned on him and struck him down before returning to the behemoth. Without someone to direct it, the monster fought to the death. It pummeled Trulk numerous times but Rasp expended powerful healing magic to restore the barbarian. Finally, the party focused fire and whittled away the last of the creature’s hit points.
Captain Longsaddle had rallied his town guard and organized them into a fire brigade. With the flames under control, he joined the party and wondered at the creature lying dead in the streets. Konnor displayed the creature as proof of their efforts, but Longsaddle assured him that was not necessary. He had seen the products of their efforts and knew they were doing the best they could to end Belcorra’s threat.
Trulk looted the seugathi while the others refocused or tended wounds. He found some mundane gear in addition to three magic wands. The group spent some time identifying them (and the rest of the items they had been collecting without identifying). Two of them were Wands of See the Unseen and the third was a Wand of Status. ShaiLu took one of the first pair and Rasp took the other wands. They found some useful runes on the magic armor and weapons they had confiscated. A few minor items were also identified and passed out while the rest was sold for profit.
The group debated taking a trip to Absalom. They were flush with coin and each of them had some upgrades in mind. However, Jorne noted the Gauntlight was still shining and looked like it could be used again at any time. They decided not to go shopping except to the local market to allow Trulk to sell the items no one wanted.
Before returning to the vaults below, they took the armor they had looted from Caliddo Haruvex to Wrin Sivinxi. When they had shown the armor the Hollowed Ones of the Yldaris, Quara Orshendiel had kicked them out of the outpost without explanation.
Wrin welcomed the party but pointed out the Gauntlight was still lit. They told her they were still working on it, but needed some help to understand Caliddo’s armor. Wrin was dismayed when she saw it and asked how they came by it. They told her about the battle with Caliddo in the vault below and described his undead state when she asked what he was. Finally, she explained the armor wasn’t cursed by Caliddo. It WAS Caliddo. They were carrying around the armor of a graveknight. Anyone who donned the armor would become doomed and would transform in a matter of days into Caliddo’s new physical form. Even without a host, the graveknight would regenerate in 1 to 4 days. Even worse, the graveknight was aware of everything around it and could communicate anything it saw to Belcorra. The ghost witch had probably been watching them since the moment Caliddo was destroyed.
The group asked how to destroy the armor and Wrin said they needed to throw the armor into a pool of magma (or the fires of Mount Doom, whichever they found first). Or perhaps a powerful enough spell if they could find it. They recalled the pool of magma on the prison level where they had fought the flying creatures. They decided that was their next stop and returned to the vaults immediately.
They also stopped by the Crow’s Casks to see Mags. They quickly caught each other up on their progress and Konnor asked Mags to identify the hammer. She identified it as a dwarven-made adamantine warhammer. They decided to sell it.
Using the teleportation circles, they moved quickly to the prison level and rushed to the magma pool. It had been almost a day since they had taken the armor and they weren’t sure how quickly Caliddo would be regenerating. Konnor spoke to the armor and told Belcorra they were coming for her. Without further preamble, the armor was tossed into the molten rock. A ghostly wail and a terrible wind ripped through the room. It lasted for a few short minutes and then stopped as the armor was broken down by the heat of the magma. Caliddo would spy on them no more and would not be returning to harass them.
There was still more work to do. On the way back to the teleportation circle, they ran into Angrael. The undead morlock had fashioned a crown of junk for himself and declared him King of the Vaults. The group did nothing to dissuade him and pressed on.
They teleported to the hunting grounds and crossed the lake from the vault. They had spotted a cavern heading west there and followed it down a sharp decline. The tunnel ended after 80 feet at a sheer dropoff that fell another 300 feet. Rasp wanted to toss something down the hole, but everyone reminded him of what happened the last time he did so. No one wanted more daemons crawling up to harass them.
They returned to the lakeshore and followed another narrow cavern north. A short distance in, they found a side tunnel semi-hidden behind thick fungus hanging from the ceiling. Behind the fungus was a pool of clear water. Trulk tried the water and found it was clean and refreshing. Everyone refilled their waterskins.
The tunnel continued north and turned east into a square cavern covered in fungus. In the center of the room was a dead lizard. It had been here for a few weeks and the fungus was starting to grow over the corpse. Rasp examined the body to see if it was secretly undead waiting to ambush them. He determined it wasn’t but the cause of the lizard’s demise made itself known. A shuln dug up through the floor of the cavern and attacked the PCs. ShaiLu identified the creature as a creature from the elemental plane of earth and quickly relayed some lore and the weaknesses and strengths of the creature to the others.
The front liners surrounded the strange mole rat and began pummeling it while the spellcasters attacked from range. The creature tried to maneuver out of danger and accidentally got itself trapped in a corner of the cave. The shuln was a superior borrower and dug its way free. However, it could not go far as Jorne had hindered its movement speed before it dug back into the ground. It attacked ShaiLu and caused her grievous harm. Fortunately, Rasp was quick to heal his ally and nearly restored her to her full complement of hit points with a single spell. The group rushed to surround the shuln again and struck it down.
Pressing forward they found the body of a stalag-bite. The creature had been mortally wounded by the shuln and its lifeblood leaked into a puddle on the floor here. Speaking of puddles, the cavern continued east and in the next section, they found the remains of a black pudding. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the deceased creature, there was no way to know how it had been killed. The group had their suspicions though.
A side passage looped back to the west. Following it, they found themselves on the lakeshore once again, now northeast of the vault. There was a natural peninsula where the cavern opened onto the water. It was covered in fungus and trash from all over the hunting grounds. Trulk searched the refuge but found nothing of value.
They continued east and found a set of ornate double doors leading south. The craftsmanship on the doors was impressive and showed iconography the group recognized as belonging to Nhimbaloth. The cavern continued east into the area where Konnor had spotted carnage the day before. Or they could investigate the doors and what was beyond them? Find out next week when we continue our adventures.
END OF SESSION
The Zen Game Master 
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