Erik Soong's Call of the Netherdeep

Randa hesitates...waiting to see which way Ylis would.......hop.....

While the party plans for their day...

DM: Forgot to mention that the goggles are the Eyes of the Eagle (already in Morgan’s inventory).

Caltrops are easy to come by. In a besieged city, mundane means of protecting oneself are aplenty. The prices, as Nivi is well aware, are double anywhere else she has been because of the danger to merchants to do business in this battered city of Bazzoxan.

DM: Correct, Frekor. The onyx puzzle box isn’t a short/long rest item. It requires an Intelligence Check to open.

Frekor looks over the onyx box and its intricate array of switches that are in slight recesses in the box. It gives an even profile on every side, despite the many toggles on it. It is ornate and complex looking. With time (a lot of time) Frekor feels confident he could eventually solve it, but having a ‘party smarty’ take a look at it might reveal its secrets a bit faster.

DM: Each test takes 1 uninterrupted minute of work for a DC 20 Intelligence Check. Have at it!

The rings, on inspection, do not give off the aura of magic. However, Ylis (and anyone with a background researching, or stealing magic items) recognizes these three gaudy rings are Enchanting Rings, cousins of the Ring of Spell Storing. They do not currently have any spells on them, but enchanters pay handsomely for them because of their flexibility and the ease in having single spells attached to them, or even other magical effects for those with Arcane knowledge enough to do the work. A spell can be Enchanted into them with a bit of time, but rather than use the spell and have an empty item, like with the Ring of Spell Storing, these items retain their spell for later use. If one could find a powerful wizard willing to enchant them, they could store permanent powerful spells. They are also able to take on magical effects that are not, strictly speaking, spells. These require a great deal of patience and time from the enchanter, but the enterprising experimental enchanter could create something rather remarkable with them.

DM: I have to make these homebrew items. Since they are empty vessels at the moment, just add them as special items in your or the party inventory.

DM: Frekor, please give me a Persuasion Check for some haggling to see how much you can lower the price of the daggers.

X < 11 = no discount
11 – 17 = 25% discount from the current doubled price
18 – 20 = 50% discount from the current doubled price.

I think we're agreed that checking on Taskhand first thing is the best bet.

Ylis will sit outside like a kid with a rubiks cube. Presuming the conversation with the Taskhand takes 15 minutes (at least ), she'll try to solve the box.

15 10 9 16 9

6 14 10 19 9

14 8 23 5 19

Then shopping for a bit and after we'll see if Foghome wants the Plant Growth enchantment. The party can investigate Aloysia during that time and can meet back at the temple garden in the evening.

Happy with his new goggles, Morgan spends the early morning peering out windows, spotting distant details, and challenging everyone to look at completely irrelevant things.
"Was that a rat or a pebble? And how many trees are on that hill?"

Eventually, after thoroughly testing his newfound eyesight (and everyone's patience), he adjusts the goggles on his hat and grins.
"Alright. Now I'm ready for adventure."

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

While the party plans for their day...

 

DM: Correct, Frekor. The onyx puzzle box isn’t a short/long rest item. It requires an Intelligence Check to open.

Frekor looks over the onyx box and its intricate array of switches that are in slight recesses in the box. It gives an even profile on every side, despite the many toggles on it. It is ornate and complex looking. With time (a lot of time) Frekor feels confident he could eventually solve it, but having a ‘party smarty’ take a look at it might reveal its secrets a bit faster.

DM: Each test takes 1 uninterrupted minute of work for a DC 20 Intelligence Check. Have at it!

The rings, on inspection, do not give off the aura of magic. However, Ylis (and anyone with a background researching, or stealing magic items) recognizes these three gaudy rings are Enchanting Rings, cousins of the Ring of Spell Storing. They do not currently have any spells on them, but enchanters pay handsomely for them because of their flexibility and the ease in having single spells attached to them, or even other magical effects for those with Arcane knowledge enough to do the work. A spell can be Enchanted into them with a bit of time, but rather than use the spell and have an empty item, like with the Ring of Spell Storing, these items retain their spell for later use. If one could find a powerful wizard willing to enchant them, they could store permanent powerful spells. They are also able to take on magical effects that are not, strictly speaking, spells. These require a great deal of patience and time from the enchanter, but the enterprising experimental enchanter could create something rather remarkable with them.

DM: I have to make these homebrew items. Since they are empty vessels at the moment, just add them as special items in your or the party inventory.

DM: Frekor, please give me a Persuasion Check for some haggling to see how much you can lower the price of the daggers.

X < 11 = no discount
11 – 17 = 25% discount from the current doubled price
18 – 20 = 50% discount from the current doubled price.

After looking at the box Frekor asks Ylis for help in opening the box, but he suggest her to try to open it outside the city in case it releases somthing bad.  (OOC: she can choose to follow his suggestion or not.)

(OOC: I put the 3 Rings of Spell Storing in the party inventory for now. Once the DM makes the hombrew for the ring, we'll swap them.)

(Persuasion Check: Nat 1.)  (OOC: I'll reduced Frekor's money by 4gp.)

(OOC: Frekor would be interested to see if there are other items he would want to spend money on, like some magic studded leather armor, light magical weapons or any other item that could help him be a better adventurer.)

Quote from FrekorSummers >>

After looking at the box Frekor asks Ylis for help in opening the box, but he suggest her to try to open it outside the city in case it releases somthing bad.  (OOC: she can choose to follow his suggestion or not.)

 

 OOC: Too Late!

DM: Frekor, you will need to leverage the currency you just gained with Taskhand Thelyss for magical equipment. Foghome had explained to the party (seems like months ago now in RL) that any magic item useful for combat is sold exclusively to the Aurora Watch here to fight the demons. To buy/sell such items without Aurora Watch sign-off can result in execution. That said, you did just save his life so… taking a queue from Wysp’s post...

The party travels to the Gatehold Barracks, hoping to find Taskhand Verin Thelyss there, but a guard stops the party and directs them to the Infirmary. Upon their arrival to the Infirmary, a very flustered Bautha exclaims that the cursed Thelyss slipped past her somehow and is likely back at the Gatehold Barracks, doing his best to make sure he never fully heals and finds an early grave. She sends you off to find him and deliver a message: “Tell him that I've soft restraints and if he doesn’t get back into an Infirmary bed within the hour, I'll will have him relieved of duty by his own guards and placed in the soft restraints until he actually heals to my satisfaction.” She shoes you away with the message, crossing her arms as she scowls.

Back at the Barracks, the same guard the directed you away rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment and confesses that Thelyss arrived shortly after he sent you off. With a scoop of his arm, he bids you follow him to the war room. Some might remember the one-eyed, dirty and smelly guard stationed before the War Room. He is still there and despite Ylis giving him a Prestidigitation last time they met, it seems that over the past few days, he has amassed an even greater fog of funk. He gives you all the stink eye, and he glares at you pretty sternly too.

"Taskhand Verin Thelyss," the guard growls. "Is expecting you." He turns and walks away without looking back. He marches toward one of the smaller buildings and enters through its broken door. It is one of the more heavily damaged buildings and many claw marks mar the front door frame. From the look of it, it is either a major target of many attacks or one major attack.

The one-eyed soldier moves through tight, windowless tunnels of the building. As the crews work their way through the sharp corners inside, the heroes note guards posted as various depressions in the walls. Between them, occasionally, are levers. Above their heads, strapped to the ceiling, are various grates hinged on one side. Each gate has an array of frighteningly dangerous blades affixed to them. From the looks of it, the levers release a fastener, causing these iron gates to swing down, long spear-like blades designed to harpoon a tunnel full of creatures.

The tunnel opens to a small, sparsely furnished office with a circular table meant to comfortably seat five or six people has been repurposed. It sits in the center of the cramped room covered in various maps of Bazzoxan. One is a full city map that spans the table, while others have specific pieces of it or feature a single structure broken down by levels. Every map has notes scribbled all over them. Updated barricade designs on one, redoubts another, notes of various horrid creatures, the rifts they spawn from, and which places tend to be targeted.

Verin pours over the maps. Last time the crew saw him, he was removing tokens from the city map-tokens representing lost soldiers. Now however, he seems to be adding some back onto the map and is moving them around with enthusiasm. His movements are creaky and unsteady, and he leans far too heavily on the table, but he seems pleased.

“New soldiers arrived from Rosohna! They’re a bit green and some still have a stick up their rear from living fat on some Den Master or another.” he regards the map with a satisfied grin, then looks at the party. “That attitude doesn’t last long here. No amount of letters sent home get anyone pulled out of this city. Any Den Master that sent a third or fourth child here did so because they don’t want them back. But here, we become their true family by the end of the third day.”

He sighs, “So…” there is a pregnant pause. “I imagine you will be wanting payment.” He nods to the one-eyed guard, who shuffles off and comes back with another guard to assist him in carrying two rather heavy looking chests. Verin opens them both and the glimmer illuminates the room in a warm glow. “2,000 gold, for saving my life. It isn’t much… a month’s salary for me, but that is because I don’t get paid here; all my funds are directly sent from the Queen to my wife back home. This is just what I brought with me when I was first stationed here in case I needed to dip into personal funds to outfit my men. Fortunately that never was needed.”

DM: While this is just a bit more than what is needed to buy extremely rare, high quality heavy plate, this 2,000 gold is more than enough to completely destabilize the entire economy of a small town on its own.

Ylis spends 13 whole minutes tinkering with the onyx rubiks cube before she learns the right combination and it opens up like a flower. Inside the cube is what is clearly a spell scroll. Every spell scroll is written by the owner in their own personal cipher, but Ylis is schooled in arcane ciphers of her own. She can immediately recognize the Necromantic symbols and after careful review, comparing it to common patterns among mages, she decodes it as a Spell Scroll of Bestow Curse.

DM: I am retroactively allowing Sky to help as he requested in the OOC PM. Go ahead and roll a second Persuasion Check, Frekor, for the mundane equipment haggling. But only if Sky can first explain how he helps. 

"Ta da!" Ylis cheers to herself with no shame. She is completely oblivious to any strange looks her comment may have drawn. It's been a long time since she played with any kind of toy. Even though she's a big girl, it's still fun! The bunny girl carefully puts the box back together and looks over the scroll. Rubbing an ear she wonders why the Prolicks guy wanted this thing so bad. The way he was mooning over it you'd think it would be a golden carrot.

With a shrug she puts the scroll carefully in her calligraphy kit.  After doing a thorough scan up and down the street, she enters the building in search of the party. 

Jacaranda keeps watch on the street as the others shop, meditate or do whatever Ylis is doing with that box.   Her mind dwells heavily on all her failures and the constant fear she feels for her companions and friends and those who may become both....

As Ylis disappears inside the building she steps out of the shadows and follows.....perhaps today will bring some small measure of success to brace against centuries of failure.