"Whassat?" asks the feathered man, his face features slowly moving to assume a rough facsimile of surprise. "Who th'****'re you?" He pauses, his own question having caught himself off guard. "Waih, who th'****'m I? No, I donneed no fightems - just wanna find Linnaeus!"
You are uncertain who Linnaeus might be, but it appears this finely garbed micturating individual is sorely lacking his or her presence.
Lofty tosses and turns in bed, trying to get to sleep. The bed is soft and clean. His body is aching to rest, but there's something wrong. With a heavy sigh, he gets out of bed and pulls a musty bedroll from his rucksack. He lays it down on the floorboards, covers himself with the regulation size military blanket he had been issued years ago and falls into a deep and satisfying sleep.
Settling into your bedroll, you sleep the remainder of the evening without perturbation.
XANTLIN
Your dreams grow more bizarre. You dream that Aspasia’s body now has seven arms and legs and positions itself on the ceiling above you, its mouth dripping black sludge and eldritch secrets. It tells you of your own death and other forbidden knowledge. Even after you wake, her voice rings in your mind: “The Achaeans knew what they wrought.”
BUOYSIDE
The booze makes you angry. You drunkenly itch for a fight, for the chance of feeling your steel find purchase in manflesh, tendon tearing and bone shattering beneath your fury. Unfortunately, your drunken companion does little to slake your thirst. You drunkenly turn in place, looking to pick a fight. When your eyes return to the feathered warrior, however, you find him seemingly vanished, his piss still steaming in the cool evening air.
RYLOOS
You are drunk and on a roof. There is approximately ten feet of open air between you and the roof of the next house. In its windows, you watch a fat, lavishly garbed man tuck his children into fully quilted, four post beds before extinguishing the lights. He literally oozes with aristocracy.
HELIOS
Silently, slowly, you pry open the door to the chancel. You are met with similar imagery of ruin; in the midst of splintered floorboards and sagging roof beams stands a podium that seemingly once held a relic of Pelor; you can feel the echoes of radiant energy reverberating from it. Now, however, the podium is warped and burnt, the wood termite-ridden and rotting. The feeling of corruption grows stronger.
There is a second door on the far wall of the chancel, one etched with a strange rune. It has the faint aura of magic about it.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
HELIOS slowly approaches the podium, closing his eyes momentarily and feeling for a sign from Pelor of what great artifact may have once laid here and what happened to it. As he opens his eyes he carefully places the ball of energy from his palm he was using as light onto the podium even if it only remains briefly upon release. He says a silent prayer to Pelor and carefully approaches the door with the magic rune on it, forming another ball of sunlight in his hand for light.
He is aware it is not one of his strengths but he attempts to decipher the rune and see if he can tell what the magic flowing from it is.
Buoyside scoffs at the drunkards disappearing act. "Coward!" He shouts into his steaming piss. He meanders around town a bit more, though from what he can see the villagers are just ordinary civilians with full bellies, soft hands and very little fighting experience. To slay such a specimen has no honor, no challenge; the blood that flows from from their corpses is tainted. Spotting a sewer cover, he grins. I'll take this fight beneath the city, to the creatures of the deep.
He approaches the entrance and uses his blade as a crowbar to pop the heavy lid and climbs down into the damp darkness. He rubs the pendant dangling from his belt and it glows, casting a serviceable amount of light in a ten foot diameter around him. He begins to walk through the sewers, his blade dragging along behind him causing a loud, ominous scraping sound.
Perception check: 21(natural 20 bby, looking for clues, sounds, evidence of creatures or the like)
Xantlin awakes from his terrible and bizarre dreams. He already had a weird enough feeling about this town, but now he is questioning the groups trust in their new "friends." He has a feeling that Alkibiades may have not told them the full story, and his dreams may be pointing him toward some mysterious magic that lies within the ever more mysterious Wheel. Xantlin racks his brain trying to remember the dreams and the voice ringing in his head... "Arcanans? Achranans? Achaeans!" he pieces together what it had been saying.
History check: 25 trying to remember anything he had learned about Achaeans in his past studies
He peeks over at Alkibiades to and checks that he is asleep. Having a feeling that their new accomplice may not have given them the full story of this ever more mysterious "Wheel", Xantlin decides to quietly check on the magical state of Alkibiades and Aspasia. Hopefully he can kill two birds with one stone and find out if the strange barkeep or other residents of the inn may be hiding any other magical properties
a) Fail the check so spectacularly that not only do you not recognize the sigil but you also - inadvertently - destroy Pelor's podium. You otherwise remain undetected.
or
b) You touch the sigil and glean some semblance of its purpose, but you are detected by the entity(/ies) that dwell behind it.
BUOYSIDE
The sewers beneath the town are rudimentary, little more than tight tunnels funneling offal material out of the town's latrines and into the nearby river. You crawl through urine and stool and vomit that smell - nay, reek - of the constant acrid smell of vodka. Your sense of decency, however, is dulled by the vodka in your blood. You study the effluvia with perhaps somewhat unscrupulous dedication, and your patience is rewarded with the faint taste, smell, and sight of an iron-containing fluid. There is blood in the water. Or...well...the shit. There's blood in the sewers, at the very least. It seems to emanate from the outskirts of town...or so you are able to deduce to the best of your abilities, the sewers limiting the scope of your purview.
You are also now covered in shit.
XANTLIN
You are wakened with a startle in the middle of the night. The sky is still dark and the room is poorly lit save for starlight; Alkibiades is nowhere to be found. You do, however, identify Aspasia's corpse slumped in the corner, across the room from both you and Sergeant Lofty. You cast a spell, strange logograms composed of light spilling from your lips and weaving together a spell of analysis, of inquiry and unveiling. You detect a dim but powerful magic wreathing the corpse of Aspasia, manifesting as the faint whispers of a woman. It is difficult to discern, but the whispers seem to hint at magicks of warning, of binding, of secrecy, silence, and binding.
You wrack your brain, struggling to come up with information regarding the Achaeans. From what you recall, they are a tribe from the far west who contributed several teams of talented warrior acolytes. The Achaeans highly pride themselves on their battle prowess to an almost fanatical degree; rank, role, and respect are determined within their community based on one's fighting acumen, regardless of gender (after all, conceiving and bearing a child is a sort of battle in and of itself).
The Achaeans worship the Wheel, which they depict as the axis upon which Fate and Destiny revolve. Much as the day fades into night, so must the Wheel turn; and, in Its divine motion, followers of the Wheel may both foretell and fulfill their destinies. This motion, this ecclesiastical inertia is both satiated and perpetuated by heroic deeds, including ritual sacrifice. To attempt to the stop the Wheel is to defy one's destiny and is considered sacrilege if not outright madness, though certain votaries of the Turning Creed do note a certain element of self-righteous heroism implicit in the act of defying one's Fate and acting contrary to or to undermine predestination.
You reach your sundrenched hand out with a mechanical purposefulness that belies the tentativity of your impellation algorithm. As you draw near, warmth and a dull red glow collect along the sigil's edges; the heat is not the same gentle, radiant comfort that Pelor bestows but instead suggests a hellacious torror. You appreciate that the sigil was seemingly burned into the thick oaken door. After a moment of hesitation, you reach out to touch the door.
The reaction is swift and violent. The sigil flares from a dull orange-red into a lurid scarlet color. You were not exactly designed to smell, but your olfactory sensors detect a sudden influx of sulfur-containing compounds in the ambient environment while you are overwhelmed by a wave of chaos magic seeping from the sigil. The door shakes violently and you hear a distant roar from somewhere deep in the earth, below you. The podium of Pelor shatters into splinters behind you as the floorboards buckle and warp and dust rains down from the rafters, clouding your view. You hear the muted chimes of a bell ringing menacingly in the disused campanile above. There is something infernal below, something dripping with malevolent power.
Ryloos better damn post or I'm going to make it such that you passed out on the roof for a night.
The stench of the sewers does not bother Buoyside, he's used to all of his senses being overcome with wretched shit. The blood is intriguing. What sort of beast has slain so many to turn their under-rivers red with blood? A beast that is worth a fight, perhaps? He does his best to follow the shit-tubes where the blood seems to run heaviest, hoping to find the source.
HELIOS takes in the smells and watches the podium shatter and crumble. It is clear to him there is something foul present in this temple, and it would not be wise to take it on alone. He heads out quietly back to the streets of the town and back towards the inn that he watched the rest of his party enter. He keeps his eyes wide and scans for any familiar faces or unusual sights as he makes his way back.
Perception Check on the way through town towards the inn - 20
Unsure how to proceed with the information gathered about Aspasia and the Achaeans in the night, Xantlin waits, unable to get back to sleep, for the Sergeant to wake up, jealous of his seemingly peaceful slumber.
Upon waking, Xantlin explains everything he learned, about Aspasia is his dreams, about the magics surrounding her corpse, and about the Achaeans. "This business with the wheel may go much farther back than we had initially thought, do you think it worth our time to get involved? And Alkibiades' nighttime disappearance doesn't sit terribly well with me. And speaking of disappearances, where the hell is the rest of our group?"
It is difficult to follow the trail of blood in the literal deluge of offal. Intermittently you will lose sight of the faint trickle of blood or slip, submerging your face in shit and garbage. Ultimately, you track the blood to a grate draining waste from what appears to be a large warehouse. Inside, you visualize several large, cylindrical copper vats that you recognize are likely used in the distillation of spirits. The grate is embedded into the stone wall and does not budge despite your efforts at displacing it.
HELIOS
Distressed by what you witnessed in the basement of the church, you hastily return to the inn, looking for any sign of your compatriots. Along the way, you pass a displaced manhole cover and a luxurious manse on the roof of which your acoustic rectifiers seem to detect someone snoring faintly. The inn itself is now empty, a lone bartender cleaning the counter and rearranging chairs in the early hours of the morning in anticipation of another busy day of libation and revelry. He gives you a knowing wink and charming smile as he sweeps some dried vomit and dust out the front door. As he goes to return the broom to its closet, you see a brief glint of some metallic object stowed amongst various cleaning supplies that, per your memory drives, matches the external appearance of Alkibiades' helmet.
Buoyside grins, looking down at his sword. "Bby', we've gone n' cracked it. The 'stillery! The vokka' shop...factry..." He turns and makes his way back through the tunnels, often finding himself in dead ends or getting lost, but eventually he finds his way out into the open air. He wanders through the streets, searching for a trough or spicket to rinse the filth off. He eventually finds himself on the edge of the river. "This'll do, love. Hold yr' breath." He removes the balled up remains of the priestess guard, still wrapped in a handkerchief, and places that softly in the grass before he drops himself in the river fully clothed, hoping the cold water and the chill of the night air will sober him up a bit. Why is there so much blood coming from the distillery? We must investigate.
He crawls out of the river, relatively clean, and rings his clothes out. He picks up his morbid souvenir and places it back in his pocket, and heads back to the tavern/inn. There, he searches through the rooms until he finds Lofty and violently shakes him out of his sleep.
"The vodka! It's made of people! I think. Or blood, there's blood in the spirits! We must investigate!" He pauses, coughs and tries to pull himself together. "Sir! Best friend cap'n, sir! There's something fishy going on, get your spear!"
You are enjoying a peaceful slumber when you are awoken by the gentle hand of Xantlin. His voice is as calm and soft, possessing an undeniable element of the ethereal tranquility of his elven ancestors. "This business with the wheel may go much farther back than we had initially thought, do you think it worth our time to get involved? And Alkibiades' nighttime disappearance doesn't sit terribly well with me. And speaking of disappearances, where the hell is the rest of our group?"
As you wipe the sleep from your eyes in the anemic light of the coming dawn, your door is kicked in violently. You and Xantlin both jump at the sudden intrusion. A man, dripping water and stinking of piss and vomit and vodka, stands in the door frame. His eyes are wild, proptotic, and violently blood-shot from a lack of sleep and an impending hangover. It takes you several moments to recognize this terrifying, seemingly insane berserker as the noble paladin and your comrade, Buoyside. His voice cracks and unwinds along vocal cords frayed by strong liquor and fatigue, his cadence pressured and his phonation slurred.
"The vodka! It's made of people! I think. Or blood, there's blood in the spirits! We must investigate! Sir! Best friend cap'n, sir! There's something fishy going on, get your spear!"
"Alkibiades is missing?" Lofty is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when Bouyside bursts through the door. "Easy now Bouyside." The man was drunk and clearly hadn't been to sleep yet, but there was something in his tone that warned Lofty this was no drunken foolishness. "What did you find?" Lofty begins to don his armor and gather his weapons. A nice peaceful little nowhere town, of course it was too good to be true. He was beginning to suspect he had been too dismissive of his comrades the night before, and now Alkibiades may have paid the price for it.
Hearing the ruckus upstairs and recognizing it as none other than Buoyside's shouting, HELIOS makes his way into the room with the others.
"I am afraid that what our crazy friend here is shouting about way too loudly most likely has some truth to it. I was in Pelor's abandoned church and there is some sort of foul presence below it. Oh, and I saw Alkibiades' helmet stored in the closet down below." HELIOS speaks as loudly as he heard Buoyside doing so despite acknowledging that it is most likely too loud. "Restoring Pelor's light to this town is a must, it will surely drive out whatever evils have consumed these people."
Absent only the shifty Ryloos, your team is once again reunited, each with alarming portents of not only the city but your companion, Alkibiades. Aspasia's corpse watches your conversation with its empty, gilded sockets.
Just then, you hear muffled yells and crashes from the room next to you. Grabbing your weapons, you race out into the hallway. The door is ajar; a strange, unfamiliar symbol is burned into the wood of the door. HELIOS alone recognizes it as the same sigil he had seen in the chancel of Pelor's temple.
You barrel through the door into the room where you find a lone housekeep, in simple attire, cleaning broken glass from the floor. The sight of four heavily armed and furious appearing men/machines causes her to shriek and cower behind a dresser. She stammers as she attempts to explain.
"Please, don't hurt me! I'm sorry for the ruckus, but one of our patrons vandalized his room and assaulted our staff when they asked him to leave! Just look at what he did to the door!"
The housekeepers scream wakes Ryloos from her drunken stupor. Glancing around she sees nothing but open skies. Her appreciation for it is cut short by the tremendous pounding in her head. She sits up, vomits and starts to make her way to the inn where she left her party.
Walks up the steps and finds her companions in the room with the housekeep. "What's up with all the noise? Don't you know people are trying to sleep around here?"
(She may have been sleeping for a day/several days. Ryloos was very drunk)
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
"Please miss, do not be alarmed, we meant only to assist." In a flash, Lofty's spear is gone and he is offering a gracefully bow to the maid. "We would not normally barge in so rudely, but we have reason to suspect foul deeds are afoot and it has set us on edge. We would like to ask a few questions if you have the time." He lifts a finger and points to where the pile of glass and the dustpan lie neglected. "To make amends, we shall finish cleaning this room with, of course, your expert supervision."
Buoyside feels sorry for the Housekeep, though he's pretty keyed up and hysterical.
"******* vampire, are you?" He shouts, repeatedly banging his sheathed blade onto the hardwood. "Drinking blood spirits, giving me blood spirits? Drunk'ening me up, with blood, are you? Where's your tender? Where's the missing man?" He catches on to his captain's calm demeanor, and tries to relax. He feels like his chest tightening, his brain is sloshed to the side, warping his perspective...bordering on a panic attack. He turns and walks back into Lofty's empty room.
"You're losing it, love. It's not a great look." His blade, Tony, speaks aloud...for the first time in well over a year. Buoyside's legs give out, he lands heavily on his knees.
"So...," He takes a deep breath. "...We're speaking again, love?"
BUOYSIDE
"Whassat?" asks the feathered man, his face features slowly moving to assume a rough facsimile of surprise. "Who th'****'re you?" He pauses, his own question having caught himself off guard. "Waih, who th'****'m I? No, I donneed no fightems - just wanna find Linnaeus!"
You are uncertain who Linnaeus might be, but it appears this finely garbed micturating individual is sorely lacking his or her presence.
Lofty tosses and turns in bed, trying to get to sleep. The bed is soft and clean. His body is aching to rest, but there's something wrong. With a heavy sigh, he gets out of bed and pulls a musty bedroll from his rucksack. He lays it down on the floorboards, covers himself with the regulation size military blanket he had been issued years ago and falls into a deep and satisfying sleep.
Character Sheets: Page1 Page2 Page3
HP: 35 AC: 20 Saves: Str+2 Dex+0 Con+4 Int+2 Wis+2 Cha+6
LOFTY
Settling into your bedroll, you sleep the remainder of the evening without perturbation.
XANTLIN
Your dreams grow more bizarre. You dream that Aspasia’s body now has seven arms and legs and positions itself on the ceiling above you, its mouth dripping black sludge and eldritch secrets. It tells you of your own death and other forbidden knowledge. Even after you wake, her voice rings in your mind: “The Achaeans knew what they wrought.”
BUOYSIDE
The booze makes you angry. You drunkenly itch for a fight, for the chance of feeling your steel find purchase in manflesh, tendon tearing and bone shattering beneath your fury. Unfortunately, your drunken companion does little to slake your thirst. You drunkenly turn in place, looking to pick a fight. When your eyes return to the feathered warrior, however, you find him seemingly vanished, his piss still steaming in the cool evening air.
RYLOOS
You are drunk and on a roof. There is approximately ten feet of open air between you and the roof of the next house. In its windows, you watch a fat, lavishly garbed man tuck his children into fully quilted, four post beds before extinguishing the lights. He literally oozes with aristocracy.
HELIOS
Silently, slowly, you pry open the door to the chancel. You are met with similar imagery of ruin; in the midst of splintered floorboards and sagging roof beams stands a podium that seemingly once held a relic of Pelor; you can feel the echoes of radiant energy reverberating from it. Now, however, the podium is warped and burnt, the wood termite-ridden and rotting. The feeling of corruption grows stronger.
There is a second door on the far wall of the chancel, one etched with a strange rune. It has the faint aura of magic about it.
HELIOS slowly approaches the podium, closing his eyes momentarily and feeling for a sign from Pelor of what great artifact may have once laid here and what happened to it. As he opens his eyes he carefully places the ball of energy from his palm he was using as light onto the podium even if it only remains briefly upon release. He says a silent prayer to Pelor and carefully approaches the door with the magic rune on it, forming another ball of sunlight in his hand for light.
He is aware it is not one of his strengths but he attempts to decipher the rune and see if he can tell what the magic flowing from it is.
Arcana check? - 1
H.E.L.I.O.S - Warforged Sun Soul Monk
AC - 19
Buoyside scoffs at the drunkards disappearing act. "Coward!" He shouts into his steaming piss. He meanders around town a bit more, though from what he can see the villagers are just ordinary civilians with full bellies, soft hands and very little fighting experience. To slay such a specimen has no honor, no challenge; the blood that flows from from their corpses is tainted. Spotting a sewer cover, he grins. I'll take this fight beneath the city, to the creatures of the deep.
He approaches the entrance and uses his blade as a crowbar to pop the heavy lid and climbs down into the damp darkness. He rubs the pendant dangling from his belt and it glows, casting a serviceable amount of light in a ten foot diameter around him. He begins to walk through the sewers, his blade dragging along behind him causing a loud, ominous scraping sound.
Perception check: 21 (natural 20 bby, looking for clues, sounds, evidence of creatures or the like)
Character Sheet
AC: 16
Xantlin awakes from his terrible and bizarre dreams. He already had a weird enough feeling about this town, but now he is questioning the groups trust in their new "friends." He has a feeling that Alkibiades may have not told them the full story, and his dreams may be pointing him toward some mysterious magic that lies within the ever more mysterious Wheel. Xantlin racks his brain trying to remember the dreams and the voice ringing in his head... "Arcanans? Achranans? Achaeans!" he pieces together what it had been saying.
History check: 25 trying to remember anything he had learned about Achaeans in his past studies
He peeks over at Alkibiades to and checks that he is asleep. Having a feeling that their new accomplice may not have given them the full story of this ever more mysterious "Wheel", Xantlin decides to quietly check on the magical state of Alkibiades and Aspasia. Hopefully he can kill two birds with one stone and find out if the strange barkeep or other residents of the inn may be hiding any other magical properties
Xantlin casts Detect Magic as a Ritual
Xantlin Pegason (imgur)
33/33 HP
4/4 level 1 spells, 3/3 level 2 spells, 2/2 level 3 spells
AC = 15, Spell attack bonus = 7, spell save DC = 15
HELIOS
I'll give you a choice. You either
a) Fail the check so spectacularly that not only do you not recognize the sigil but you also - inadvertently - destroy Pelor's podium. You otherwise remain undetected.
or
b) You touch the sigil and glean some semblance of its purpose, but you are detected by the entity(/ies) that dwell behind it.
BUOYSIDE
The sewers beneath the town are rudimentary, little more than tight tunnels funneling offal material out of the town's latrines and into the nearby river. You crawl through urine and stool and vomit that smell - nay, reek - of the constant acrid smell of vodka. Your sense of decency, however, is dulled by the vodka in your blood. You study the effluvia with perhaps somewhat unscrupulous dedication, and your patience is rewarded with the faint taste, smell, and sight of an iron-containing fluid. There is blood in the water. Or...well...the shit. There's blood in the sewers, at the very least. It seems to emanate from the outskirts of town...or so you are able to deduce to the best of your abilities, the sewers limiting the scope of your purview.
You are also now covered in shit.
XANTLIN
You are wakened with a startle in the middle of the night. The sky is still dark and the room is poorly lit save for starlight; Alkibiades is nowhere to be found. You do, however, identify Aspasia's corpse slumped in the corner, across the room from both you and Sergeant Lofty. You cast a spell, strange logograms composed of light spilling from your lips and weaving together a spell of analysis, of inquiry and unveiling. You detect a dim but powerful magic wreathing the corpse of Aspasia, manifesting as the faint whispers of a woman. It is difficult to discern, but the whispers seem to hint at magicks of warning, of binding, of secrecy, silence, and binding.
You wrack your brain, struggling to come up with information regarding the Achaeans. From what you recall, they are a tribe from the far west who contributed several teams of talented warrior acolytes. The Achaeans highly pride themselves on their battle prowess to an almost fanatical degree; rank, role, and respect are determined within their community based on one's fighting acumen, regardless of gender (after all, conceiving and bearing a child is a sort of battle in and of itself).
The Achaeans worship the Wheel, which they depict as the axis upon which Fate and Destiny revolve. Much as the day fades into night, so must the Wheel turn; and, in Its divine motion, followers of the Wheel may both foretell and fulfill their destinies. This motion, this ecclesiastical inertia is both satiated and perpetuated by heroic deeds, including ritual sacrifice. To attempt to the stop the Wheel is to defy one's destiny and is considered sacrilege if not outright madness, though certain votaries of the Turning Creed do note a certain element of self-righteous heroism implicit in the act of defying one's Fate and acting contrary to or to undermine predestination.
ADDENDUM: HELIOS (OPTION B)
You reach your sundrenched hand out with a mechanical purposefulness that belies the tentativity of your impellation algorithm. As you draw near, warmth and a dull red glow collect along the sigil's edges; the heat is not the same gentle, radiant comfort that Pelor bestows but instead suggests a hellacious torror. You appreciate that the sigil was seemingly burned into the thick oaken door. After a moment of hesitation, you reach out to touch the door.
The reaction is swift and violent. The sigil flares from a dull orange-red into a lurid scarlet color. You were not exactly designed to smell, but your olfactory sensors detect a sudden influx of sulfur-containing compounds in the ambient environment while you are overwhelmed by a wave of chaos magic seeping from the sigil. The door shakes violently and you hear a distant roar from somewhere deep in the earth, below you. The podium of Pelor shatters into splinters behind you as the floorboards buckle and warp and dust rains down from the rafters, clouding your view. You hear the muted chimes of a bell ringing menacingly in the disused campanile above. There is something infernal below, something dripping with malevolent power.
Ryloos better damn post or I'm going to make it such that you passed out on the roof for a night.
The stench of the sewers does not bother Buoyside, he's used to all of his senses being overcome with wretched shit. The blood is intriguing. What sort of beast has slain so many to turn their under-rivers red with blood? A beast that is worth a fight, perhaps? He does his best to follow the shit-tubes where the blood seems to run heaviest, hoping to find the source.
Investigation check: 14
Character Sheet
AC: 16
HELIOS takes in the smells and watches the podium shatter and crumble. It is clear to him there is something foul present in this temple, and it would not be wise to take it on alone. He heads out quietly back to the streets of the town and back towards the inn that he watched the rest of his party enter. He keeps his eyes wide and scans for any familiar faces or unusual sights as he makes his way back.
Perception Check on the way through town towards the inn - 20
H.E.L.I.O.S - Warforged Sun Soul Monk
AC - 19
Unsure how to proceed with the information gathered about Aspasia and the Achaeans in the night, Xantlin waits, unable to get back to sleep, for the Sergeant to wake up, jealous of his seemingly peaceful slumber.
Upon waking, Xantlin explains everything he learned, about Aspasia is his dreams, about the magics surrounding her corpse, and about the Achaeans. "This business with the wheel may go much farther back than we had initially thought, do you think it worth our time to get involved? And Alkibiades' nighttime disappearance doesn't sit terribly well with me. And speaking of disappearances, where the hell is the rest of our group?"
Xantlin Pegason (imgur)
33/33 HP
4/4 level 1 spells, 3/3 level 2 spells, 2/2 level 3 spells
AC = 15, Spell attack bonus = 7, spell save DC = 15
BUOYSIDE
It is difficult to follow the trail of blood in the literal deluge of offal. Intermittently you will lose sight of the faint trickle of blood or slip, submerging your face in shit and garbage. Ultimately, you track the blood to a grate draining waste from what appears to be a large warehouse. Inside, you visualize several large, cylindrical copper vats that you recognize are likely used in the distillation of spirits. The grate is embedded into the stone wall and does not budge despite your efforts at displacing it.
HELIOS
Distressed by what you witnessed in the basement of the church, you hastily return to the inn, looking for any sign of your compatriots. Along the way, you pass a displaced manhole cover and a luxurious manse on the roof of which your acoustic rectifiers seem to detect someone snoring faintly. The inn itself is now empty, a lone bartender cleaning the counter and rearranging chairs in the early hours of the morning in anticipation of another busy day of libation and revelry. He gives you a knowing wink and charming smile as he sweeps some dried vomit and dust out the front door. As he goes to return the broom to its closet, you see a brief glint of some metallic object stowed amongst various cleaning supplies that, per your memory drives, matches the external appearance of Alkibiades' helmet.
Buoyside grins, looking down at his sword. "Bby', we've gone n' cracked it. The 'stillery! The vokka' shop...factry..." He turns and makes his way back through the tunnels, often finding himself in dead ends or getting lost, but eventually he finds his way out into the open air. He wanders through the streets, searching for a trough or spicket to rinse the filth off. He eventually finds himself on the edge of the river. "This'll do, love. Hold yr' breath." He removes the balled up remains of the priestess guard, still wrapped in a handkerchief, and places that softly in the grass before he drops himself in the river fully clothed, hoping the cold water and the chill of the night air will sober him up a bit. Why is there so much blood coming from the distillery? We must investigate.
He crawls out of the river, relatively clean, and rings his clothes out. He picks up his morbid souvenir and places it back in his pocket, and heads back to the tavern/inn. There, he searches through the rooms until he finds Lofty and violently shakes him out of his sleep.
"The vodka! It's made of people! I think. Or blood, there's blood in the spirits! We must investigate!" He pauses, coughs and tries to pull himself together. "Sir! Best friend cap'n, sir! There's something fishy going on, get your spear!"
Character Sheet
AC: 16
LOFTY
You are enjoying a peaceful slumber when you are awoken by the gentle hand of Xantlin. His voice is as calm and soft, possessing an undeniable element of the ethereal tranquility of his elven ancestors. "This business with the wheel may go much farther back than we had initially thought, do you think it worth our time to get involved? And Alkibiades' nighttime disappearance doesn't sit terribly well with me. And speaking of disappearances, where the hell is the rest of our group?"
As you wipe the sleep from your eyes in the anemic light of the coming dawn, your door is kicked in violently. You and Xantlin both jump at the sudden intrusion. A man, dripping water and stinking of piss and vomit and vodka, stands in the door frame. His eyes are wild, proptotic, and violently blood-shot from a lack of sleep and an impending hangover. It takes you several moments to recognize this terrifying, seemingly insane berserker as the noble paladin and your comrade, Buoyside. His voice cracks and unwinds along vocal cords frayed by strong liquor and fatigue, his cadence pressured and his phonation slurred.
"The vodka! It's made of people! I think. Or blood, there's blood in the spirits! We must investigate! Sir! Best friend cap'n, sir! There's something fishy going on, get your spear!"
"Alkibiades is missing?" Lofty is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when Bouyside bursts through the door. "Easy now Bouyside." The man was drunk and clearly hadn't been to sleep yet, but there was something in his tone that warned Lofty this was no drunken foolishness. "What did you find?" Lofty begins to don his armor and gather his weapons. A nice peaceful little nowhere town, of course it was too good to be true. He was beginning to suspect he had been too dismissive of his comrades the night before, and now Alkibiades may have paid the price for it.
Character Sheets: Page1 Page2 Page3
HP: 35 AC: 20 Saves: Str+2 Dex+0 Con+4 Int+2 Wis+2 Cha+6
Hearing the ruckus upstairs and recognizing it as none other than Buoyside's shouting, HELIOS makes his way into the room with the others.
"I am afraid that what our crazy friend here is shouting about way too loudly most likely has some truth to it. I was in Pelor's abandoned church and there is some sort of foul presence below it. Oh, and I saw Alkibiades' helmet stored in the closet down below." HELIOS speaks as loudly as he heard Buoyside doing so despite acknowledging that it is most likely too loud. "Restoring Pelor's light to this town is a must, it will surely drive out whatever evils have consumed these people."
H.E.L.I.O.S - Warforged Sun Soul Monk
AC - 19
THE GANG
Absent only the shifty Ryloos, your team is once again reunited, each with alarming portents of not only the city but your companion, Alkibiades. Aspasia's corpse watches your conversation with its empty, gilded sockets.
Just then, you hear muffled yells and crashes from the room next to you. Grabbing your weapons, you race out into the hallway. The door is ajar; a strange, unfamiliar symbol is burned into the wood of the door. HELIOS alone recognizes it as the same sigil he had seen in the chancel of Pelor's temple.
You barrel through the door into the room where you find a lone housekeep, in simple attire, cleaning broken glass from the floor. The sight of four heavily armed and furious appearing men/machines causes her to shriek and cower behind a dresser. She stammers as she attempts to explain.
"Please, don't hurt me! I'm sorry for the ruckus, but one of our patrons vandalized his room and assaulted our staff when they asked him to leave! Just look at what he did to the door!"
The housekeepers scream wakes Ryloos from her drunken stupor. Glancing around she sees nothing but open skies. Her appreciation for it is cut short by the tremendous pounding in her head. She sits up, vomits and starts to make her way to the inn where she left her party.
Walks up the steps and finds her companions in the room with the housekeep. "What's up with all the noise? Don't you know people are trying to sleep around here?"
(She may have been sleeping for a day/several days. Ryloos was very drunk)
"Please miss, do not be alarmed, we meant only to assist." In a flash, Lofty's spear is gone and he is offering a gracefully bow to the maid. "We would not normally barge in so rudely, but we have reason to suspect foul deeds are afoot and it has set us on edge. We would like to ask a few questions if you have the time." He lifts a finger and points to where the pile of glass and the dustpan lie neglected. "To make amends, we shall finish cleaning this room with, of course, your expert supervision."
Persuasion: 13
Character Sheets: Page1 Page2 Page3
HP: 35 AC: 20 Saves: Str+2 Dex+0 Con+4 Int+2 Wis+2 Cha+6
Buoyside feels sorry for the Housekeep, though he's pretty keyed up and hysterical.
"******* vampire, are you?" He shouts, repeatedly banging his sheathed blade onto the hardwood. "Drinking blood spirits, giving me blood spirits? Drunk'ening me up, with blood, are you? Where's your tender? Where's the missing man?" He catches on to his captain's calm demeanor, and tries to relax. He feels like his chest tightening, his brain is sloshed to the side, warping his perspective...bordering on a panic attack. He turns and walks back into Lofty's empty room.
"You're losing it, love. It's not a great look." His blade, Tony, speaks aloud...for the first time in well over a year. Buoyside's legs give out, he lands heavily on his knees.
"So...," He takes a deep breath. "...We're speaking again, love?"
Character Sheet
AC: 16