February 23, 2008 - The party investigates the kidnappings and ends up entering an ancient gnome city below Cauldron.
Picking up at the Church of Bahamut, the party is escorted by Jenya into a large room with many beds, an infirmary. It is empty except for a halfling nearby and a medium-sized figure at the far end of the room.
Upon seeing the halfing Morate says:
Morate: Finally I meet someone smaller than me! Mike: ...in the pants!
The halfling's name is Ishmael, and Jenya introduces him as another concerned citizen who is going to investigate the kidnappings. They go to meet the other person, a human named Eastwood, but he is muttering bizarre things and they leave him alone.
Vargas says that he doesn't need to sleep, so he is going to go help the Church of Pelor in their recovery work. He leaves.
The next morning, they receive the Cauldron Chronicle and go talk to Jenya. She tells them about the kidnappings, and also that she sent the prisoner thug over to the guardhouse earlier that morning. They talk to her a bit and ask her some questions about the Stormblades, who she knows of slightly but not well. She approached them before about looking into the kidnappings, but they said they were "busy."
The party heads to the guardpost and speak to Skylar Krewis, who lets them into the cell area to question the two thugs/guards. They focus on the one with the wounded shoulder from the javelin, Nilas.
Huron steps forward and demands to know who the third person was, and the thug refuses. Eastwood responds by howling incoherent things and babbling, and Ishmael cracks his knuckles and mutters "Let me in there!" Nilas, now thoroughly intimidated, says that the other guy was a friend of theirs who is also in the guard. To help, Skylar pretends to have to leave, and "accidentally" drops his ring of keys. In reality he is around the corner, making sure the party doesn't cross the line.
They intimidate the man some more, and learn that all three guards were off duty at the Tipped Tankard when Jil approached them and offered them the money. They don't really find out anything new though. They try to convince Skylar to release the two men so the party can follow them, but Skylar says he can't, that they have to face trial for their crimes, and that the leader of the guards, Captain Skellerang would freak out if he freed them.
They leave. Skylar forgets to get the keys back...
Having read about the vandalism that took place in the warehouse district, they head there. A lone guard is there, as well as two painters who have covered most of the graffiti by now. They question the painters. They each have 2d6 int and the first has int 4. When they ask him "What was written on the walls here?" he replies: "UHH...I DON'T REMEMBER." The other guy (int 10) rolls his eyes and then tells them that as far as he can recall, these things were written:
Drakthar walks the night
This is our town too
Praise Drakthar
Snerk smells like dung
The guard nearby tells them that the warehouses had been broken into and vandalised but nothing of note taken. Just stuff smashed and broken. Didn't seem targeted. When the guard finds out what the party is doing, he asks if they have gone to the orphanage where the kids were kidnapped from yet.
Mike: Wharf. It's such a dumb word. Like puddle.
They go to the orphanage and knock on the door. An elderly halfling woman answers, and after checking to see who they are, lets them in. It is Gretchen, caretaker of the orphanage.
She tells them that no one heard anything when the children were taken, and the locks were cleanly picked, not broken. She says that she has the only set of keys to the orphanage. The windows, which have bars on them, were also unbroken. She tells them about the four children taken:
Deakon Stormshield, dwarf boy, equivalent of 6 years
Evelyn, human girl, 3 years
Lucinda, human girl, 7 years
Terrem, human boy, 5 years
Mike: Do you smell like dead meat, Corey?
Eastwood has an idea. He goes out to the front door lock and tries all of the keys on Skylar's keyring, but none of them open the lock. The party can tell the locks are heavy duty and well made, not shoddy ones.
Since there are no no pets for Huron to talk to, he goes out into the courtyard to talk to kids and then climb up on the roof.
The others head up to the bedrooms to check things out. The boys share a large room, and the girls have a different room. They go into the room for boys. While searching one of the kidnapped boy's beds, Eastwood finds a simple keyring in the blankets. They search each boy's cubbyholes for personal belongings for any keys but find nothing,
They head back to the sitting room to discuss everything more. Someone sees a half-orc face looking in the window from the yard. Gretchen says it is only the janitor, but they all run outside.
Ishmael (while sprinting outside): Wouldn't the janitor have a set of keys??
Outside Artanis and Huron talk to a small boy for a few minutes. Huron is the one talking to the kid, so Artanis is bored and looking around. He sees the half-orc peering into the sitting room window, and heads over just as the others blow out the door.
There is a small girl playing in the dirt in front of the door. Each party member passes their reflex save to avoid her. Ishmael dives over her, Morate slows and weaves around her, Eastwood does a side roll to avoid her, and Jeppy just scoops her up.
They corner the half-orc, who is missing his left eye and has an eyepatch. They start questioning him about the keys, but he says that Gretchen has the only set of keys. He does his work during the day, and she locks everything at night.
Half-orc janitor: Who are you guys? Eastwood: We're here to investig - I punch him in the stomach.
The janitor goes down, winded. Some kids see him on the ground and start a fuss and start crying, and asking what's wrong with Patch. The party tells them that he is just sick and his stomach hurts. A bunch of kids hug him (and he is too winded to speak) and they go back to playing.
Once he's breathing again, they question him why he was spying. He says that he was just hoping that the party were people who were going to adopt some kids, but the party can tell he's hiding something. After some intimidation, he admits that a man named Revus approached him some months ago and paid him 50 gold to keep an eye on Terrem, but now that Terrem has been kidnapped, he's worried. They head inside to continue talking.
Patch says that Revus, a human man who always wears two daggers and does tricks with them, just told him to watch over Terrem and make sure nothing happened to him. Patch was worried after Terrem was kidnapped, but doesn't know how to contact Revus, and hasn't seen him in weeks. They ask where Patch met Revus before, and he says always at a restaurant or tavern - like the Tipped Tankard or sometimes at the Slippery Eel.
The party also asks him if any of the kids have confided anything to him. Patch says one boy said he had a nightmare that night about a man in black stealing him away during the night. They go talk to this boy, named Bart, but he tells them basically the same thing - that a man in black floated in the window and picked him up, and together they floated out the window. That's all he remembers.
Artanis and Huron go to check out the Tipped Tankard, and the others head to the Slippery Eel. The Tipped Tankard is empty except for Pilok, who is passed out on the bar. Artanis spends a few minutes trying to break into the locked shelves of liquor.
The Slippery Eel has a few people inside eating a late lunch (it is late afternoon). The host greets them, they ask if they know a man named Revus. He doesn't, and the party has no further information to offer about him, so they don't know what to do. Ishmael walks in and starts asking one of the couples eating, but the host insist he not do that, unless of course he is going to buy a meal? They sit down and Ishmael orders the most expensive dish (50 gold), which is fresh imported oysters, aged elven brandywine, and an appetizer of gourmet fruits and cheeses. Morate orders a salad, Jeppy orders nothing, and Eastwood says he'll just eat off Ishmael's plate. The host remarks that he thinks the cook tosses scraps out to the dogs in the alley, if he'd prefer that. The sarcasm is lost on Eastwood and he leaves for the alley.
He walks in the kitchen entrance but is shooed out by the cooks.
Ishmael asks the couple next to them if they know a Revus. The man says no, do they know what business he's in? Someone says "child kidnapping." The other couple turns away and ignores them from that point on and sniffs down their nose at them, though when Ishmael's food arrives they shoot envious glances over at it.
The host comes by and they talk to him again, this time revealing that he likes daggers. The host says that there was a man there about a week ago who kept tossing the meat knife into the air and spinning it. He also stabbed little holes in the tablecloth while no one was looking. They ask to see it, the host takes them out back and shows them. They tell the host that if this man ever shows up again, to call the guards. The host says that they were already going to do this, because the man paid with the illegal jester coins, but they didn't notice until after he was gone.
The party hears some youths running through the streets that Jenya wishes to speak with them. They head back to the temple.
Jenya tells them what progress they've made. They say little. She tells them about a church relic that the head priest told her about before, which is locked away. Apparently it has the power to ask Bahamut for help, though it has the disadvantage of not always being a clear answer. They hustle to the back and she fetches it. She asks them what they should ask. The party debates asking about Revus, but decides it would be better to just ask outright about the kidnapped children. She goes to an altar and prays. A voice that is not hers says the following:
The locks are key to finding them,
Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron,
But beware the doors with teeth.
Descend into the malachite 'hold,
Where precious life is bought with gold.
Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long.
The party debates this riddle. Huron jumps on the malachite clue and says they should go find Taskerhill, since he owns the mines outside of town. Jenya mentions though that they should proceed in order. The party decides to go see the town's locksmith, Keygan Ghelve, who has a shop on Lava Avenue.
They BLOW into the store. Keygan Ghelve, a gnome, surprises them because he is nearly six feet tall, though over three feet of that is legs. They assume he's using stilts. Ishmael, Jeppy and Eastwood walk in, see a curtained off back area, and push past Keygan to head there. The shocked Keygan starts protesting, but then Morate grabs his leg (revealing it is indeed a stilt) and yanks him to the floor.)
In the back room are three chests in the center of the room, a staircase leading up to a second floor with a balcony overlooking the curtained entrance, and a dresser full of keys. Eastwood starts searching the room, while Ishmael and Jeppy head upstairs.
Keygan starts sputtering and protesting. The others quote the riddle at him, but he doesn't understand and is getting mad. They also ask him who would be able to break through his locks by magic, but he says probably no one except Vortimax Weer, who operates Weer's Elixirs and is a powerful mage.
Ishmael and Jeppy find two rooms upstairs, one is a bedroom, the other is a kitchen/pantry with a fireplace. They head back down and go back to the entry room.
Eastwood tries the chests and realizes they are ones for customers to test out locks. He opens them all and finds a small silver bracelet in the last chest, tucked in the side as if it got snagged as someone withdrew their hand. He stands up, and happens to notice that the wood grain of the side of the staircase is mismatched in one spot. He heads back into the entry room just as Keygan is starting to yell for the guards. Eastwood pulls everyone to the back and says to Keygan "How do you explain ...THIS SECRET DOOR?!" and moves towards the door.
Keygan says clearly and distinctly "I don't know what you mean!" while gesturing frantically for Eastwood to stop, to not open the door. He doesn't listen. He opens it.
DM: How do you open the door? Justin: I KICK IT and DO A BACKFLIP and READY MY GUN!!
Eastwood kicks open the door, revealing a staircase leading down. Everyone else sees a dark, cloaked form materialize on the balcony and leap down with a rapier to attack. Eastwood sees the movement out of the corner of his eye and manages to dodge, and the dark figure runs down the stairway. Ishmael sprints after him, catching up as the dark figure stops to toss the cloak aside, blending more effectively into the shadows. Ishmael grabs him and suplex-throws him back up the 10 feet of stairs, and the figure slams into Eastwood, who has drawn his chain and is rushing forward. They tumble to the floor in a heap.
Huron casts a spell that lets Eastwood act immediately, so Eastwood headbutts the dark figure in the face, breaking his nose. Keygan, being held upside down by Morate, starts casting a spell. Morate reacts by chucking the gnome towards the staircase, but Keygan doesn't make it all the way there and instead lands in a crash on the doorjamb, losing the spell. Jeppy rages and rushes forward, morningstar drawn. Eastwood sees him coming and ducks aside as Jeppy crushes the dark figure sideways into the wall, which sprays with blood. Ishmael runs back up (hearing the loud crash) and finishes off the figure with his kukri.
Eastwood walks over and picks up Keygan, who starts saying "Thank goodness you stopped him before he--" and then Eastwood headbutts him.
Moments later when Keygan regains his senses:
Eastwood: THAT SECRET DOOR!!!
They question Keygan about why was the figure (a skulk) in the store, and did he know about it? He tells them that yes he knew about them, that one night he woke up and they had come up through an old abandoned passageway to an ancient gnomish city underground. They took his rat familiar, Stargloom, hostage.
Artanis: You named your rat Stargloom? That's a retarded name! That's like naming your cock free willy!
They ask why there is a city UNDER another city. Keygan tells them that this gnomish city had to be abandoned because a strange plague called the Vanishing struck, which made those inflicted slowly start to disappear and eventually cease to exist. Keygan's father was just a boy when they had to flee, but he remembers that it was passed through the gnomes' magical items and spells.
They ask him how many others were there, Keygan responds that there were six that night. The party wants to head down immediately and destroy the others.
Keygan says that he has an old map his father gave him years ago and goes and fetches it. Ishmael tells Keygan he's coming with them.
Artanis says he has a plan and asks for ten minutes alone with the corpse. The others comply, and come back to find an exact duplicate of the dead skulk, wearing the dead skulk's rapier and light crossbow. They decide that Artanis will be disguised and try to sneak in and get the upper hand. (He explains to Eastwood and Ishmael that it is a magical spell that lets him disguise his form.)
They head down, it's about a 10 minute walk down a series of staircases. They come across a circular door shaped like a gear, or cog. The frame is metal and is the "teeth" of the gear. The center is wood and slides across. In the center of the wood is a brass plate and grooves in it, like something is supposed to be inserted. This door's center has been left ajar. The others hang back a bit, and Artanis slides it open...
Experience points awarded: 100
Summed up an INCREDIBLY frustrating session with some "Zing!". I like it! - Mike
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