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City Slickers 001
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Craig I know you had a different name for this, and I forgot, apologies. Cake was delicious, btw.

It is now, officially, City Slickers.

It is now, officially, City Slickers.

Torbin would hate this... If only he knew how to read.

"...no, what we need to be doing is wipin' the backside of this city, because the amount of shit we're encountering before we can even get out of town is staggering.

We couldn't even get to the northern wall to start looking for a gate before more o' dem zombies groaned their way over. It was a bit of sidetracking, yes, but upon seein' their tracks it's only common mercenarial courtesy to smear these arseholes' brains against a wall so they can't bolster their own ranks. Following the trail led to a house, and yes, more enemies of the state. If you're not caught completely unawares and manage their numbers, zombies aren't the hardest to deal with, so we were able to clear them out and take a look inside, make sure nothing untoward might later emerge. Unfortunately, the hole we found went deeper than an ankheg's mistress.

First, there was the basement. Musty, pretty standard stonework. I do find a seam in it, Grundr finds a lovely unsettling carving of a single eye, staring at all of us. He also finds a way to tank a trap dart while opening a door, a spiral staircase going ever downward. There's a gap in the stairwell, but rope and some strong lads like Kevin make the work shorter than the trip down. Can't get everybody down before something decides to go bump in the dark and we got to a different bit o' work. Plenty of loot to be found when we strip some gate doors down. Some party favors too, like bronze masks and vials of who knows what. Must've been all sorts of weird fuckin' going on down here.

Especially with the next room; complete bacchanal of hideous grub piled on a slab. I could tell more things were hiding in wait, so I stepped in knowing something was likely to happen. Probably should have thought it through, considering we were yelling about a bottleneck but of nine or so baddies it was down to the final three before we were finally in formation to dispatch 'em. We wiped the table off just to see, turns out it looks pretty close to the spot up on Tasty Chicken Mountain where they were sacrificin' each other! Another secret bit of doorway is present, and Zanitha tries bleeding herself out in some receptacle as a way of opening before I pry the thing out. Stone here is older than the rest of the dungeon.

Tiny bit of water running through, but we get over it and sweet Moradin I don't know how many layers of distrusting arseholes were down here but it's another secret door. Big Z and I push through and whaddaya know, another slimy batch of evil. Everyone does their job well, but I go down a lot earlier than I wanted because there was an undead spellslinger of some stripe. I just never learned to handle what they can throw out. It's a number of blackouts, but Big Sis keeps me swinging and eventually things go quiet once more.

You've asked before why I stick to the front of the pack, taking the hits, popping up and down like a grung in heat. I know, as an adventurer, my floor of efficacy is a good bit higher than a wizard's. These skeletons, zombies, they're almost nothing. I can take what they dish and eat it with a smile, cuttin' 'em down all the while. The wizards mostly cower, at first. I know my floor, but their ceiling? It don't exist. I can work for years to keep my arms as big and strong as possible, but the wizard increased me in size twofold that first fight downstairs, all with a twist of the wrist. And that's a taste. You might ask why I step to the front; well, one, it's my bloody job, and two, it's to protect our budding wizards. Especially one that helps people, like Grundr. That kind of power can change the course of how this land will turn out.

The door in this final bit isn't secret, but it's certainly the biggest example of the theme for this whole place: scratches. Scratches at the bottom of doors, things trying to claw their way through, out, away? Dunno. We figure out the trap to the room with the door and manhandle the previous door to stop it, so we can open this other door with sayings like

Below this stone, hunger learned to pray.

That's not before Lutrum, who I forgot to mention kept on one of those fuck-masks from earlier, put blood in a special lookin' bowl and kinda floated for a second there before denying anything odd had happened. Oh well.

One more spiral stairway, and the stone gives way from black to pure earth. It smells a bit like the conservation mines back home, what with the huge mushrooms and cool air. We can walk on the mushrooms to the edge of them, black stretching past the limits of my sight. There's lights down there, or at least something bright. Some were pretty heavy on continuing, but it didn't sit quite right. If we disappeared, any good we did could end up being temporary. Instead we trudged back upstairs, got some good leg cardio in, and let the camp know what we found.

...yes, earlier I did compare the city to a dirty bum and adventurers as asswiping material. Considering how much we dealt with, maybe just get a hose? Some parts o' the Empire do that."

Brunhildo's Song of the Session

Handwritten notes over top of evocation reaction acceleration diagrams

We set out to try and find the edge of the city. I think we found an edge, just maybe not the one we were expecting.

Footprints of the undead are definitely something to be investigated when you’re trying to make someplace into a home. Especially when they are near a critical fresh water source. We followed the damp footprints to a mansion at the base of the wall enclosing the lower city. There wasn’t much to the house itself, but we found a cellar leading down.

And down. And down and down. We found many undead down there. Cramped staircases and low ceilings made the ghouls and ghasts and skeletons all the more menacing and the fighting more claustrophobic. I wonder if a smaller party taking advantage of proper choke point usage would’ve fared just as efficiently. Shoving and scooching was the name of the game; I got more intimately familiar with my compatriots here than I ever have before. Some of them need a wash. I won’t say who though. None of them, however, compared to some of the truly debrided and effusive specimens we fought. Zenitha has been around plenty and even she was smiting through fits of hacking coughs. Kevin too.

As we kept moving, the place got cooler and more humid. We found multiple sacrificial tables with channels for blood. Masks and signet rings dotted the walls of the first chamber. Lutrum decided to put one on. Seeing that face in the shifting light of those corridors while fighting ravenous ghouls gave me a bit of a fright. I’d be more pissed at him if he wasn’t telling jokes to truly lighten the mood; some of his jokes were so powerful that he took out a couple undead for an entire fight. Once again, his battlefield effectiveness is something I aspire to.

I will say, I hope to rival him in that with some of the spells I’m developing. I’m putting the finishing touches on an abjurative dome that would help us sleep in comfort while in hostile territory, and an arcane acceleration factor that will turn the brawlers of our party like Kevin, Hildo, and Zenitha into true terrors of the battlefield. I can’t wait.

When we fought this spellcaster, who looked frighteningly familiar, (probably just a trick of the light) I was watching the bolts of necrotic energy he was throwing. A spellcaster slinging arcanum like that has to use some sort of propellant to make sure the bolt hits with enough force to do the maximum damage it can. Most of us aren’t the types who can huck stones or balls with any significant force. So we have to supplement that throw with a form of basic arcanothermic energy. All energy is gained or lost through change.

Arrow points to an evocation stoichiometric equation for air ignition.

Therefore, a basic form of arcane propulsion is to set the polarity of magic a-spin on your throw. It spirals through these polarities, what we call “schools,” of magic as it flies, and this energy keeps the bolt flying. Of course, getting good at aiming this is another story, but the point is one of those polarities is abjuration. I’m really enjoying and excelling at manipulating the runic geometry of hieromancy and arcane plating. If I can catch those bolts of arcanum when they cycle through that polarity, I may be able to completely capture the aetheric excipient and weave it into my ward.

Not something I can readily practice, so I’ll have to try this out on the battlefield.

ANYWAY,

Obviously these cultists or worshippers of the deceiver or whatever didn’t have much imagination, because a lot of the rooms had plenty of the same stuff: sacrificial tables, receptacles for blood, rooms full of bones. Thankfully, one of the side rooms that our beefcakes pried the gate off of had quite the treasure trove. Multiple scroll tubes! Found out later that one of them contained ledgers of all the different houses, as well as ledgers of debts paid by said houses. We also found maps of the sewers and other tunnel systems.

A hop over a small stream (that I didn’t embarrass myself struggling over at all), another secret door, and more gross undead. I have already had my fill of those assholes in this city, but something tells me my friends and I will be dealing with them for a long time.

The final room we explored had the earlier mentioned spellcaster, along with more rotted walking corpses. Hildo was on the front line and took quite the beating. I probably should’ve cast that celestial/infernal runefence on him instead of Zenitha, as he was always the first in the room. But regardless, the spell held extremely well, and it was fun watching an enlarged Hildo in a previous room go crazy on them. I think I somehow missed his vocal cords when I increased the space between his cells, so while his titanic form was walloping some undead, his normally sonorous baritone was replaced with a squeaky alto. I’ll have to do better next time.

In the final room with the spellcaster, his necrotic magic was unfortunately bypassing Hildo’s normally sturdy box frame. He fell unconscious multiple times during this expedition. He is quite effusive as a storyteller when he’s got some drink in him. Always makes you feel welcome at the table. Even when I’m sitting apart from him to get some quiet study done, I can still hear him from across Pip’s interim tavern. He’s got fewer words when we are out on expeditions, but his willingness to put himself in danger to protect others says enough. I had used the residual divine magic of Danzik’s holy symbol earlier in the trip, so Zenitha and Lute had to be the ones keeping him healthy throughout the later fights. But they had their hands full…so I decided to do my best and put myself between him and danger. The shielding, mirror image, and the Arcane Ward held up amazingly well, again. I didn’t take a single scratch on my skin. It also felt good helping on the front line. My accuracy on distant fire bolts and up close electrical attacks is only marginally decent, but it makes me feel useful to stand between a friend and one who would do him harm. I only wish I could’ve done that before…

Once the even MORE undead were killed, we cased the room. We kept trying to interact with this ritual architecture, but I’m not really sure how wise that is, despite my being insatiably curious about it. Lutrum normally seems like a great actor, but him trying to play it off after depositing some blood into a receptacle and fucking levitating for a spell was a bit much. Have to keep an eye on that.

We found another scroll too. Other than that, the only thing left staring us in the face is the door. Given how much damage Hildo had soaked, we took an extremely wary rest before opening that door. That runic dome I’m working on wasn’t quite ready yet, but man we could’ve really used it. We didn’t want to get trapped either, so we also wedged one of the previous stone doors underneath some trapped spikes on a threshold at the entry to the room to make sure we could get out if needed.

It all turned out a little anticlimactic. Only a little. The spiral stairway down was even more cramped than before, and it opened to cavernous darkness, even to the edges of my vision. It was very intimidating, especially the little lights that we could see down below. Hildo gathered through his affinity for stone that we were no longer even on stone. Sure enough, we were standing upon giant mushrooms. Honestly, it was just nice to see some form of life other than the undead.

We could’ve gone down, but it had already been more than a day since we’d seen sunshine and we needed to make sure we could report our findings. There was no immediate threat, so we closed the stone door and returned to the wharf. The pragmatism of my allies outweighed my immense curiosity. Maybe for the better in this case.

Regardless, we did get some important loot.

They were a list of houses:

House Valerius
House Corvinus
House Darien
House Roelevar
House Mhoran
House Avorin
House Caercant
House Bellamare
House Haelyncor

And a list of debts paid:

Aldric Varran - 3rd Day of Frostwane, Deep Winter
Bastian Cole - 14th Day of Hearthwane, Deep Winter
Bennet Harrow - 19th Day of Stormwane, Late Winter
Branric Vale - 2nd Day of Thawrise, First Spring
Cedric Orlan - 8th Day of Greenwake, Spring
Darian Moss - 17th Day of Rainmere, Spring
Edric Fane - 24th Day of Blossomwane, Late Spring
Emmon Rusk - 1st Day of Highsun, First Summer
Ferran Holt - 6th Day of Goldfield, Summer
Gareth Wycl - 13th Day of Haywane, Summer
Hadrian Pell - 22nd Day of Emberwane, Late Summer
Jorin Maes - 30th Day of LongLight, Late Summer
Kerric Dorne - 4th Day of Redleaf, First Autumn
Laurent Fisk - 9th Day of Harvestmere, Autumn
Marek Tull - 15th Day of Grainwane, Autumn
Nolan Vey - 21st Day of Crowfall, Late Autumn
Usric Brand - 28th Day of Blackwind, Late Autumn
Perrin Locke - 2nd Day of Ashwane, First Winter
Quentin Marr - 7th Day of Wolfwane, Winter
Roderic Harth - 12th Day of Ironfrost, Winter
Sabine Crowe - Eve of the Last Harvest, Autumn
Tessa Vale - First Bell of Thawrise, First Spring
Ysabel Renn - Candle Night, Deep Winter
Maelin Vosse - Stormwatch Eve, Late Winter

The masks and rings will sell for a bit of coin after Nix takes a closer look. We also strangely found a set of magical scale mail that smolders. I’m sure Lute will like that, though I don’t know if he will be ok with smelling like brimstone up close. The ledgers and maps will be invaluable to Nix and Governor Corvin, and I have some important work to begin before venturing out again.

Grundr's list of Houses wrote:House Valerius
House Corvinus

Bayside NPC Thread wrote: Marcus Valerius Corvin
Male, Human, Imperial Governor, Founder

Well, I wasn't gonna say that out loud until a bit later, but I agree

Put on your head lamp, Otar, my not-so-little cabbage, because I'm going to take you deep underground.

One of the most pronounced aspects of life in Little Brightwater is that, with very few exceptions, is that plans seem to change course abruptly and definitively. As soon as I jumped in the sea to start clearing the bodies of the undead, the preponderance of focused, rapidly engorging sharks in the bay immediately redirected my day to some much needed training. On land. Away from the corpse eating sharks.

Life has returned! Once things at the lighthouse were set right, creatures from the surrounding islands and waters began burbling back into this anciently new land, where they ought never to have been kept from. When I fall asleep now, the stillness is finally broken by a gull's cry or something flopping above the surface of the sea. (Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Linden about finding a good spot to start composting, and a spot for the animal leavings that will only increase. “You've got to get your hands dirty if you want fuel or fertilizer!” after all. How I miss our Grufflehog...) Soon we may even have native livestock to tend, if the other exploration parties have been as fruitful as the tales say. I'm eager to have my hands in earth once more, helping this land find it's fecund footing afresh.

Forgive me, I feel like such a tease with all this talk and still keeping you in daylight. This time, Grundr, Lutrum, Brunhildo, and I were set on reaching the boarders of the upper city to ferret out an exit into the wider lands beyond. We were joined by Kevin, who we knew instantly to be a relation of Devin's. It was eerie: they look alike, they walk alike, at times they even talked alike! You could lose your mind with identical cousins. Of course, I'm sure any childish japes are in the past, as Kevin is a tough lad filled with purpose and focus. Far more than one would expect from one fresh off the boat.

Taking the route we knew past the first fountain we discovered,...well, not past exactly. I should've expected that more undead would've returned to the spot, but I was as surprised as anyone to find a contingent of zombies and ghasts was at the ready. They were easy enough to kill – goodness knows we've had enough experience at it by now! – but we found fresh tracks leading into one of the houses and felt duty-bound to clean out any that remain. Oh, the hubris!

We got a little cocky when we so quickly exterminated the remaining creatures scuttling through the house, so it serves us right that we ended up with a secret door leading to a descending stairway leading us into the heart of the mountain. “What good has ever come of secret stairs?!?” I can hear you cry. To that I say, “The water slide in archfey Gwynnyd's treehouse. Neener, neener, and for good measure, neener yet again.” But of course, it's almost never that kind of door, and it wasn't this time either. This one had a positively ominous eye carved into the stonework which will come into play later on.

The staircase – why are secretive cults always obsessed with spiral staircases? - was broken out, and since we knew several somethings lay in wait ahead and below, thanks to Brunhildo's tremorsense, we were able to jump down a break in the stairs and get the jump on yet another group of undead, likely higher ranking than the others, as it was all ghouls and ghasts. They absolutely filled the room, which looked like it was used for ritual meals or maybe just terribly maudlin potlucks.

Gosh, what else? There were so many spaces for sacrifice and rituals and bloodletting. Usually my blood gets a bigger reaction when it comes to triggering secrets, but not this time. Maybe this being doesn't care for celestials. Oh! We found a lot of trinkets that had some dire meaning once upon a time. (Maybe still do?) A quintet of metallic masks, the fanciest of which Lutrum seems to have taken quite a shine to, and a statue that's clearly meant for some kind of blood offering to open...something. Lutrum had quite an encounter when he filled the little bowl (see sketch on previous page), even lifting a little off the ground for a moment. I'm sure he didn't share everything that he experienced, which worries me for him and for the rest of the colony. You of all people knows what it's like to leave a door unknowingly unlocked.

Speaking of doors, we found one that had more of that ancient language carved into it, though far more ominous that anything we'd seen before. Maybe not the scrolls. Did I mention those? Ah well, We found some, and Grundr is seeing to them. He's a good kid and I trust him. Anyway, he translated the door and it read, “Below this stone, hunger learned to pray.” Or perhaps prey? That was never clarified. Either way, it makes the grand discovery of this excursion all the more...breathtaking? Horrifying? Intriguing? Stimulating? I don't know. It's so much to take in.

There is something tremendous within this mountain. When we made it through that final door – oh yeah, spike trap, figured it out, blah, blah, blah – a short way further down and further in, we walked out into the cap of the largest mushroom I could have conceived of being possible in our plane. We were like dragonflies on a toadstool. I carved off a piece for study. It was so high... We looked over the edge and the sheer distance between us and the tiny lights below... It could've been a mile or ten. Engulfing darkness spread before us endlessly, for even the pinpricks of orange and yellow that broke it didn't confirm that there was a bottom. We could hear the water, and there was a crude path downward, but even those of us desperate to press on – for what could be a greater threat to our new lives than a maleficent hunger no one knows about? - were persuaded of the wisdom in returning to the wharf and making a report.

Yes, I thought of that too. "From beneath you it devours." So long ago, and yet... It seems remote that there's a connection, but one never knows where all the tendrils of that dank and unseen world have squirmed their way in. I'll keep you informed of any new developments as time goes on.

We've turned things in to Nyx for study and I've given the mushroom piece to Serafina, as she's generally best at finding medical properties, but I'll ask Linden to take a look as well. He's got a knack for plants.

Once I've rested a bit, I think I need to spend a little time checking in on folks. I still have a few games I haven't taught the kids, I'm sure Kaelen hasn't been eating as much as he should, and there are some new residents coming in from their boats who should have a proper welcome before being thrown into the deep end. Now I'm just pooped!

I miss you and can't wait to hear from you. Please tell Granny Plumflax that some local/regional fauna has been discovered, and once I know more about them, I'll include sketches and taxonomic descriptions or her.

All my sleepy love,

Zenitha

Summary XP granted for Brunhildo, Gründr, and Zenitha!

Tales of Kevin

Party:Zenitha,Grundr,Lutrum & Brunhildo.

Overview -
We proceeded north of camp from the docks to clear the fountain and find out that my late cousin Devin didn't disclose that the undead were prevalent and in fact want a piece of kevin. Luckily momma didn't raise no floosy & with my honor in tact and the trail turning soggy from a nearby house that was affixed to the side of the cities mountain. We found ourselves going into the house to find a cellar in a mansion that descended for a while.

After we made our initial descent into the musty cellar, grundr & brunhildo were able to locate a secret passage that turned into a spiral stairs going downward. With a promise of safe descent trying to belay we moved most of the party down just to have myself land face first after a slip at the end. You know the saying, no pain no gain. We found an sacrificial altar,Masks & signet rings that all seemed to have a eye on them relating to some kind of movement? I couldn't say. After checking more of the passages and raiding a scroll room we found more undead in a corpse piled room & then after that we went to another room that had one that cast motes of magic that I could only say is evil. They met the blade's end for their transgressions against life.

After all our encounters with the undead, we had to pry our way into a room that smelled of brimstone to find a smoldering scalemail. We opened the door to find a room that per our local wizard is lined with mushrooms and the like. With the immediate threat, we've gone ahead and closed off the door to this cellar after messing with the mechanisms for another party to come back to.

We found multiple scrolls - one that I procured on the way out before noting with Grundr & Thalia with a map of the sewers.
Map of sewer presented:


With coming back into town and learning of my cousins passing in these parts I swear that the undead shall meet the end of my blade if I have anything to say about it.

(I wrote a longer summary but it didn't save and I had to re-write it so apologies)