16th of Blessing
I have definitely had better mornings. What a beating I got in the fight yesterday! Definitely wearing my new armor today. I visit the Delver’s Guild office to see what I can find out about the slain adventuring group. The group recently celebrated its one-year anniversary (Brother Admar Gend, cleric of Lothian, was the fifth member, in addition to Taera Newsun, Neles, Carter Dune, and Chalderic Noramin). Meanwhile, Barbatos learns that they recently sold their valuable equipment for cash (to rescue Admar, we presume). Calista casts some spells on the body of Thuma — their friend-in-werewolf’s-clothing — and learns that her last goal was to recover the idol of Ravvan.
We go in search of Admar. Brother Fabitor of St. Gustav’s Chapel said he hadn’t seen Admar in three weeks. He urged us to go to St. Valien’s rectory and see if he was at his rooms, but when we do, we learn that the people there haven’t seen him in three weeks either. Back we go to Brother Fabitor’s chapel to have him cast a divinatory spell to help us determine whether Admar is okay. Unfortunately, Fabitor’s spell range doesn’t extend out of Delver’s Square. We need to find out where he is.
Nosing around town, we learn that Admar wasn’t at the celebration following the group’s “success” in routing the demon-gnolls. That seemed weird at the time. We get the definite impression that Admar went down into the gnolls’ with the rest of the group but never came out. Admar always hated Carter Dune’s weasel familiar, folks say — it tormented him. But we didn’t find the familiar at the house where the others were slain! Local shopkeepers confirm for us that the group was selling a bunch of possessions, not just the treasure they gained underground. No one knows why they were trying to raise money, just that they needed to buy something at the Emerald Eye (a competitor’s magic shop). It seems that they engineered their own celebration to encourage the townsfolk to give them a reward (a few thousand gold pieces).
17th of Blessing
We deduce that Admar’s most likely location is somewhere down in Delver’s Hole, so in the morning we take Brother Fabitor over there to work his magic. Sadly, he was still not in range. Hmmm…
Off to the Emerald Eye magic shop to try to scare up a lead. Pompous jerk “Lord” Palkam Mosh (decked out in old-time wizard robes and pointy hat) there tells us that the group commissioned a special item: a planar breach. It seems that poor Admar got sucked into the Beastlands, and this item can take its user there. They told him they had to rescue their friend. We agree to give him a final payment so we can take possession of the planar breach.
Then we go to see Brother Fabitor again with an update. But he has an update for us: Admar’s friends already learned where the cleric was: in some small extradimensional space created by magical backlash. Hm, he’s not in the Beastlands of Ravvan after all. Could he be in this pocket dimension with the idol? Brother Fabitor urges us to go after Admar and bring the idol back to St. Valien’s Cathedral for destruction. We agree and plan to go tomorrow.
We return to the Eye to pay for the planar breach. We speak to Mosh’s coworker, Una Sar — hey, I wonder if she’s related to Zorin Sar, the guy who sent us troll fingers because we were buying Myraeth’s? She simply smirks at our recognition.
From there, we head off to investigate Thuma’s spartan residence, but we find nothing. We head back to the shop and assemble the planar breach in our back room next to the vault. The thing looks to me like just a bunch of pipes. When assembled, though, it forms a doorway that serves as a two-way portal between our world and the destination world. We discuss the ins and outs of planar travel — this, after all, is a fairly new science, as our world was closed to the rest of the cosmos up until three years ago.
18th of Blessing
Fabitor tells us that all is in readiness at the cathedral for us to bring in Admar and the idol. He gives us a description of Admar so we’ll know him when we see him. We return to the shop and head through the magical doorway.
We emerge someplace so dark, our light sources make no noticeable difference. The ground is sticky and gives a bit, and all around us we hear growls. Calista’s darkvision spell doesn’t work. It’s even hard to find our way back to the doorway. We tie ourselves together and tie off the end of the rope to the vault door, then venture back through into the chill blackness.
With a spell, Calista detects the presence of the idol one hundred feet ahead. Then we hear amid the growing growls, a voice: “Is someone there?” It’s Admar! We explain who we are, but he warns, “Be careful, the gnolls and demons can hear you!” We reach him and tie him to us and turn to leave, but the growls are much louder now — they seem almost to be forming words. Then I hear one right in front of me, and I manage to mow it over. It feels almost as big as me!
“Unhand us in the name of Shilukar!” shouts Barbatos. I don’t know what he was trying to do with that, but of course this enrages our foes. “SHILUKAR!” a voice howls. “The betrayer!”
Then I emerge back into the shop. Behind me come Archinemus and Barbatos. We get ready for the gnolls to come out with the rest of our party. Diethan and his wolf come through next. I yank on the rope, then Admar makes it out. Poor guy, he looks like hell in his tattered robes. He’s clutching the idol, but appears terrified. As soon as he emerges with the idol, surprisingly, the blackness in the doorway disappears, and we can see straight through the portal to the other end of the room. And there, looking perplexed, is Calista with a whole bunch of haggard-looking gnolls. They must have gotten shunted out of the pocket dimension when it closed up after the idol left it.
We launch ourselves at the gnolls. None of them are the blue-skinned demon-gnolls we dreaded so. Archinemus casts a spell of containment on the idol. Seanus comes running in from the front of the store to see what’s going on and gets whacked by a gnoll. “Where are we? We can’t let them have the idol!” shouts Admar. Not to worry, we dispatch the creatures in short order.
But before we can congratulate ourselves too much, we hear screams and cries coming from the outer shop and the street beyond. Oh no, when the plane closed, these gnolls popped in all over the place! “Whatever you do, do not admit responsibility for this!” shouts Archinemus. More crashes and screams come from the front of the shop. Three gnolls are making mincemeat of the store. Taevel is terrified and injured, but Jora and Seanus together manage to dispatch one. When we’re through with them, we dash outside to Delver’s Square to find more of them: dire hyenas, giant spiders with great batwings, two dozen gnolls, and two blue demon-gnolls. Lucky for us and everyone else, Delver’s Square is always full of adventurers, and they’ve all engaged the enemies.
With things well in hand there, we summon our magical carriage and dash off to St. Valien’s Cathedral. Well, everyone else does except me. I stay to tear into some gnolls in front of the shop, hacking them to pieces with Rastor (owner of the shop next door) and many other citizens. Never let it be said that the owners of Myraeth’s are cowards when things get hot! The carriage barrels off, with Diethan next to the driver crying, “Out of the way! Coming through!” People launch themselves out of the road in a panic as they go by and soon they pull up to St. Valien’s.
On the ride over, Admar tells my friends the whole story of his group’s attack on the demon-gnolls’ lair. “We managed to get to the central temple area, but the magic of the idol affected our minds. They overwhelmed us, and the only thing I could think of was to get rid of this idol.” So he engineered a magical backlash that shunted him off into that extradimensional space, along with the idol and the foes around him.
A priestess of Lothian meets the group as soon as they arrive at the cathedral. Two acolytes open up a golden chest, which emits lovely golden light and place the idol inside. They wheel the box away, and the priestess congratulates us all. Admar slumps in relief — the group can see the indentations in his arms from his tight, weeks-long grip on the idol. My friends leave him in the capable hands of the priestess.
By the time the carriage returns to Delver’s Square, we’ve taken care of all the invaders. The City Watch is doing one last sweep of the alleys with nets, and frightened locals are creeping out into the square again.
Then we go back inside and take stock of our shambles of a shop. And we wonder what we’re going to do with a planar breach that no longer has a plane to attach itself to.
19th of Blessing
Today Diethan gets a mysterious message from his sister, Alivia, asking him to find someone named Spyncer Coil, but he’s not sure why. After some digging, Diethan, Archinemus, Barbatos, and Tharn discover that this guy’s some kind of blacksmith. He had an episode a few years ago and spent some time in an asylum. He has a shady past, Diethan says — he knew the man a long time ago. The group learns that Spyncer has been working with a well-known weaponsmith named Kalbert Nom to forge three magical Swords of Ptolus: Insight, Deceit, and Power. They learn this from a guy trapped in a cage — but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Some of their information they learn from Veda Medaris, head of the Ironworkers’ Guild, whom Barbatos has a crush on. Another fellow gives them information as well. This man, Hadrien Runihan (related to the famous delver Abesh Runihan), is also looking for Spyncer Coil. They decide to seek the man together.
My friends trace Spyncer and Kalbert to their old foundry in the city, a strange, underground, metal-lined subterranean workshop of four rooms. Examining the workshop, the group finds a bedchamber and a square room with a circle carved on the floor (odd magical symbols are carved all around it). It seems as though it was made to focus power or a creature or something into the circle. But it’s not a common summoning circle.
They find some creatures imprisoned in cages in the foundry’s main chamber: a fiery dwarflike guy, a fiery salamander, and a fire elemental. The dwarf guy says that Spyncer went to the Pale Dogs for protection for some reason, and that Kalbert was dead. Sounds like Spyncer killed him. The freed fiery dwarf disappears as soon as the guys let him out of the cage — seems like it must have been preventing him from teleporting away. It and many other items here radiate magic.
This whole place looks as though someone has packed up and gone. Under the bed is a note with some random words on it. Barbatos can make sense of some of it: the part that refers to some degenerate skulks. Not nice guys like Shim and Nos, but shady customers (pun intended) who inhabit the shadows of the city, go about in disguise, have strange motivations, and really love magic. It also directs us to a specific corner in town.
