Shards of Sin

Part One: A game afoot in Magnimar

 
Our newly minted heroes each received a request to meet with Sheila Heidmarch (leader of the Magnimar Pathfinders) at Heidmarch Manor, the pathfinder lodge in Magnimar. As they arrived, they introduced themselves to one another and wailed for their host. She arrived accompanied by another woman, Koriah Azmeren, a well-renowned expert on the Darklands. Sheila apologised for keeping them waiting, explaining that Koriah had recently returned from a trip and was being debriefed. She requested, while she concluded her business with Koriah, that they try to discover the secrets of a puzzle box the Pathfinder had found and the two women left the room.

With some effort, the group managed to open the box, only to discover it was an ancient trap and two gremlin-like figures appeared and started to trash the library they were in. The party were hard put at first to stop the pugwamis but, with carefully applied gratuitous violence, managed to do so shortly before the summoned creatures disappeared.

Within the box was naught but air – it was purely a trap. When Sheila returned, they explained this and her apologies were many, to have caused danger to such young venturers on the path to discovery. She then proposed to them a new adventure, to find a missing informant of hers called Natalya Vancaskerkin. The half-Varisian sczarni (basically a set of gangs in Magnimar, loosely based on gypsies) had said she was on the trail of finding an item connected to Thassilon and had not been seen since – this was three days ago. She gave them the name of the contact who had acted on her behalf for some of her dealings with Natalya – a fortune teller based in the Washers Row street fair in the Dockway called the Great Zograthy. She also told them of rumours of Nidalese slavers, who could have picked the young sczarni up, in which case the guard in the Arvensoar (the watch's garrison) may be able to help.

They set out for the street fair, finding it easily enough. As Izzy and Magda picked tents which looked a bit mysterious at random, Tristan started his search by collaring locals, asking ‘Where is the mysterious’ and then punching them for not knowing. This attracted the attention of the local fair folk, who were not pleased to have their trade interrupted and made their point of view abundantly clear to the cleric, beating him nearly unconscious. Nathanial stepped in, using a potion of cure light wounds and taking Tristan back to the Pathfinder lodge. Meanwhile, the others, having found someone who agreed he was the Great Zograthy and given him money, were told that he believed the slavers had got her and that she was a member until recently of a Sczarni gang called the Tower Girls.

They next followed up on the rumours of slavers, discovering that their appeared to be a pick-up from a disused warehouse that evening. They made their way there and set up a watch post – they were soon rewarded by flickering lights inside. Much to their confusion, these appeared to brighten briefly every few minutes and they watched fascinated for some time, trying to discern the reason. Eventually, bored of the dancing lights, they moved inside, finding the warehouse deserted. As they explored further, they were hit by a colour spray and the dreaded slavers appeared – a skinny bloke with a ratty haircut. After a brief struggle, they took him prisoner and interrogated him. He admitted that there were no slavers and the party remembered seeing a reward for someone fitting his description posted by the city watch, collectable at the Arvensoar.

They took the captured slaver to the city guard in the Arvensoar, a massive tower fortress built into the sea cleft. There, with a little effort, they found out that the guard were convinced that the disappearances were not an issue, as most of those who had disappeared had returned. They also learnt that the last known location for the tower girls was a disused warehouse, lodging with someone called Fenster the Blight. They visited him (a thoroughly disreputable individual living in a smelly shack in the corner of a warehouse) and, with a suitable gift, learnt that Natalya was living in a ruined house nearby.
 

Part Two: The Seekers Shard

 
They moved on to the house, a clap board ruin with boarded up windows. Looking in, they saw that the floors had collapsed and raw sewage was pooled in the basement. After trying to cross a plank laid from the front door to an inner door and being pelted with raw sewage and glass by some goblins, they withdrew to consider their options. These consisted of Izzy going back to walking the plank (the goblins having been dealt with), Tristan recruiting local lads to break through a wall, Nathaniel walking round the building wondering why he had decided to come along instead of go to the archive and Magda climbing through a window after a lot of prevaricating. With this fine plan in place, Izzy and Magda came under attack from some more goblins who proved irritatingly good at not being shot. Eventually, the party brought them down and moved in, trying to walk on what was left of the floor and avoid falling in the sewage – sounds like Glastonbury without the music.

Izzy got out her grappling hook and tried to climb into the attic but found herself under attack from two stirges – this did not go well for her and she barely escaped with her life, as the others came to her aid just in time. With the stirges removed, Tristan climbed a ladder in the fireplace and came under attack from two more goblins, as well as from Natalya, who was hidden in the attic crawl space near the chimney. Izzy joined him, as did Magda, just in time for the goblins to fall and Natalya to jump downstairs, where she engaged Nathaniel (but not in a good way). Sighing heavily, Magda marched back down the ladder and confronted Natalya, with Izzy moving round to use her bow as Tristan sat down on the beams above them calling out encouragement. With luck (or superb planning, depending on your viewpoint) they managed to capture Natalya alive and took her to the lodge, where Sheila took her in hand.

That evening, Sheila called them together after dinner – apparently Natalya had discovered an ancient artefact whose curse had driven her to the edge of insanity – a shard of the shattered star of Xin. She produced an Ioun stone and Nathaniel volunteered to place it in the shard – thus stopping the curse and making the shard safe. Sheila then tasked them with finding the rest of the shards, whose locations could be discerned by concentrating on the shard they had.

Tower Girls and Rat-girls

Nathanial took responsibility for the shard and concentrated on it, getting a vision of the Irespan and one piling in particular – the Crow. Sheila offered them use of a boat to reach it and they resolved to do so in the morning.

Next morning,l Tristan rowed them across and they found an opening in the base of the piling forming a dock, with three other rowing boats already moored. Moving in, they found several rooms with traces of recent use before starting to climb stairs leading up the ‘tower’. They came out into a series of empty chambers and moved on, until they saw a flickering light ahead of them – a camp fire, with a table lying on it side in front of it. As they approached, they came under fire from two Tower Girls and closed to combat. The Tower Girls put up little resistance but the strange rat girl with them proved far more dangerous.

As first Tristan, then Ismeina and Magda fell, things looked bleak. Nathanial, with options seeming slim, used the mighty power of illusions, calling down aid from Sarenrae in the form of an angel. The one remaining Tower Girl and rat girl fled, convinced that an avatar of a god was visiting. Nathanial moved to Tristan first, patching the cleric up and preventing his death before aiding the others. By some miracle of fate, none had died and they fled tactically withdrew, back to the city to regroup and possibly do a bit of research into rat girls.

Part Three: In The Crow's Nest

They spent the next couple of days recovering  from their wounds and researching rat girls. After discarding some esoteric and very dubious publications, they found references to were creatures and came to the conclusion they had met a wererat.

Further research lead to them purchasing silver weapons (and healing potions) before they ventured back to the Crow. They found the situation much as before, with one tower girl and the wererat defending the complex's entrance. This time, being prepared, they found the battle much simpler and were soon victorious. Moving on, they found a large room looking out over Magnimar harbour. More pressing to their minds, however, was the lack of floor and 200 foot drop.

A platform was suspended in the centre of the chamber and Ismeina made her way over to using the securing ropes as a bridge. Once on the platform she could see a trapdoor in the ceiling and, as the others cautiously worked their way over, she went through it into a long crawl space which came out into a room the floor of which was covered with bones. Through a tunnel to the west she could see a light and she began to stealth towards it. Unfortunately, at this point, the others arrived loudly complaining about having to climb/crawl. etc., and before she could quieten them down, the light went out. Shortly after, as she continued to sneak forward, there was a loud metallic clang up ahead, followed by some very un-ladylike language and receding footsteps.

Nathaniel hurried up with his lantern and they could see a tower girl just waking up in a bed with a short sword lying in the middle of the floor, probably the source of the earlier clang. Ismeina grappled the tower girl and, after a lot of effort and some level of gratuitous violence from Tristan and Magda, the tower girl was subdued. The tower girl could tell them little of the inner chambers apart from that there were more tower girls there and their leader, a wererat.

They left the trussed up tower girl in the chamber (because tied up rogues are always there when you get back) and headed onwards, down some stairs to a large chamber where a rogue challenged them, telling them this was their last chance to leave unscathed. Tristan responded in a calm, considered manner by charging and soon discovered that a lot of tower girls were hidden around the room, together with several donkey rats. The original rogue withdrew round a corner as the party found themselves in danger of being surrounded and had to use tactics to avoid being sneak attacked, with varying levels of success. They were mostly saved by the general incompetence and bad luck of the tower girls, so that by the time their leader reappeared in hybrid wererat form, the fighting was nearly over. Again, they had a captive and decided to leave her trussed up as well.

They moved on through several recently vacated rooms, one with images of Runelord Alaznist on the walls and another with a bowl of lavender water indicating someone had been soaking their feet. Apart from a brief skirmish in a storeroom with some donkey rats, little else seemed left on this level as the residents had sought to repel them in a single, ill-fated mass combat.

They headed down yet another flight of stairs, by now rather confused as to where they were in the Crow, to find a large chamber dominated by strangely silvered doors decorated with images of burning eyes. Looking at these, they decided to go through all the other doors first, eventually finding an opulent set of chambers which proved to be the lair of the tower girls leader, a wererat (just for a change). Thanks to their foresight in bringing silver weapons, she was unable to put up too much resistance with her bladed scarf and they were left contemplating the doors of fiery
eyes.

Beyond The Rune Door

After a good nights rest in the recently vacated wererats rooms, they returned to contemplating the doors. Seeing runes on the doors and remembering the box they solved earlier, they started pressing runes to re-order them into anagrams of themselves. This proved a little painful as touching the doors burned their fingers but it was soon achieved and the doors opened. Beyond was a passageway covered with pristine Thassilonian murals, leading to some stairs down.
 
Heading down, they found themselves on a balcony overlooking a large, scum covered pool. They headed down the steps from the balcony to investigate the pool, only to be ambushed by two giant amoebas as they approached. A short but ultimately not very dangerous combat ensued, with the party victorious. They next explored a side chamber, which proved infinitely more dangerous, as a bat swarm came close to wiping them out before they managed to withdraw and leave the swarm to disperse. As they withdrew, Nathan found himself isolated near some stairs where he heard the sound of someone sneezing. Looking round, he saw a small goblinoid creature with a large handkerchief, who shrieked on seeing him and ran away down the stairs.

The party regrouped and decided to finish exploring where they were before following the mite. The only other room was covered in webs and they used torches to burn these away. Eventually, they reached the edge of a pool with two giant spiders in it, eating a dolphin. The party watched this slightly gruesome spectacle for a moment before metaphorically shrugging and setting off downstairs.

The stairs came out in to a room full of strange mounds of earth, with tunnels leading in to them. They headed across the room to reach the passage on the far side but found themselves attacked by giant ants which emerged from the mounds. The battle was short but furious, as they were nearly overwhelmed by the ants before the numbers reduced enough to make the outcome of battle inevitable. Searching the chamber, they found that one of the mounds had tracks of small feet leading up it and a quick investigation revealed a mite tunnelling operation. They prepared to continue down the tunnel on the far side of the room they had entered by.

The Crow - Dungeon

They headed down the passageway, finally reaching a room with sheets of spider web hanging down. Here, they met the last of the mites, two of whom were mounted on giant spiders. The battle was brief but occasionally dangerous, until they realised that the spiders were the main threat and concentrated on them before dealing with the mites. Beyond, a spiral staircase lead down.

At the base of the stairs they were confronted with two passages, one full of spiders webs and the other clear. Choosing the clear path, they found a cell block, consisting of four passages lined with cells. As they investigated, they came under attack from Crab Spiders on all sides. leading to some hasty manoeuvring by the less fighter based characters to put some distance between the spiders and themselves. After a brief but uncomfortable battle, they explored the cells more fully, finding them empty.

The next room was an old torture chamber, with two cells, only one of which was inhabited – by a strange creature of terrifying aspect, a Sinspawn. Wisely, they decided to leave it where it was and moved on, through an abandoned barracks (ignoring the stairs down) and into a large assembly hall. As they stood in the entrance, one of them was attacked and grappled by a sticky rope like strand from a ledge above the door and began to be drawn upwards. The others grabbed hold of them and hauled down, managing to break the grapple. After this was repeated a couple of times, they managed to drive the creature back into its lair with ranged attacks and left the room.

The Crow - Slime Chamber

They moved on from the Cave Fisher and had a brief dalliance with a centipede swarm and some skeletons before resting for the night. The next morning, they came up with a plan – offer up Tristan to the Cave Fisher as bait and then let loose with every ranged weapon in their arsenal. This worked well, with the monster more or less annihilated before it could do anything.

Next, they decided to deal with the spiders and sent Magda in as bait. This plan worked less well, since everyone else moved forward with her, leading to Nathaniel coming under direct attack – definitely never part of his plans. However, after a couple of hairy moments, they prevailed.
Having run out of excuses to not go down the stairs they had discovered earlier, they went down stairs, into a chamber with slime coating the floor and a large red statue of a woman holding a ranseur. More immediately grabbing the attention was the large bloated maggot crawling round its base, which opened proceedings by spitting a shower of maggots at them. The Abyssal Larva proved a difficult but opponent, especially for Magda, before it was finally overcome and they could take stock of their surroundings

Part Four: A Legacy of Wrath

They patched themselves up and continued through a door to the left., into a room with a short staircase heading down. Also in the room were two Nupperibos, mindless devils with even less standing than Lemures, which gave our heroes a short, intense workout. They moved on down several corridors heading south until the corridor widened into a room with a statue armed with a ranseur. Noticing that the statue was sputtering and smoking, they paused – Tristan ran through the room and shortly after a fireball exploded, catching all of them and dropping Nathaniel. Fortunately, the others acted quickly to heal him as Izzy disabled the trap.

Beyond the room was another corridor which lead to a huge pillared room with a mural on the northern wall. The mural depicted a vast army of deformed monsters and demons on the shore near Hollow Mountain. A woman’s face had been carved into the mountain with a bridge jutting out below. In a vast underground vault a monstrosity of tentacles with a fanged mouth containing a single red eye was shown. After looking at the mural and each other, they decided to go back and clear the rooms they had left unexplored behind them.

Turning east from the junction where they had initially headed south, they found a door, beyond which some more Nupperibos provided more healthy, vigorous exercise.  To the south was a room with a staircase leading down into the sea, which had some form of spell upon it. Nathaniel determined that it was some form of wall of force while Tristan headed up a spiral staircase to the east. At the top was a viewing chamber which looked out into the sea – he realised they were some distance underwater. Sitting down to contemplate this, he dislodged a plank and found two scrolls of water breathing. He also noticed a shipwreck about forty feet from the tower and headed downstairs to tell the others. After some discussion, they used the scrolls and Tristan and Izzy set off for the wreck. As they approached they were attacked by two Reefclaws – the others rushed to aid them as a furious battle took place on the sea floor. Just as Nathaniel and Magda were about to get their, they were victorious and a search of the ship revealed some treasure and a brooch inscribed L.B..

There was one door left in the area so they opened it. Beyond was a large Lemure, acting strangely – so strangely, they tried to talk to it rather than butcher it. It wailed and blubbered at them, with the only discernible words indicating that it was called Stink and was requesting that they ‘kill the bullies’, for which it offered an undefined treasure.

They accepted the Lemures quest, by ignoring it and continuing on their way. They headed down a side corridor to a room with two pillars in it. After much careful examination and consideration, Izzy touched one of the pillars and felt a bit different, in some indefinable way. They moved on.

Imps and Accusers

In the next room stood two Nupperibos, seemingly on guard. As the party moved to attack, they heard two shrill voices from above – Izzy realised they were Imps talking in Infernal and appeared to be cheering on one of the Nupperibos each. The battle lasted scant seconds and, in a chorus of disapproval, the Imps vanished. The party swiftly followed them, down the only exit from the room to another room, with three doors and a fountain, the northern door being blocked by rubble. Tristan opened the southern door, to find a creature like some twisted devilish caricature of a cherub in the room – an Accuser devil. The devil promptly disappeared and they moved in only to be attacked by the invisible Imps. As the Accuser summoned swarms, the battle went very badly, particularly as Nathaniel and Magda fell unconscious as Izzy and Tristan evaded the swarms. However, with luck and healing potions, they all managed to survive, although the Accuser escaped to fight another day.

The Suzerain of Little Erebus

They rested overnight to recover from the ordeal of the Accuser and, next morning, examined the portcullis blocking their path out of the Accusers little complex of rooms. After some time, they decided they could not open it from this side and wandered off to find the room on the other side by other means. This did not take long and they found themselves in a room with tapestries on the walls depicting the mountain with the carved woman's face on it. Finding nothing else of interest, they moved to investigate the western corridor leading from the room they originally entered this level from.

The first room was bare apart from the large circle of runes on the floor with a large candle flame burning at its centre. After Nathaniel had carefully examined the runes, saying it looked like a non-functional summoning circle, they moved in, only to be attacked by two small fire elementals which had been hidden if the flame. With some effort, they vanquished the elementals and moved on down the corridor to the south. To the west in the corridor was a door, which they opened to reveal a room with a couple of Lemures in it. As the combat wound its way to the inevitable demise of the devils, there were hints that something else might be present invisibly in the room. As the last of the devils fell, a high pitched voice congratulated them on passing the first test and introduced itself as the ‘Suzerain of little Erebus’. It promised them great rewards and riches if they would defeat its enemy Lord Baz. When they showed they already had, the Suzerain left the room, leaving a pouch of silver and a scroll behind, with Izzy the only one noticing the air movement of its passing.

Moving on, they found another couple of Lemures in a smashed up ancient alchemical lab and an abandoned storage room. Also in the storage room was a clockwork servant. Using the key they had found earlier, Magda wound it up and it ground into life, moving to her – she had got herself a bodyguard. They set off to the southern corridor, the only area as yet unexplored. From a T-junction, they went straight ahead to a door, beyond which was an empty room, with a broken door on the far side and a brass plaque bearing the warning ‘Do not leave cages open’. Beyond the door was some form of dissection lab, with broken cages lining the walls. Investigating, they came under attack from deformed, twisted creatures – Fleshdregs. After an intense battle, they moved to the next room, where the way was blocked by a portcullis, a skeleton draped over the winch to open it. They moved the skeleton, which was wearing broken masterwork half plate and prepared to open the portcullis.

A Nautical Cove

They opened the portcullis and went through, finding themselves in a maze. Nathaniel surmised it was some form of device designed to weaken the walls between planes. The walls were covered with rusty iron plates with runes etched upon them. They made their way to the centre, where they found a Hell Hound, which caused some minor inconvenience. Eventually, they got bored and headed off out of the maze to the other side of the crossroads.

Here they found a wet cavern, with pools of water on the floor. As Nathaniel looked in, he saw that there was something strange about the mud along the shore of one of the pools, so he acid  splashed it. The mud moved and then attacked, becoming a Gray Ooze, which took considerable effort to kill. Apart from the bones of a dead Bulette, there was little else of interest in the cave and they set off south, to a room with a deep pool of murky water blocking their path.

Izzy decided to swim across but found herself under attack from aquatic Sinspawn, and she swiftly returned to her comrades. After some discussion, they decided to use the last scroll of water breathing and moved into the pool. There followed a rather surreal underwater combat, which finally ended when the last Sinspawn fell.

Heading downstairs, they found themselves in the sewers – lovely. To their left came the sound of singing, a rather gloomy song in Necril. They headed that way and a voice hidden under the bridge they were standing on greeted them. He asked if they could visit a wreck just outside the complex, retrieve a broach from it and return it to his wife. After a lot of discussion, they agreed (since they already had the broach, it seemed churlish not to). The voice said that he was called Lockerbie Brast and that he would accompany them in their search of this level of the dungeon to thank them for their future efforts on his behalf. After extracting a promise not to kill him, he revealed himself – a Lacedon Ghast.
 

Derro in the Darkness

They moved on, leaving Brast behind rather than swelling their numbers with their new ghastly friend. Passing through a small chamber containing two skeletons (of the dead, rather than undead, variety), they moved into a large chamber with several sewer pipes emptying into it. As Tristan moved in, a Cave Moray attacked him, causing the rest of the group a bit of a tactical panic as they tried to work out how to get at the creatures. Eventually, after taking some damage, they managed to kill the eels and moved on. They found themselves on a balcony, looking down on a large room with several exits; three doors, two staircases and a corridor to the north. As Tristan and Izzy had been moving up, they could have sworn they heard guttural voices but there was no evidence of creatures now.

Tristan jumped down to investigate the first door as Izzy prepared a climbing route, using rope and a grappling hook. As Tristan opened and then slammed shut the door, announcing that there was a big ugly thing inside, the others used a form of tactical dithering as they tried to decide what to do. Izzy joined Tristan and they had another go at the door – this time the Carrion Golem was ready for them and Tristan got slammed. This finally focussed the others on their actions and Magda moved to join the combat. The golem proved a fierce opponent and Tristan and Magda found the going initially tough, with Nathaniel's support. Izzy started looking for whoever had hit them with a Darkness spell as the combat started and eventually, after the golem had fallen, they found a Derro hiding in a cupboard, who attacked. He had little chance, however, against the combined might of the party. The room appeared to be dedicated to research into what happens to the body after death and struck them as the perfect place to rest the night. Nathaniel, meanwhile, found himself drawn to a section of wall on the far side of the room and, with Izzy’s help, found a secret door – beyond, a staircase lead down with the skeleton of a large spider next to it. They decided to complete investigations on this level first and went to bed, having moved the golem and Derro bodies out of the room.

The next morning, the body of the Derro had disappeared but the golem was still there. They moved to a door at the far end of the room and opened it, finding a corridor ending in two rooms – one was freezing cold, so they investigated the other first. As they moved in a Darkmantle attacked, missed and fell to the floor, where it was swiftly dispatched. After some effort, they found a Derro here as well and put it out of their misery. As they searched the room, they ventured into the freezer, only to discover that a patch of Brown Mold was the source of the cold – they decided to avoid it.

The Shard of Greed

They searched the area, rested overnight and then searched it again, just in case they had missed something the previous time.  Then they moved to explore the last remaining door, which lead to a torture chamber, occupied by a solitary Derro. Having had little time to prepare, she put up little threat and they moved through to fine a cell block, with one occupied cell – Fenster the Blight, who had no idea how he had ended up here and appeared to be a little stoned. It seems the Derro had been torturing him with mind-bending hallucinogenics, which had actually not particularly concerned our hapless petty criminal. They rescued him and set out to explore the spiral staircase, which lead to a vast cavern entrance to the Darklands – not the Underdark, honest.

They backtracked, exploring the cambers on the west side of the complex that they had so far missed and found many oozes, slimes and a rather hapless Green Slime which missed Tristan and formed a puddle on the floor. Having exhausted this series of delights, they went back to the main chamber and through the secret door.

At the bottom of the stairs they found a room with a giant stone plinth in the middle, with the Sihedron carved into its centre containing a black metal fragment – the shard they were searching for. Also in the room were two spider-like creatures known as Shriezyx, which attacked. They proved formidable opponents, convinced as they were that the party were agents of Karzoug, and the party were hard-pushed before finally triumphing, fortunate not to have lost one of their number. Having secured the Shard of Greed, Nathaniel (who was carrying it) used detect magic to determine that the stone block was an artefact capable of recombining the shards into the Sihedron. He spent a while trying to work out how much it was worth and how they could move it before finally being convinced that rest was the order of the day.

Next they set about exploring the final staircase in the main chamber, which lead down to a crude alchemical lab. As Tristan entered, the Derro within threw and alchemical bomb at him, before turning invisible. This pattern repeated a couple of times before she realised she could not win and used levitate to get twenty feet up to the ceiling. As she crawled her way out, the party began to understand its limitations with ranged weaponry and got very irritated with her.

The Lady's Light

They gave up on the most annoying Derro they had ever met and returned to the Pathfinder lodge to report. Sheila supplied the Ioun stone to neutralise the curse and her husband turned out to have a scholarly interest in the murals and statues they had seen so Nathanial spent several days cataloguing them for him before they were reminded of their quest. Magda concentrated on the new shard and got a location – the Lady’s Light, a huge statue to the south on the coast. They headed there by ship and landed a few miles up the coast, as the reefs around the headland were too dangerous to navigate.

They set off for the statue along the coast, soon reaching a bridge decorated by Troglodyte and Boggard skulls leading to an island. As they made their way across, a bad tempered old woman told them to go away, so they did. They passed a cave leading into a hillside and soon reached a Boggard village. Cautiously, they made their way round it and passed another cave before reaching the statue. Once there, they could find no way in and so, after some discussion, decided to backtrack to the cave they had passed. This turned out to be inhabited by some Boggards, lead by a rather violent Boggard with some per frogs. The battle was short but bloody, before they prevailed and began to take stock of their surroundings.