The interrogation of Justice Ironbriar led to a new lead –
the true mastermind behind the evil plot was in fact Xanesha, who had seduced
Justice Ironbriar so that she could become the leader of the cult, and get
souls to power her magic. Of course, one would think there would be easier ways
to do that. For instance, if monster souls would have worked just as well as
human souls, he could have agreed to work with the humans to kill the monsters
in exchange for rights to the souls. Or she could have just got a job on a farm
and collect animal souls from slaughtered animals. Even if only human souls
would work, it would still seem like enough people die of natural causes that
she could get all the souls she wanted that way, and people might even think
she was providing a service – disposing of used souls. But anyway, Xanesha was
chaotic evil, so she didn’t think of any of these benign alternatives. (Evil
always seems to be dumb like this. Or maybe it’s just selection bias; there are
lots of smart evil people doing their evil plans, but they are successfully
able to keep their evil plans secret, so we never hear about them. But anyway,
Xanesha was dong her evil bidding from the abandoned clock tower, so the heroes
had to stop them.
The party went straight for the clock tower. Valeros almost
fell into a pit trap, but Lem’s speed spell enabled him to avoid it. Then he
defeated a faceless stalker. As the faceless stalker was dying, it said in a
sinister voice.
I know what you seek.
I can help you, but you must pay a price.
“What price?” asked Valeros.
One of your own
number.
“You mean I must sacrifice my friend Lem here?”
Of course not. A
simple guard or standard-bearer will do. I am certain that you will be able to
find another later on.
“My allies are all scouting elsewhere.”
Very well, you do not
pay the price, you do not get the reward. I suppose you will be doing the rest
of this yourself.
With that, the faceless stalker died. Lem and Valeros
continued on and saw a bag of tools, guarded by an evil looking demon. “I will
grant you these tools,” he said, “provided you pass the trial of fire.” These
were masterwork tools, so they figured it would be worth it – the tools would
help them in the challenges ahead. They braved the demon’s fire spells and
acquired the tool.
Harsk heard the commotion inside and, rather than going in
just yet, stayed at the city gate to see what was there. Enemies attacked the
city gate! First a bugbear, then a scarecrow golem, then a bandit. Harsk
defeated all three of them with shots from his new Shock Longbow, and the
guardsmen were impressed. Harsk stayed with them for now to secure the area. He
told them about Xanesha, and with the immediate monster threat defeated, they
were able to have the guards keep watch for Xanesha in this area, while Harsk
could go elsewhere.
Lem continued exploring and found a scroll with an inflict
spell, which he was able to use to defeat a werewolf. Ezren joined him and
found a battered chest.
It’s a chest, it’s a
chest, better bash it up:
Because we all know
those chests often have good stuff!
Ezren bashed the chest open and found not much – a heavily
diluted potion of healing, which didn’t do much, and some potions, which the
group had by now decided they didn’t like - the extra space they took up and
time spent hunting around for the right potion outweighed any real benefit. But
he did find another door – this one had a lock which looked like it had a
puzzle on it.
He had remembered the group’s meeting with the Aldern
Foxglove lookalike in the last adventure, and remembered the solution to the
puzzle which he had inadvertently revealed during the interrogation. So he
opened the door and found a hidden weapons cache – most of the weapons were old
and useless, but there was one – a Flaming Mace +1 – that was usable.
They were almost at the top of the clock tower. They saw more
writing on the wall that suggested that there was a spirit in the clock tower
that needed a sacrifice. Valeros didn’t have any of his allies with him so he
went back down the clock tower and looked at exploring other locations. He went
to the Shrine of Lamashtu and went inside, where he was suddenly assaulted by a
wave of psychic energy! He pushed forward but the assault kept coming. He
couldn’t think straight enough to actually fight or do anything, so he went
back outside to catch his breath. Harsk joined him, and they went back in, and
an ogre appeared! Fortunately their combined might was able to smash the ogre.
Lem also had an ally with him. His ally also saw the writing
on the wall, and booked it out of there before he could get sacrificed. So Lem
followed his ally into the Shrine of Lamashtu. Zombies came after them, which
they were able to defeat, but in the meantime, while they were distracted, some
rats came up from the floor and bit at Lem’s legs, infecting him with a minor
disease. Lem used some healing spells to cure the disease and also heal
Valeros’ psychic injuries.
Ezren stepped up the final steps of the Shadow Clock, where
he saw a cultist. He had a Scorching Ray spell which could easily have killed
the cultist, but he saved it for later, instead using his longspear and calling
for help. Two arrows from Harsk’s bow hit the cultist, and Ezren was easily
able to finish him off. He saw a sage who had been hiding the whole time. He
had to perform a sacrifice to purify the clock tower. He cast a charm person
spell on the sage, so that the sgae would go along voluntarily, and then did
the sacrifice. It seemed to work. Ezren wasn’t sure if what he did qualified as
evil, but in any case, it was for the greater good.
The rest of the party finished going through the shrine, and
killed a faceless stalker. Harsk looked at the faceless stalker and knew it had
a clue of some sort, but didn’t know what. But that was all fixed when Lem sang
his song:
Hey there, you
faceless stalker, you’d better tell us who charmed you,
Or else Mr. Lamashtu
will be pretty alarmed about you!
Okay, it was kind of lame. But it worked – they learned of a
hidden passage that Xanesha had planned to use to sneak in here if necessary,
and they closed it.
---
The next thing the party did was to go over to the throne
room, in hopes that the local government could help them. They knew the local
government was somewhat corrupt, but they figured that even if that were the
case, it wouldn’t be a problem – they had gotten lots of treasure they could
use as bribes if necessary. When they got to the government offices, they saw
what looked like a carnival going on, with prizes being given out. They
approached an information booth to ask about what was happening.
“Well, as part of the new anti-corruption campaign that’s
going on, lots of the politicians have agreed to return items they received as
bribes back to the people. That’s where all the prizes come from.”
“What’s with all the contests?”
“It’s how we’re
giving the items back. We heard the stories of what’s been going on in
Sandpoint, and we figure the random prizes might be just what’s needed to catch
people’s interest.”
The group went around and tried out some of the contests.
Ezren won a ring of protection, and Lem won some caltrops – apparently someone
had tried to pass them off as valuable collectors’ caltrops, to be something
someone might want as a bribe. Valeros tried a more difficult challenge – use
his brute strength to pull a greataxe away from being attached to a wall.
Valeros used a mattock and found it easy – the rules didn’t say you had to use
your bare hands.
Harsk joined the group and they all went to see a stage
performance. The performer, a beautiful woman, came up onstage and asked for a
volunteer from the audience. A volunteer came up and the performer sat her in a
chair and tied her to the chair, ostensibly as part of the act. But then the
performer turned in to a slithery creature, and started literally sucking the
life out of the volunteer. The performer was really Xanesha in disguise!
The rest of the crowd fled, while the party stayed strong
and tried to beat Xanesha. Valeros closed the distance and attacked, forcing
Xanesha to stop consuming the soul and defend herself. In the meantime Harsk
fired an arrow from his shock longbow and hit Xanesha. Lem continued his song
to aid the party:
It’s the villain! It’s
the villain! You had better get him now!
Or else he will do his
evil plan, even though we don’t know how!
Another arrow from Harsk hit Xanesha, and Xanesha ran away. Moments
later the announcement was made to close the festival due to the threat. The
group huddled to decide their next plan. With the information revealed, there
were only two places left that the villain could be going – the temple, or the
mill.
Lem went to the temple, where he temporarily cast off his
knowledge of battle magic and prayed to the gods. He felt the presence of the
gods here, especially Lamashtu, the god of monsters. He felt blessed by
Lamashtu, which was surprising, because Lamashtu was normally opposed to
adventurers. But he soon saw the explanation for Lamashtu’s presence – Xanesha
was here!
Lem quickly put on his Cape of Escape and ran away to the
mill, before Xanesha even noticed he was here. So he needed to come up with a
plan – Lem and Harsk would go to the mill and make sure the villain couldn’t
run there, while Valeros and Ezren would try to defeat the villain in the
temple.
Ezren went to the temple and performed a spell of augury to
find the villain but the spell did not reveal anything. Then he moved forward
and felt more of Lamashtu’s energy flow into him, and then he saw – not the
villain, but a charmed faceless stalker! He was able to kill it with a
scorching ray, and was given the chance to consecrate the temple now, which
would reveal the villain. But he knew that the only things left in the temple,
besides the villain, was good stuff, so he didn’t want to do that. So instead,
they did the same thing they always did – go forward to kill the villain.
Eventually this next threat was defeated, and they had time
to go back home and continue their training. Ezren and Lem continued their
studies of magic, while Harsk and Valeros made friends in the town, and found
more allies willing to go on their quests.
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