Dramatis Personae
Alfaren "Alfred" Eredel - Elf transmuter
Alizander Carmelizzia - Human (Varisian) sorcerer
Boecca – Half-orc inquisitor of Erastil
Carlos Santiago - Half-orc (Alkenstarian) evoker
Slavé/Jancen – Tiefling (in guise as a human) rogue/assassin
Tavo Dechirent - Human cleric of Pharasma
Wealday, 15 Calistril, 4709 A.R.
As Alizander and Boecca attempt to calm the increasingly agitated Dargentu Vheed, Jancen advances towards the area where he believes the invisible vulpinal to be located. Steeling his nerves, he leaps in her general direction, intent on subduing the vulpinal before she loses the few shreds of sanity keeping her from attacking the group. He misses and becomes visible; the vulpinal howls in rage, a keening, cat-like yowl that sends tremors down the spine. She paws at Jancen with her filthy claws, and at her touch Jancen is overcome with debilitating pain that wracks his already frail body with agony. He doubles over and falls to the ground, consumed with only the pain coursing through his muscles and bones.
Boecca hurries in with calming words magnified by powerful magicks. The vulpinal visibly calms, but her darting, feral eyes reveal the anguish and rage that lurks just underneath. Tavo comes forward with Boecca, speaking to the vulpinal in a measured voice, explaining that he has divine energies from the goddess Pharasma herself that can help her escape the pain she is suffering. Tavo retrieves a scroll from his pack and starts a droning prayer to the goddess of death and rebirth. The diving healing energy of the prayer washes over the vulpinal; her perpetual snarl relaxes, and her eyes suddenly fill with tears.
“How can this be?” says the vulpinal. “So many years I have spent here; how many has it been? Who are you? I am called Jezeletrix, how can I ever repay you?”
Even as Jezeletrix speaks, the Returners can see that the brief flash of colour in her eyes begins to fade, and her glossy, silky fur clumps into mats and tangles before their very eyes. Before she lapses fully into pain-wracked insanity again, Boecca insists that they will save her, and asks if she will permit them to bind her and remove her from the cavern. With her last sane breath, Jezeletrix agrees, extending her arms for Boecca’s manacles. She falls comatose soon after, a small, lifeless heap on the filthy cavern floor. Alizander easily hoists Jezeletrix’s small body onto his shoulders, and the Returners head back to the safehouse and convene with Janiven and Arael.
Once back, they describe their trials in the Nessian Spiral. Arael and Janiven express regret at the loss of Vaeden, and introduce the party to Vaeden’s lifelong mentor, the elf wizard Alfaren, referred to by friends as Alfred. By way of introduction, the aloof elf inclines his head ever so slightly to the party, and requests to join the Returners’ in a slow, measured voice.
Later that night, under cover of darkness in the old shrine to the dead god Aroden, the Returners, along with Janiven, Arael the cleric of Iomedae, and their new member Alfred, join hands in a night-long vigil over the comatose form of the celestial vulpinal Jezeletrix. The group inscribes arcane sigils in circles around the vulpinal, burn rare incense and other, less-than-legal substances, whisper prayers to whatever god or power they choose, and utter words of magic. By morning, their efforts have worked. Jezeletrix wakens from her coma to find the bone-twisting pain gone, the years of abuse and torture suffered under Dargentu Vheed only memories now. Somehow, the Returners managed to mend her broken soul, and bring her back from the brink.
The fox-like vulpinal tells her story, of the years she spent as Dargentu Vheed’s plaything, research subject, torture victim, and bootlick. She tells the party that she spent at least two decades in the Nessian Spiral, most of the time a pain-wracked haze in the lightless cavern in which they found her. Occasionally she would venture into the complex, when her hunger was too great for rats and grubs to satisfy. She describes several features of interest to the party – a pair of vats filled with blood, with numerous tubes and pipes. She recalls Vheed referring to the device as the capacitor, a machine that stored the energies siphoned from the pit fiend at the centre of the spiral, then disbursed it as necessary to the house and Asmodean Knot above. She describes a series of five cooling chambers – huge pools that somehow conditioned and leeched the taint of the pit fiend’s influence from the energies drawn from him before feeding it to the capacitors.
Finally, she remembers Vheed speaking numerous times of the potential for disaster if the engine was to ever fail, saying that a malfunction could result in a feedback loop, feeding the infernal energies back into Liebdaga the Twin to the point that the pit fiend could rend his prison like confetti and unleash hellfire upon the city. She recalls he carried a rod he called the Stygian Rod, which he explained could be used to shut down the cooling chambers and capacitors in the event of a malfunction.
Jezeletrix thanks the Returners profusely and offers her eternal gratitude and service. She insists on remaining at the safehouse to recover and assist the party in its efforts to save Westcrown from the evil cloud it has suffered under for the last 70 years.
Oathday, 16 Calistril, 4709 A.R.
The Returners make their way back to the Nessian Spiral late in the afternoon. On their way to the site, a number of panicked Wiscrani citizens mill about the dottari barricade barring entrance to ground zero. The Returners discover that the six dottari guards stationed at the barricade have been killed. An investigation by Tavo reveals their bodies to be nearly drained of blood, and each is covered with numerous gory bite wounds. The party recalls the dominated dottari lieutenant they met at the barricade two days ago, but agree that the pit fiend within the Nessian Spiral is the greater threat for the time being. The vampire Ilnerik and whatever spawn he has in the city will have to wait.
The Returners continue where they left off in the Nessian Spiral. Much is as they left it the night before, although the bodies of the Council thieves and Avahzi Serafian appear to have been moved or examined in their absence. The party moves deeper into the complex. As they make their way closer to what they assume to be the heart of the Spiral, the malfunctioning of the engine becomes more apparent. They find the capacitor room – a room containing two large vats full of some blood-like substance. Errant bolts of electricity arc randomly through the room, and the tremors and rumblings felt earlier in the complex become more pronounced. Incessant shrieks and howls reverberate throughout the Spiral. Later, the party comes across the first cooling chamber – a circular room dominated by a massive pool of roiling dark water. Jancen and Carlos discover a crystalline valve on the wall (which appears to have a slot for a rod of some sort) and, after a good ten minutes of work, just barely manage to rotate the valve. As they do so, the errant jets of steam and fire in this cooling chamber cease, and the boiling pool soon dies down. The two adventurers decide to collect some of the water, and after closer inspection, believe it may be drawn directly from the River Styx. With this knowledge, Jancen and Carlos take extra special care of the vials of Stygian water in their possession.
Meanwhile, Alizander, Boecca, Alfred, and Tavo continue past the first cooling chamber. They discover two storage rooms that contain a group of steam mephits. The mephits waste little time attacking those who disturbed their steam play, and are summarily defeated. Boecca, recalling a secret door discovered earlier on in the complex, doubles back to check it out.
Boecca creeps invisibly down the rough tunnel behind the secret door until it opens into a larger chamber rank with mould, body odour, and rotten food. Several filthy mattresses lay haphazard in the room, which is occupied by a group of sorry-looking tieflings – a group Boecca assumes to be the ‘tunnel rats’ referred to by Lord-Mayor Aberian Arvanxi. As he scans the room, Boecca gets a strong scent of perfume – an intoxicating, musty aroma from another tunnel just to his left. Soon, a raven-haired, green-eyed beauty exits the tunnel. The woman wears nothing; her pearly skin glows luminescent in firelight. Despite her stunning beauty and lack of attire, Boecca’s eyes are drawn elsewhere – the pair of black bat-wings that extend from the woman’s back.
“I am rather bored,” the bat-winged woman says to the tieflings in the cavern. “Perhaps I will venture into the city and bring back some entertainment; you lot are a bit too filthy for my liking….”
Suddenly the woman glances in Boecca’s direction, as if sensing his presence.
“Wait, I sense something. A smell I recall. Hobgobin? Orc? There’s someone here!”
Treasure
· From the Nessian Spiral – The Spiral Walk
o Crystal tubes (6) (worth 600 gp – 100 gp each)
o Vials of Stygian water (value unknown)
Experience Awards
· Story Award (capturing and saving Jezeletrix) – 19,200 xp
· Steam mephits (4) – 3200 xp
· Story Award (deactivating cooling chamber #1) – 1600 xp
· Total – 24,000 xp
· Per PC (6) – 4000 xp
Current XP Total per PC
· Alizander, Carlos, Slavé – 49,535 xp each
· Alfred – 47,000 xp
· Boecca – 46,780 xp
· Tavo – 45,790 xp
· Nagiphax – 31,657 xp
· Damien Hellbent (cohort) – 22,360
· Total Current Fame Points – 15
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