2023-01-21 Delve: The Scar
Player Characters
- Balasar
- Malivette
- Quasar
- Pocket
- Grey
Summary
The party acquired climbing gear in Crow's Brook. Malivette purchased a mountain goat mount for 40gp.
They traveled to The Scar and descended into it.
At the bottom, they found three pathways. They followed one that had significantly more footprints.
They discovered three black puddings pretending to be a pool of black liquid. The party destroyed them.
They found a room where a fight had occurred between adventurers and people wearing cloaks with a strange swirl symbol. There were signs of a person being dragged away ahead down the path. The party claimed a few spell scrolls from the corpses.
The group came to a four-way X-shaped intersection. A xorn popped out of the wall, demanding payment. Grey was able to communicate it using comprehend languages and telepathy combined. The party decided to give it 102gp, which satisfied the creature. It told them that many travelers who gave it gems had gone down one path, one path led to a dead end, and one path led to "something weird".
The PCs continued along the busier path. They found an armored man with black marble eyes. Grey used Yog to scout ahead, and discovered two chain devils sitting in wait just beyond the man.
As Malivette approached, the man looked up from his poetry book and said: "The silver river wakes my mind." Mal gave an uncertain response, but the man gestured to allow them through.
As the party passed the man, he and the devils sprang into action to fight off the intrusion. The party was able to defeat them.
Pocket snuck ahead. She saw three pathways, one which had voices coming from it. She checked a side path, and cast disguise self from a scroll when two cultists approached. Past them was a room with four cages: one empty, one with a scarred cycloptic dwarf, one with two battered women, and one with a bleeding wolf. She spoke to them and discovered that they were being kept to be sacrificed by the cultists. The other two cultists returned, and Pocket talked them into taking the wolf next instead of the humanoids.
Pocket freed the prisoners and led them back to the party. While everyone rested, the prisoners spoke of the cult of the destroyer, who seemed bent on killing and sacrificing anyone they could capture. Chaya (F human sorcerer), Myna (F elf archer), and the eye-scarred dwarf (did not speak) agreed to help the party.
The group traveled forward and saw a mass of cultists chanting. Some were armored, a chain devil stood in the back, an alchemy lab was set up in the back near the devil near some obsidian shards in the wall, a human woman leading the ritual stood over a raised pedestal with the injured wolf on it, and a cleric with the same dark swirl symbol stood nearby. Balasar decided to immediately cast a spell to disrupt the ritual, leading to initiative.
After a long and grueling battle, the party was victorious. Their allies fled with low HP, and the enemy leader seemed to intentionally attack each of them once. As they killed her, she reverted to her true form: a tigerlike rakshasa. As she was sent back to the Inferno, she made a promise to return soon. The party learned that this sect was a part of the Cult of the Destroyer.
They party claimed loot from cultists and past sacrifices. They found 2000gp and two magic rings.
- Pocket healed and befriended the wolf.
- Malivette found a ruby worth 1000gp, a component for the spirit forge.
- Quasar and Balasar investigated the "alchemy set", which was a pitcher, glasses, and a couple vials containing strange colorful liquid that Balasar had found before. There were 12 doses in total.
- Grey's patron commanded him to taste the liquid, but he refused and resisted.
On their way out, the party stopped by the other pathways of the xorn's intersection. One was indeed a dead end. The other was a large cylindrical room with stalagmites and stalactites, and a stretched chain lifting a blue primal crystals in the center of the room like a thin pedestal. Malivette stepped in to investigate it, and fell upward to the ceiling, luckily avoiding the stalactites. He then noticed two corpses among the spikes. The party used mage hand to grab the crystal, which disabled the reverse gravity effect. Mal and the corpses fell. The party found some gold on them.
On the way out, Mal labeled explored caves with chalk.
The PCs returned to Crow's Brook. On the way they discovered that most members of the party, as well as the scarred dwarf, were unable to rest due to the rakshasa's curse. Upon returning to town, Quasar inscribed the remove curse scroll and cast it on everyone to free them.
In Crow's Brook, Balasar gave information about the cultists to the Overseer's Office, who paid 200gp for it.
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