2023-06-24 Scorch Alley Cultist Hunt
Player Characters
- Furifuru
- Auri
- Essa
- Igneous
- Hyacinth
Summary
The party started in Crow's Brook. While observing life in the anarchic city, they saw a group of five strong-looking human men bullying a group of three half-orcs. The lead human threw the lead half-orc's hat on the ground and stomped on it before leaving.
The party approached the downtrodden man. They offered help, and the man introduced himself as Visker. Visker was sad that the hat, a gift from his late father, was torn. Auri mended it for him.
Visker explained that there were bullies here and there in Crow's Brook like the one he had just faced off with. This man was named Buxton, and was well known as a jerk.
Visker loved how fluffy Furifuru was, and complimented Igneous's muscule. He asked the party to help him rough up Buxton to teach him a lesson. He noted that Buxton's group had just entered the Hobbling Hobgoblin, a brawl-happy tavern and the perfect place for a scrap. The PCs agreed to join.
The eight of them headed to the tavern. The bouncers required everyone to deposit weapons and spellcasting foci, which they mostly did.
Essa approached Buxton and threatened him, dagger to his neck. Buxton responded by swatting the knife, and the fight broke out. The party ganged up on the bully, and once he was unconscious, Furi and Auri used their combined mage hands to tie his hands, hang him from the ceiling by his wrists, dropped his pants, and inked a moustache on his face.
Essa, Igneous, and Hyacinth used what weapons they could improvise or sneak in to beat up Buxton's squad alongside Visker. Tankards, glasses, and other trinkets flew across the room during the fight; many neutral patrons joined in the brawl. Multiple of the self-repairing windows were shattered by flying bodies.
Victorious, the party rushed out of the tavern. Visker thanked them and handed them 100gp and a night's inn fee. The party rested in Klud's Kastle.
The next day, they visited the Overseer to ask about the cultists. The halfling who answered offered a reward of 200 to 1000gp for information or capture of members of the Cult of the Destroyer.
While traveling through the desert, they passed a friendly dwarf merchant moving a cart of metal to Salmund to be used in the spirit forge.
While traveling through the desert, they passed a friendly dwarf merchant moving a cart of metal to Salmund to be used in the spirit forge. The man and his guards were identical to the previous one, and the party investigated his wagon and questioned him. The man was confused, and became defensive, demanding they leave him alone. The party let him be.
As dusk fell, the party found a scorch berry patch among three standing boulders. Bandits popped out from behind the stones, demanding their gold. Hyacinth challenged the leader to a duel to settle the situation. She decimated the leader with a critical smite from the staff of flowers, sprouting hyacinths from his falling corpse. The rest of the bandits forfeited their money and fled for their lives.
They camped at the berry patch for the night.
The next day, the party arrived at the largest of the Scorch Alley plateaus. A ritual site was laid in plain sight beside an abandoned campsite. Bones and blood formed a circle containing a pentagram, and the Destroyer's emblem was drawn in blood on skulls forming the circle.
They found a note written in infernal left in the camp. Only Furi could comprehend languages, so he tried to translate it to the others in broken common. Eventually, with the help of Hyacinth's telepathic sword, they were able to understand the cults' imminent plans: to spill archestrylene into Scorch River while the sect leader, Evandra, left northward toward something called the "hoisting point". They called the river contamination plan "The Leak".
The party decided to rush to the river, following the horde of footprints and cart tracks.
They found cultists pouring barrels of silvery fluid into the river, guarded by spined devils. They rushed to the barrels to stop the spillage. Igneous carried multiple barrels away from the river while riding atop Silver. The river pollution spawned a water weird, which attacked anyone near the water (mostly cultists).
The PCs defeated the cultists and claimed 60 doses of archestrylene.
Auri and Essa rushed overnight toward Crow's Brook to warn the city. They battled with exhaustion, riding through the night nonstop atop moderately fast draft horses. When they found a camp of fishermen, they stole the campers' faster riding horses apologetically.
At a different river camp, Essa explained what was happening to the campers. She convinced one of them, a wizard named Lang, to take her horse and ride on in her stead.
Auri made it to Crow's Brook at dawn without stopping, despite overwhelming levels of exhaustion. She explained the situation to the Overseer's office. Lang was not far behind her, and the Overseer had received a letter from Furi's hawk corraborating the contamination situation.
Three halflings from the Overseer's office rushed about town, searching for all the divine casters they knew about. They told each one to prepare purify food and drink, and led a huge group of them to Glimmer Lake, where the silvery pollution was taking root.
The PCs had persuaded enough people to take the gravity of the situation seriously that the response was effective. The army of spirit-speakers were able to cleanse the lake of the contaminant, and they convinced people to avoid drinking the water in the meantime.
The party were lauded as heroes of Crow's Brook. When the rest of the party arrived a day later, The Overseer paid them all a total of 2000gp and took in the two captive cultists.
Hyacinth got a job bouncing at the Hobbling Hobgoblin.
+ Heroes of Crow's Brook: You never pay inn fees in this city, and residents are happy to buy you drinks. You have advantage on charisma checks with residents of this city.
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