2023-07-15 Chasing Truthfinder Evandra
Player Characters
- Hyacinth
- Igneous
- Auri
- Essa
- Furifuru
Summary
After partying and recovering in Crow's Brook from the archestrylene leak in 2023-06-24 Scorch Alley Cultist Hunt, the party headed west along Scorch River to hunt more cultists.
A group of bulettes attacked. Auri stunned them with hypnotic pattern, and the party fled.
They party met some fishermen along the river. They spoke to a tiefling woman in the group, who had not seen cultists recently.
The party met the dwarf they had seen twice during 2023-06-24 Scorch Alley Cultist Hunt, who was returning to Tarvinkor after selling his metal. Furifuru gave him a pot, and said the word "genie". The dwarf dropped and broke the pot and panicked, fearing he'd killed the genie. Hyacinth gave the man a hyacinth before the party left him be.
The party arrived at The Lift. The gnome engineers told them about the cultists that seized the Lift a while back (recovered in 2023-03-21 Travel: Tarvinkor), but had not seen any new cultists recently that they were aware of.
The party traveled east toward the ritual site they found in the previous mission.
They passed by Spratcha Geyser and said hello to the old retired couple living in a cabin there.
The PCs came to Bullion Falls. Igneous discovered a hidden cavern behind the waterfall, and entered on foot. Tracks inside turned from humanoid to wolf prints. A scraggly man appeared and addressed the party, suspicious of their presence. He told them they should travel east to find cultists.
The party passed a raving madman who shouted at them about the end of the world, frozen fire, and birds not being real.
The PCs found the hoist, a temporary elevator built alongside a series of zigzagging laddered platforms that reached the top of Scorch Alley. Cultists with obsidian-black eyes guarded the place. Among them was a courier on hippogriff back.
- The party killed the anticlerics and paladins, as well as the courier.
- Essa tried to mount the hippogriff but was shaken off. Hyacinth knocked it down as it tried to flee, and was able to calm it down later.
- Auri teleported Essa and Igneous high upon the platforms, where they chased down the elevated cultists who tried to flee.
- Igneous reached the top of the wall a distance behind four cultists. He was a faster runner, and began to gain ground on them as they fled. The cultists each turned to cast hold person on him in a panic, but he maintained control of his muscules, fighting through the binding magic. He caught up to the cultists and hacked them down with his icy greataxe.
Igneous spoke to the hippogriff, who said that it liked to fly. The party calmed and befriended it.
Essa intimidated and interrogated the anticleric, whose name was Myla. Between claims about the destruction of all life, Myla told the party that she reported to Prongo, who carried out orders for Truthfinder Evandra. Evandra in turn served someone named Kimidan, a servant of the destroyer.
The party forced Myla to translate the courier's letters. Afterward, they threw her off the cliff.
The PCs used the hoist to raise their mounts to the top of the Alley and followed the cultists' trail and tracks, which led northward toward the Haunted Realm.
They passed through mists of the Haunted Realm in pursuit of the Cult/Claws of the Destroyer. The trail led up an ancient staircase into the Smokewhistle Mountains on the west edge of the Haunted Realm. A group of horse-drawn carts were parked upon a platform with a view of the nearby river. The party continued up the staircase on horseback.
After climbing the stairs for an hour, the party came across an ancient octagonal fort built into a mountainside. The stairs and fort were surrounded by a cliffside with a lethal fall.
Essa disguised herself as a cultist with the courier's satchel and moved ahead of the party. She hustled the doorman to open the door and let her in, which succeeded. The rest of the party charged toward the fort shortly afterward, starting a battle.
Furifuru disrupted the enemy with his "joker zone" while they tried to launch spells against the PCs.
Prongo, the wizardly overseer of the fort, unleashed powerful chain lightning spells upon the party. His shield guardian, the Pronginator, absorbed a lot of the damage he took. Auri teleported Prongo to the edge of the cliff, then telekinetically shoved him off, dropping him into the abyss below. Igneous struck down the Pronginator.
Essa snuck her way into the deepest chambers of the second floor of the fort, where she found herself face to face with a horned devil. The horned devil introduced himself as Mazlataz, trapped Essa in the room by blocking the door, and called out her deception. He demanded that she forfeit her soul or die, and when she refused, he began to attack with his deadly infernal pitchfork. Essa teleported out through a small window to escape back to the party.
Furifuru backed against the cliff to get away from the cultists, but one charged forward and tried to shove him off. The cultist nearly succeeded- time seemed to slow down as they tried to push the harengon into the abyss; Furi and Auri's combined silvery barbs saved him. Furi then slipped behind the enemy and blasted them off the edge with a wave of gravity.
Both harengons lept to the second floor to meet Essa. Hyacinth and Igneous finished off the remaining cultists and chosen, but Hyacinth was knocked unconscious. After Auri healed her, she teleported to the top floor to regroup with the party and face Mazlataz.
Mazlataz negotiated with the badly injured party. He offered them power in exchange for swearing their souls to him. He pointed out that if they continued to fight him, they had a decent chance of losing, with nothing to gain for winning, and insisted that it would be wisest to surrender instead. The heroes refused, and fought him with everything they had left.
Hyacinth critically smited Mazlataz with an uppercut swing of her flower staff. The blast of radiant energy permanently scarred the devil's chin and knocked one of his teeth out. Essa finished the conniving devil off with a swing of her nightmarish shadow blade.
The party looted the fort and claimed the horses from the parking ledge on their way home.
Side mini-missions
Malivette visited Torrace. Bazen Castle was under noticeably higher security.
Torrace reported how Princess Zynlow was missing, the Murids and Red Hand were waging war in Solaki, and three necrotic cystmotes were found and destroyed in different places (Wallcastle, Zymora, and Scorch Alley)
Mal convinced King Arnold Bazen III to admit him into the royal quarters to investigate the princess's disappearance.
Mal questioned servants and searched for clues. He concluded that the princess may have willingly fled, and was in disguise as a commoner, Low. The King began to mobilize the navy to travel to Solaki in search of her.
Balasar hocked up a ball of tendrils, something resembling a swirling sea urchin with an ethereal tail. The thing followed him around like an eldritch puppy, and seemed to like meat. Balasar considered euthanizing it, but decided to keep it for now.
Documents found
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