2024-04-13 Among the Spires
Player Characters
- Essa
- Balasar
- Tarhun
- Green
- Hyacinth
Summary
The party debated where to search around central Solaki. They researched ruins in the area and learned about the Suntouch ruins and Makilara Castle.
They traveled to the Makilara Castle Ruins. The place was quiet, long abandoned and looted, and they recalled that stories claimed it was haunted. They saw a statue of a strong man raising an axe in the air as he stepped onto a stone, with a severed dragon head at his feet.
They followed up Suntear River to the Suntouch Spires. As they grew close to the spires, the air was obscured by mist. They could only see within 15 ft.
Tarhun avoided a covered pit trap filled with poisoned punji stakes. Balasar identified the poison as snakeroot, a kind originating from Feather Island and often used by the yuan-ti.
Green narrowly avoided a self-launching rope dart trap on a 25 ft long rope. He tugged gently on it, expecting it to be held by someone, but discovered that it was attached to a totem that enchanted it to lash out at nearby creatures. Hyacinth took the poisoned dagger off. As they walked past, the rope lashed at Green again harmlessly. They pulled its totem out of the ground to deactivate it, and continued on.
Tarhun fabricated a wooden riot shield and the party followed behind him. It deflected more enchanted rope darts as they advanced.
Green flew up 900 ft on his pegasus in order to see over the mist, but was still surrounded by it at that height.
They found some sunken stone ruins. Glyphs of warding and pit traps were positioned nearby. As they investigated, Essa and Junior detected the sound of breath and tensioned rope. They prepared to fight.
Yuan-ti attacked: hunched broodguards, snake-headed mind whisperers, and a blue spirit naga. The PCs took one mind whisperer prisoner after slaying the rest.
Green questioned the captured mind whisperer, who expressed her love for Kadru the Death Serpent, the goddess of the yuan-ti. After some religious debate, the party learned that the warlock wanted to ascend to snakedom, and that Kadru considered Garuda her enemy. Green tried to recruit the mage, who pretended to acquiesce. Essa saw through the deception and stabbed the deceiver.
They entered the central ecliptical zone within the spires, heading toward the right-side spire wall within the dark mist. They tried to stealth past a torchlight-wielding patrol in the darkness, but were detected, leading to another battle.
During the battle, a nightmare speaker blew a warning horn. The party dispatched the patrol quickly and rushed into the building ahead, visible only by diffused torchlight.
The building was an armory. Hyacinth sensed the desecration of an shrine that resembled a caduceus: an upward-pointed spear with a yellow-and-black painted serpent coiling around it. A bowl of dried blood was set at its base. Green destroyed the shrine.
They collected gems and magic items from the room, including a dagger of venom and a gadget mace.
They left the building and soared over the approaching yuan-ti patrols with pegasi and winged boots. From above, they heard a cry of pain from one direction. They descended near the sound and found a ruined building that had been repurposed as a prison and torture chamber. They defeated the torturers and rescued four prisoners.
- One prisoner was Lord Kyoro Tunaro. Tunaro was pleased to see Tarhun again, and gave him the Gogglehelmet of Secretseeking, a prototype he had been building that he didn't want the yuan-ti to have.
- One prisoner was a green dragonborn woman named Kurage Nakimoto. Recognizing that Balasar was a wizard, she suggested he visit Breezeville and ask for the soup of the day three times at the inn, so that they could meet again.
- The prisoner currently on the torture rack was a human woman. Green consoled her and asked what the yuan-ti wanted from her. She replied that they wanted more of the merchandise she had been selling, and told the party to keep that merch as a reward. Inside the box were twenty pairs of different colored color-changing contact lenses that would magically fit the eye they were inserted into, produced and sold by Norilux Couture.
- Hyacinth spoke to the fourth prisoner, a strong-looking man named Isaiah, who turned out to be a scion of House Modus. She asked to spar with him, and he agreed to a duel once he made it home and recovered. Isaiah demanded to be taken back home to Kumastead, promising a reward for his safe return.
- Balasar teleported the prisoners to Morningshade City to safety.
- The PCs flew up the spires to find perching spots safe from the searching patrols of yuan-ti and took a short rest.
- They flew back to the river's entrance, blew a patrol horn into Hyacinth's horn of blaring for extra exaggeration, and flew over the investigating snakefolk guards toward the domed building. They landed at the base of the stairs in front. Two burning braziers sat on either side of the staircase, and the facade of the building was supported by stone columns.
- They entered the dome-topped structure. The inside was set up as a lavish lounge with harems and the scent of hookah. On each side of the entrance was an enormous shrine to Kadru, each with a basin of sacrificed blood. Two huge five-headed yuan-ti anathemas presided over a cabal of mages from two thrones. Green traded insults with the two overlords, promising to smite them with Garuda's fury, and the fight ensued.
- The PCs emerged victorious. They looted gold and art from the makeshift palace's coffers, and found a note implicating an alliance between the snakefolk and House Quarion.
- They discovered a fake illusory wall at the back of the room. Beyond was a musty campsite, where they found a map and journal written by Vak.
- They flew around the center of the spires, attacking whatever yuan-ti they saw. They found warm steam pits and hot springs around the area containing yuan-ti eggs, which they destroyed before leaving.
- As the party marched through the forests to return to civilaztion, an amnizu devil stepped out of a portal to hell, surrounded by an entourage of merregons. He introduced himself (repeatedly) as Authizyr, Master of Pride. He told the PCs how he was annoyed that they destroyed his "playthings"; the yuan-ti had been allies of his. He offered them a deal that would have them replace the snakefolk's role in his plans: they would receive nearly anything they asked for, possibly including warlock powers, in exchange for finding and destroying a dragon that walked among humanoidkind somewhere in Solaki. He warned them that this dragon was dangerous, and tried to assure them that they would be safer once it was removed. He refused to provide direct information about the dragon until they agreed to the deal.
- The party refused Authizyr's offer, demanding more information. He conjured an illusory image of the statue they had seen at Makilara Castle: the human standing proudly over a dragon's head. The dragon that walked among them, disguised as a humanoid, bid ill will to their kind. He warned that they could not sleep soundly knowing that it might unleash its vengeance at any time. The PCs asked the dragon's name, but Authizyr did not share it, demanding a contract first.
- The PCs refused the offer. Authizyr blasted them with arcane energy in disgust, then bid them adieu as he and his companions stepped through another portal to hell and vanished.
- The party returned to Morningshade City to find the people they had saved, then ventured to Kumastead to receive Isaiah's promised reward. The man greeted them with gratitude, asking whether they wanted gold or favors from House Modus.
- Green and Hyacinth's favors were were waitlisting for +3 armor constructed in Kumastead's Forge of Solar Glory.
- Essa, Balasar, and Tarhun showed Isaiah the letter from House Quarion, alerting him that the nature house had an alliance with the evil yuan-ti. This information, along with their three owed favors combined, was exchanged for a strong favor for the Inkpot Gods to be settled by House Modus at a later time.
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