Into the Underground

General Summary

When the party awoke, they headed into various parts of town to take care of personal affairs. Precision headed to find a blacksmith to sharpen her axe, while Erevan sought out some protective armor. Lethe headed to buy spell transcription supplies, and while shopping encountered a down-on-his luck lizardfolk shopkeeper named Jee-Kai who was dealing with racially-motivated harassment and vandalism. Lethe did business with him and told the lizardfolk to seek him out if he needed assistance.
Later that night, the party headed to the Five Brothers Inn where they were escorted to the back room by Celbahr to meet with Ra'zik. The party asked Ra'zik who their supplier was, he said that he quite deliberately knew very little due to New Dawn's decentralized nature; a method of ensuring that no matter what, no one person could be forced to give up enough information to bring the group down. What he did know however was that his second-in-command Ricgard Ciendric had been dealing with a mysterious benefactor, and that Ciendric was currently sitting in prison. Ra'zik said that he might be persuaded to use his connections within the city guard to extract information from Ciendric, if the party did him a favor first.
He said that archaeologists from the Roselawn Academy had been excavating the Volarian Kingdom ruins beneath the city for years now, and that he had heard from his contacts that the archaeologists were getting close to breaking through into an area that held great treasure. He wanted this treasure, and his men had been attempting to secretly dig into the ruins themselves. Unfortunately, they were attacked by something and several were killed. He wanted the party to clear out whatever was down there so his men could get to the treasure before the archaeologists.When prodded Ra'zik very bluntly informed the party that he would rather risk their lives than his own men's, because he neither knows nor cares about the group. This perceived slight angered Precision who lashed out with her axe at Ra'zik in an attempt to intimidate him, but the blow was much more powerful than Precision intended and the man fell dead to the floor. The room erupted into chaos and Lethe used a spell to hold everyone in place, and in the confusion noticed a shimmer across Celbahr's face. When Lethe inquired about it Celbahr applauded his observant nature and revealed himself to be Ra'zik in disguise, and that the man they were speaking to was actually Celbahr. Ra'zik still maintained that he needed a favor for a favor but apologized for his decoy's rudeness. The party agreed and asked what danger they would face. Ra'zik called for a man named Jake, who had been part of the previous excavation attempt.
Jake said that when the group had first begun digging the tunnel, they had disturbed the nest of a large spider-like creature. They lost a few men but managed to push the creature back into its nest. The other miners had continued excavating while he built a barricade to keep the spider in its cave. Just as he finished, he heard the miners shout that they had successfully broken through. As he went to meet them, he heard screaming and saw the miners being swarmed by hundreds of small bug-like creatures. He had fled after that. The party agreed to take on the danger as long as Jake went with them, and after a brief drink they were shown through the basement of the Five Brothers into the entrance of the mines.
In the mines, Jake led the group to where they had left off the digging, and between Precision and Lethe's unseen servant they were able to push into the Volarian ruins. Finding themselves in an ancient bedroom they began exploring. They found the place infested with some sort of arachnid creatures that Precision was able to identify as chuul spawn, which killed Jake almost immediately. After a long slog through the ruins they eventually reached what they presumed to be the treasure: a large vein of natural arcaltium. As they approached it, they noticed a massive chuul feeding on the crystals, which rushed out to attack them.

Chapter Fourteen

"Into the Underground"

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Previous Chapter: Trouble in the Tasrand Forest

Next Chapter: Stiff As A Board

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Ingame Date: 10-11^th of Rainseed, 1855
Real-Life Date: August 2, 2020
Protagonists:

• Precision
• Lethe Argie
• Erevan

Featured NPCs:

• Jee-Kai
• Ra'zik
• Celbahr

Locations:

• Roselawn
• Roselawn Volarian Excavation