Session XVIII - 29.12.2020

General Summary

• The party arrived at a structure built on the side of a mountain that the resident call Fort Knucklebone. Once inside they are greeted by Mad Maggie, the night hag that runs the place, and her friendly minion Mickey, an enormous flesh golem stitched together from several devil body parts.

• Fort Knucklebone is divided into three main areas, occupying the gaps between the "fingers" of the mountain. The main door open to the central plaza where merchants and visitors loiter about. The gap on the right of the main plaza is reached through a tunnel in the finger and contains the workshop where legions of red-caps repair, maintain, and augment the infernal vehicles that Maggie's crew uses to scavenge battlefields and debries in the wastelands. Finally, the left gap contains a residential area of sort, where travelers can find inns and food, and where the residents rest.
• Maggie seems friendly to the party and genuinely interested in what news the bring (always exciting when mortals come visit Avernus!). The party is evasive and makes up a story about being planar traders on their way through Avernus.
• Maggie reveals that she is also a traveler among the planes, she just has a lot more time on her hands. She came to Avernus a loong time ago looking to uncover the details of Zariel's fall from grace. When she realized she would need to stay here a lot longer than she thought, she set up a small scavenging operation that, in time, grew to be Fort Knucklebone.
• Maggie shows interest in Lulu, and judges that her amnesia is due to either falling in, or drinking from the waters of the river Styx. She proposes a trade to the party: Maggie will perform a ritual to restore Lulu's memories, but in return she needs some artifact or token of Zariel's past.
• The party is suspicious and decide to wander a bit the fort before making a final decision. They decide to inquire about the Wandering Emporium, Lulu's last known location on Avernus before being rescued and brought to the material plane by the mages of Candlekeep.
They first ask a humanoid with raven features (large beak, feathers all over) for news of the emporium. The merchant mentions that it was here just two weeks ago, and one of his contacts mentioned that the caravan would move south. Athanatos also tried to sell some of the goods he brought from the material plane, learning that two bars of soap go for around 3 soul coins in these parts.
• The party next wandered into the maintenance yard, where hordes of furious redcaps move about to repair the infernal vehicles used by Maggie's band. Here they met Barnabas, a human wizard who got beaten by a rival and turned into a flameskull (a type of undead being, literaly a skull on fire). The party learns that his rival, another wizard named Alakrass, made a bargain with Maggie and gave Barnabas to her as part of this deal.

• Barnabas complains of missing a tooth, he lost it when he got hit by a flying wrench thrown about by some redcap. He's convinced one of the tiny creatures still has the tooth about! Jo discovers a redcap suspiciously interested in the conversation, and confronts it. In a hurry to look innocent, the redcap throws a small satchel to another redcap and starts running away screaming. The courtyard quickly turns into a buzzing mass of screaming redcaps throwing this small satchel at each other, none wanting the responsibility of having it on them. The madness is ended by Barakas, that casts a mage hand and deftly intercepts the satchel, revealing inside the missing tooth that the redcaps were keeping as a lucky charm.
• After restoring Barnabas' visage, the flameskull is eager to help the party, and takes time to explain about the different kinds of vehicles present in the courtyard. The party mentions that they're trying to find a specific place in Avernus, a citadel covered by an infernal pustule. Barnabas cannot help, but points the party to the tower of Ulm, the residence of the famous wizard Mordenkainen. He might be able to help.
• Barnabas is also asked about the wandering emporium, the rumors he's heard say that the emporium is heading North, to the Mirror of Mephistar.
• Finally, the party goes back to Maggie, and after some bargaining, decides to reveal that Lulu was indeed Zariel's companion. Maggie is ecstatic at the news and decides to help set up the ritual to restore lulu's memories. For this she will need several components:

1. A soul conductor
2. A strand of unicorn tail
3. A pit fiend's blood
4. And the fragment of a scale of Tiamat

• Maggie comes up with a proposition to help the party and help herself. A scavenging war machine recently went missing while trying to dig up scrap at a nearby battle site. If the party manages to bring it back safely, she'll lend it to them, so gathering the components for the ritual will be easier. For this she assigns Frick and Frack, two redcap engineers, as assistance to repair the war machine. She promises she'll have more details in the components when they're back.

Report Date

29 Dec 2020