Session 2: Learning Chains' Story

General Summary

Beginning the Adventure

• As all good D&D adventures do, you began the day in Sir Louis' Fine Drinks and Famous Meats tavern. Philip had left for the evening, while Nayries and Viribus had exited, but both returned. In the morning, two Sharn Watchers confronted the group about a dead body outside the tavern. Viribus confessed to being responsible for it, and claimed it was in self-defense. Using the power of his silver tongue, he managed to talk down the guard, though his friend did make a note before exiting.
• N'nchyk and Viribus had a brief conversation about Viribus' homeland, while Theobald took Dooturr aside for a brief conversation.
• The party, by the direction of their new ally Philip (who seemed to know the city well), entered the sprawling Bazaar in Middle Dura, home to several stalls and makeshift shops. Behind it, they found several dwarves in orange uniforms cleaning several familiar-looking mangled corpses of a minotaur and two gnolls.

Appointment with a Warforged

• Philip led the party to the seedy Lower Tavick's Landing, a lower ward filled with garbage and crumbling houses in the shadows of the towers of Sharn. On their way to the Gear Crank, N'nchyk was approached by an individual with wide, unblinking eyes, gray, gaunt skin, and an oddly stiff gait. The individual gave him a piece of parchment, which N'nchyk elected to read privately and turned to ash moments later.
• The Gear Crank was a rather decrepit dive bar filled with equally decrepit warforged, with damaged bodies and missing limbs, but with apparent high spirits in each other's company. The party members with flesh were regarded warily, but Dooturr was given a warm welcome.
• The bartender hesitantly pointed out Chains, a nimbly-constructed warforged with accents of red paint and a missing arm. She was circumspect at first, but the mention of the Clifftop Adventurer's Guild seemed to put her at relative ease. She gave the party the following information:
  • Chains and her friend Razor struggled to find work when they first came to Sharn. They were eventually recruited - almost forced into labor - by Alden d'Orien, a prominent member of House Orien.
  • Their job was to dig through a remote section of the Cogs, the ruins underneath Sharn. They were tasked with finding a powerful item among the ruins, though Chains could not do her job well with a missing limb.
  • Chains said that the conditions she was working under were horrible, and the warforged were supervised by horrendous demonic creatures. She said one of which that was reprimanding her for her poor work was a horrible creature with matted fur, long fangs, and a brutal bloodied weapon. She also overheard a conversation between a silky-voiced woman and an unexplainable demonic voice, discussing the kidnapping of the son of Alden d'Orien.
• It was at this moment that Chains was interrupted by a fiery explosion near her head, causing mayhem in the Gear Crank and provoking Chains to flee.

Pursuit Through the Lower Ward

• The party chased after Chains, who chose to flee from the party and climb a wall via metal pipes, stacked crates, and indents in the crumbling stone wall. The party gave relentless pursuit, with mixed success in climbing the wall.
• They discovered a squad of orcs and kobolds pursuing a damaged Chains. Ashpin and Viribus both briefly questioned one of the orcs who had stumbled on the crates, who said they were pursuing a murderer, who he indicated as Chains, immediately before Nayries dismembered him with one stroke of his arcane blade.
• A rather lopsided battle ensued, with several members of the hit squad fleeing into the streets of Lower Tavick's Landing. One orc who showed arcane aptitude chose to surrender, which N'nchyk elected to ignore and shot a necrotic-looking hand at the orc. The rest of the group managed to placate him and question the orc, who was named Bugby. Chains managed to finish her story, saying that her friend Razor ended up being murdered by a demonic-looking centaur. She said that the warforged also managed to find something - some unknown artifact. Additionally, she detailed the means of her escape - though it was rather unhelpful, as she seemed completely oblivious as to how it happened, only describing a flash of purple light and waking up in the streets covered in a strange orange liquid.
• While one of the kobolds said that he and the other kobold were just mercenaries, Bugby claimed that she and the other orcs were members of the Harbingers of Aegis, and were tasked by their lieutenant Shiksu to terminate Chains, as Shiksu had indicated the warforged to be a murderer. She also acknowledged that it was not unusual for their lieutenants to task them with strange-seeming missions. Chains vehemently denied this, and claimed that it was all too convenient that a hit squad had been sent after her after she had blown the whistle on the goings-on of the activities in the Cogs.
• Maleakos, who has a knack for knowing such obscure bits of information, recalled from his studies that the Harbingers of Aegis is a rather esoteric religious organization that has attempted to keep the peace of Khorvaire for centuries, perhaps even millennia. An example of such was the conflict of Lake Brey around 118 YK, where a territorial dispute was mysteriously resolved - Bugby stated the Harbingers were responsible.
• The conflicted party sought the advice of Philip, who said he trusted the judgment of Theobald - who had said to help Chains and return her to the Loft. The party bound and gagged Bugby, and set off to do just that.

Returning to the Loft

• Upon making Wisdom saving throws while walking through the streets of Sharn, the party couldn't help but feel as though they were being watched, and a sense of paranoia set in. The crowd grew closer, the looks became stranger, and the feeling became stronger - until they ran into some seedy-looking halflings who seemed to know Maleakos, N'nchyk, and Ashpin.
• They were rather rude, and caused a bit of a scene in the crowded walkway. The commotion caught the attention of a large orc, who noticed Bugby over the shoulders of Nayries, and also caught sight of Chains. Nayries and the large orc engaged in an intense staredown, which Nayries definitely won, the orc falling at his feet.
• Another skirmish ensued in the streets, with orcs, tritons, and tortles ambushing the party. The crowd fled as the battle heated up, but again the party did not seem to have much problem handling themselves. Throughout the battle, however, arrows were flying at some party members from a second-floor story of what ended up being a warehouse. Those who were able to see it caught a glance of a creature with matted brown fur and horrible fangs.
• Once the party approached, one of the familiar-looking creatures revealed that they had three bound hostages, one of which the creature snapped the neck of and threw off the platform, landing dead on the ground with her neck dangling at an awkward angle.
• While most of the party prepared to enter the warehouse, N'nchyk returned to the bound, gagged, and helpless Bugby, and again tried to kill her with his club while no one else was around. He was only pacified when Maleakos hurried back to him, and Philip questioned his animosity against the orc.
• Once again returning to the entrance of the warehouse, the party bravely kicked down the door and entered the dim room to hunt down these pathetic gnolls.

The Battle of the Warehouse

• The party discovered a rather banal warehouse of flour, corn, and other crops - before a feeling of awful dread set in, and a horrendous creature emerged from the shadows, leaving a crate no more than a pile of necrotic waste. The air grew cold and clammy, and a rattling breath emerged from the shadowed figure. Two party members, body trembling and eyes wide, immediately fell unconscious as the terror was too much to bear.
• A frightening battle ensued, with death brushing close to everyone in the party. Viribus shot arcane blast after arcane blast, all while trying to keep their prisoner Bugby alive. N'nchyk bludgeoned it with his sea-themed club while it shrugged off his necrotic and poison attacks. Ashpin helped keep others alive while wielding the effective arcane blade of Nayries, and managed to direct some of the undead's damage back at itself. Dooturr kept his distance with his shortbow, before returning to the thick of battle. Philip stood on his last leg while trying to keep everyone alive. Nayries, who had already fallen several times, tried to restrain the creature to facilitate a retreat, but his allies did not want to leave him behind. His owl tragically fell to a gnoll arrow to the chest. Maleakos blasted it with thunderous guitar riffs and vicious insults.
• It took a massive effort to finally drag the creature back to the grave, after which it melted away into the ground, leaving only its cloak and the necrotic waste it had created. The party barely stumbled out of the warehouse, fleeing from the gnolls that had seemingly lured them in the warehouse in the first place. Limping, hurting, barely alive, the party collapsed into the streets of Sharn.

Character(s) interacted with

• Chains, the one-armed warforged laborer
• Bugby, an orc from the Harbingers of Aegis that was hunting Chains, claiming she was a murdeer

Created Content

• Gear Crank 
• Harbingers of Aegis 

Date begun:
2 Zarantyr, 998 YK
Date ended:
2 Zarantyr, 998 YK
Party level:
3

Report Date

26 Dec 2020

Primary Location

Sharn