Chapter 7: Into the Dark

With the battle against the Duergar over, the party looted the dead and tied up their prisoner. Keladrien discovered a headband of dubious magical properties (later found to be a headband of intellect) on the Duergar leader and held on to the item. Kathra used her magic to force the Duergar prisoner to speak the truth, while the party questioned him. They learned that the Duergar serve the Great Whisperer, who is an Aboleth deep beneath the pyramid in Nesme. According to him, a tunnel nearby could lead them to the lair of the aboleth named Illuun. He revealed that the Duergar served him willingly as a sort of cult, and that the advisor to first speaker Gaeron Alondo might be a mind flayer. For the last six months, the Duergar had been fomenting the king's paranoia and making matters worse to cause chaos in the region. They also learned that a second entrance to the lair exists from within the pyramid.
With all the information they needed from him extracted, Kathra smashed his skull in with her hammer. The group decided to behead one of the other Duergar as proof and returned to the one-horned helm to report to Bergen Brightsmith. While waiting for the response, they visited a magic shop built into the hull of an airship fused to the rock in a deep cavern beneath the city. The old gnome wizard running the place was named Fezzik, and he explained that he had once been an adventurer traveling the planes with a group of adventurers. After crashing his ship, he had tried to teleport it back to the material plane and miscalculated, landing in the cavern instead and fusing the remains of the ship to the stone. Thus he had decided to set up shop there. The group questioned him about aboleths, and learned that they are aquatic creatures and that the water they live in is very dangerous. Keladrien purchased some fine inks and paper for transcribing spells, and Kathra purchased diamonds for use in revivification spells.
They returned to the tavern and found a note to meet with Brightsmith at the same location as before. When they met him there, Garn Silveraxe also waited for them. They were appalled that Duergar had infiltrated the city and paid the group for taking care of the issue. When the party asked about help against the aboleth, the Dwarves suggested they may be able to help guide them through the underdark--if they agreed to help their cause when the time came. The party agreed, and left for Nesme the next day.
Back in Nesme, a letter awaited Keladrien at Hawk's inn. The Knights in Silver of Silverymoon needed help dealing with a thieves' guild in the market and asked him and his fellows to assist. The group considered it, but chose to visit the first speaker in the morning. Nightmares continued to plague them, deeply affecting some in the party. In the morning, they visited First Speaker Alondo and noticed a tense atmosphere in the city. Arguments, fighting, and general sour moods pervaded the streets of Nesme. As they met with the first speaker and revealed everything they knew, he summoned forth his advisor Torun Markon. Upon hearing the accusations, he abandoned all pretenses and shifted into his natural form as a Mind Flayer. The Mind Flayer took the first speaker hostage, but the party were quick on the attack and managed to free him and slay the creature before it could act. Now convinced of their tale, the first speaker asked the group to deal with the threat of the aboleth and save the city. As repayment for saving his life, Alondo gave the group the remaining funds they needed to repay their debts. As each member of the party took the last gold they needed, it suddenly vanished along with their brands. Their bank funds were equally diminished to repay the debt, but they found themselves free at last.
The group rested for the night and gathered their supplies, then headed down into the pyramid once more. They traveled to the portal chamber they had previously discovered, where Keladrien summoned his familiar and sent it into the portal to scout (after raising a skeleton from the dead from the pyramid's many corpses and skeletons). Once assured of the safety of the portal, the rest of the group followed. Inside, they found a structure made of smooth obsidian, eerily illuminated in oscillating colors. As they ventured deeper into the lair, they came across a group of Duergar amongst pits of refuse. Keladrien fired a fireball at them, killing them instantly. As he did so, two Otyugh erupted from the refuse and attacked. The battle was fierce, but eventually the party slew them both. They traveled then into a chamber filled with green slime, the walls covered in eyes that stared them down and affected them in various ways (from slowing them, to pushing them telekinetically and even charming Pan to attack Kathra). As they pushed further into this chamber, they encounted two creatures--rubbery flesh orbs covered in tentacles with milky white eyes at the ends. The creatures assaulted them with eye rays that diminished them, before attacking with vicious bites and grasping tentacles. Nalzmyr was grappled by one creature and stunned. Keladrien blasted them with spells, commanding his skeleton to attack. Pan and Sai battled the creatures, each nearly dying to their deadly attacks and debilitating eye rays. Kathra healed their wounds and hindered the creatures with her clerical magic. Eventually, both creatures were killed and the party was left badly wounded and exhausted. They pushed further into the lair, reaching a door intricately carved with depictions of stars, distant worlds and tentacles. Another door led to an underdark passage, revealing that the lair seemed to have violently plunged into the underdark at some point in the past. The group chose to rest there for some time, healing wounds and rejuvenating for an hour. The next door will likely lead them to the master of the lair, the aboleth Illuun...