9th session

General Summary

The party awakens the following day, feeling worn down by the previous day’s bloodbath. Tauflin expresses some concern about Adrie’s bloodthirstiness, but she largely dismisses them. The first half of the day is spent burying the bodies of two smugglers, two gnolls, and Wren. The party also deals with three more centipedes that crawl out from under the sink. After lunch, another rest, and more reading about Gethen cryptozoology and cryptogeology, as well as ancient elvish legends about their sunken homeland, Adrie, Tauflin, Aster, and Kothar head back down into the cellar to search the skeleton room, while Brandon stays to keep watch upstairs, fully expecting Sanballat and his men to return. In the cellar, the four fight off one more skeleton, which was either left unfinished, or was somehow reanimated. Then, the secret door in the room is finally opened, to reveal the secret chamber of Trevisian Helmont, the alchemist (and Brandon’s uncle). The alchemist sits dead in a chair, surrounded by alchemical equipment, and products of apparently successful experiments to transmute base matter into gold – a skull, an apple, a rose, and five nondescript disks. He is also reading a book called The Secret of the Philosopher’s Stone, with extensive marginal notes. As the party heads back upstairs, Kothar tries to force upon the locked door, which Tauflin ends up having to burn down, damaging some of the furniture inside in the process. The room looks to have been Sanballat’s private quarters. It is stripped bare, but the occupant left a note on the bed, warning whoever finds it to “Take Care”.

Report Date

23 Sep 2017