Session 41 - Deaf and Dumb

23 Klarmont 1010

General Summary

The party decides to skin the Displacer Beasts, and gets one decent and one excellent skin in the process. Moving on to the east of the crystal room, they find a larger room with crystal columns. As they approach the columns, Shadow creatures, reminiscent of the one they encountered in the Sunless Citadel slip out from the columns, or perhaps from behind the columns, it is difficult to be sure with the lensing effects of the crystal. The party is much stronger and effective at combat compared to their early adventuring days, and they take down two of the four Shadows before they are even able to strike back; unfortunately, Tork is a bit weakened by the hit he takes. As they are shifting to clean-up mode on the shadows, a large, Yuan-ti with the body and head of a snake appears to emerge from thin air. He has a very impressive longbow, and starts shooting at Elincia. His first shot goes wide, but the second not only hits Elincia, it also strikes Stavos with the same arrow! It also hits pretty hard each times.
The party quickly deals with the final Shadow and closes in on the Abomination, forcing him into melee combat; clearly it expected the Shadows to hold back the party longer. Forced into close combat, he continues to be dangerous, but the party is far more effective at dealing with this situation. Elincia, stung by that hard shot from the bow pulls out a spell she has not used yet, and casts Blight on the abomination. This clearly hurts, and his skin visibly sags as moisture is ripped from his body, but it does not kill him. He continues to strike at the party with his tail, bites, and scimitar strikes, but their defensive prowess exceeds his offensive prowess, and their sheer numbers of hits against him take him down in just a couple more rounds.
Leo casts detect magic and, unsurprisingly, this longbow is magical. They strongly suspect this is the "Two-Birds Bow" that Winston told them of. Elincia claims the bow after confirming that nobody else is seeking it, and begins to study it's intricate details. The rest of the equipment that the Abomination has seems inferior and deteriorating. Even the quiver that appears to have once been quite nice is in very bad shape. Likely the quiver of the same hunter. They decide to skin the Abomination as well, as its hide looks potentially valuable. Once again, Tork expertly skins this creature.
Moving East again (there are many doorways from this room), they come to a room which glows with light emanating from everything. Leo sees that this is some form of magic with his detect magic and the color of the lights cycles through the rainbow Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, and back around to Red. Besides the interesting lighting, the room seems bare, with doors to the north and south. They try the north door first and, as they investigate the small storage room within, becomes clear that Elincia can no longer speak. She seems to want to, but no words come out.
The small room holds various chests, bags, and barrels. Leo can see that there is magic emanating from three items: the lock on the large chest, one of the sacks on the floor, and a large jug also on the floor. Leo picks up the jug, and removes the stopper to see if the jug itself is magical, or the contents. Inside, he finds some honey, and when he tastes it, it appears to be excellent honey, which he passes around to the party. They all agree that it is in fact excellent honey. Unsure what else to do with a magic jug of honey, they move on to the sacks on the floor - inside each they find 100 gold pieces. The magical bag, however, appears to be very similar to their Bag of Colding, but not chilled. This is another inter-dimensional portal for storage! Leo warns not to put this inside the Bag of Colding, as he has read of such things happening before, and tearing rifts into who-knows where - people caught nearby never being heard from again. He explains to the party that mixing two inter-dimensional portals would be "BAD". With the knowledge that the lock is magical, Leo attempts to pick it, but the party moves out of the room in case of "unexpected" results. Sadly, his pick breaks in the lock. Seraphina brushes him aside and strikes the lock with Shatterspike, destroying both the lock and its magic. Inside the chest they find a large number of very valuable gems. In total, they estimate the value of the contents of the room at over 2600gp! This should nicely offset the extra costs of the hunting licenses.
They head to the southern door in the rainbow colored room, and as Seraphina opens the door, Leo, Tork, and Seraphina lose their hearing, in contrast to whatever happened to Elincia's ability to speak. After some confusion as they try to communicate their plans for moving forward, they head down the hallway.
The hallway is dark, and appears to go nowhere. Suspicious of such construction, Tork takes a closer look, as Elincia casts Produce Flame and Leo casts Light on Stavos' shield. Tork quickly finds the hidden door, and pushes it open. Inside they find a room that appears to have been recently ransacked. There is another large throne, and a pair of benches. There are broken vials and chemicals all over the floor, as well as dripping from the table and hissing as the powders and liquids mix randomly. From this room there is a long hallway headed east beyond their sight and a door to the south. They decide after more awkward communication to go south first. Here they find a hallway leading to a large bedroom. There is a table, a chest, and a large bed. They don't find anything particularly valuable in the chest, and move on to the door west. In here, they find two more Yuan-Ti, who look ready for combat. They immediately move to attack, and after a few blows, one of them cowers and looks submissive saying something in a language that Stavos and Elincia (the only ones currently able to hear) can't understand, but seems like the same language as the ceremonies interrupted earlier. Leo, while he can not hear what is said, yells out for them to "drop your weapons, and we will not harm you."
They eventually are able to communicate with the woman in Thyatian - Stavos, who still has both his hearing and ability to speak, begins to negotiate with her. The two Yuan-Ti are Raggath (male) and Vigruth (Female), and she guesses that they are here to slay the false "Alphaks." She explains that their ancestors many generations ago attempted to summon Alphaks and have been under control of this creature ever since. Raggath and Vigruth have studied the temple and the ruins of the town enough to determine that this creature is not Alphaks, but an imposter. The False Alphaks pushes them to prepare for a great war against the world, but is unsatisfied with their progress. The False Alphaks is ruthless in sacrificing the villagers. After some confusion about their communication issues, she realizes that they have been cursed by the rainbow room door-traps. If the party agrees to not harm them or the rest of the villagers, and kill the False Alphaks, they can help them remove the curses, which will take about an hour for them to prepare for. The party likes this option and, after more confusing communication, they agree to the terms, adding in another requirement: that after the False Alphaks is destroyed, the village must interact peacefully with the other human settlements on the island. Both parties agree, and they take a break as the curse removal process is worked on.
Meanwhile, Elincia continues studying her new bow, and thinks she understands its magical properties by the end of the break. After their curses have been removed, and they can communicate smoothly together, they discuss various options on how to deal with the False Alphaks. Vigruth shares what she knows of the passageways east of here, and how to get to the False Alphaks, including that they will need to deal with a swarm of stirges, and navigate some passages. In the end, all of them agree that it might make sense to try to tackle this problem in the morning, getting a bit more refreshed before dealing with all the potential hazards and likely the powerful demon or immortal they will need to face in the end.
Once they decide this, Vigruth suggests the room to the West of here would be a good place for the part to rest. This room contains hot spring fed baths, and this looks excellent to everyone and is refreshing at first, though by morning they are a bit tired of the heat and humidity of the place. During the rest, Stavos starts awake as he receives a message from Kai, explaining that a combination of heavy rains and a stampede forced them to move the camp, so they are not exactly at the head of the valley, but are still waiting, and unharmed. Stavos replies that they are doing well, and may need another day or so to complete their tasks in the Valley. During his shift, Leo studies the magic jug of honey, and probably eats far more of it than is healthy, especially late at night. While he does not sleep particularly well after binging on honey, he does figure out its properties...

Character(s) interacted with

Kai

Report Date

07 Mar 2021