Campaign 3 - Session 4 - Grave Robbers and the Sorceress
The session starts during the great feast of the lesser god Deathwing. During the glow of the bonfire Jazel trained with Choppa while Atoone lead the refugees in constructing a memorial where Deathwing fell at the hand of Jazel the God Slayer. During the training, Choppa discovered that her new apprentice Killa Dakka Waa had vision issues and thus kept missing her mark in training. Amleth had a heart to heart with Gud'rune. Amleth expressed how disappointed he is on how Gud'rune has been behaving lately. How she solves all her problem with her sword, and no longer tries to solve problems with her words. It was at this time that Gud'rune noticed the call of the red book she had stowed away. Was the book changing her? Was it filling her with rage? She knew she needed to consult with Atoone.
Gud'rune pulls Atoone aside far from earshot of the others and quickly discovers that the Tortle sage's arm has been corrupted. Atoone explains that she removed the corruption from Deathwing's spirit and as a result of that cleansing Atoone's arm had been tainted. But then Atoone revealed a crystalline sword that she used to transfer Deathwing's corruption to. Apparently during the transfer the sword was transformed into this crystalized form and anything that comes near it has its magic properties muted. Atoone handed the sword to Gud'rune and instantly Gud'rune felt the anger leave her body and her mind no longer muddled by the effects of the demonic book. Gud'rune examined the book and noticed all its pages have become blank while in the sword's presence. Atoone and Gud'rune agreed that this book is far to dangerous to let it fall into the wrong hands.
After a good night's rest, the party separated with Astrid along with the refugees and made their way into the Royal Umber Family Tomb in hopes of finding Mountain Clan soldiers to help escort Princess Jazel back to the capital city of Bulwark.
Upon their arrival tho, they found the usually sealed gates to the tomb wide open and no guards in sight. Jazel rushed inside to investigate with the rest of the party following in tow.
Inside, Atoone and Gud'rune explain to the children that the tomb is a massive aqueduct of ancient elder pipes and water spouts. There are no hallways connecting the rooms between what seem like bottomless pits. To traverse the tomb, the Mountain Clan have tamed Cavern Crawlers, massive beetle creatures that walk upside down on the ceiling pipe lines, to ferry people from room to room. To ride the Cavern Crawler, one must simply pluck one of the yellow bellflowers that grow in the tomb and ring them over head causing the crawler to scuttle over to eat the flower.
The main entrance showed signs that a group of Merfolk had rushed the gates and threw the bodies of the guards into the pit below. Atoone communed with the spirit of one of the fallen guards and she was able to help point the group in the direction the merfolk went.
The party gathered some Bellflowers and rode the Cavern Crawler further into the tomb where they stumbled upon some familiar faces. Salt and his gang of sons of shadow were looting the treasure in the tomb of Agatha Umber. They overhear the thieves commenting on how the merfolk were dumb to leave all this silver and gold behind in their raid.
Infuriated that her ancestor's tomb was being desecrated Jazel charged head on after Salt triggering a bloody battle that resulted in the sons of shadow begging for mercy. With Jazel's command, Choppa executed the tomb robbers in what could only be described as a death blender. One Son of Shadow managed to escape, and another was rendered unconscious by Gud'rune.
Amleth was disgusted to see the nobility treat his brothers in arms in such a way. Explaining this is why he joined the sons of shadow. As the Matriarchy treats not just men, but all those at the bottom of the pyramid as insects. Jazel unphased by Amleth's complaints, puts the stolen treasure back in her ancestor's tomb and seals the lid shut once more.
Atoone took this moment to commune with the spirit of this robbed tomb, Jazel's great great great grandmother, Queen Agatha Umber. The spirit was very upset that the merfolk stole her magic necklace, an ancient elder artifact she acquired in her lifelong research of the Elders. Gud'rune wanted to know if the spirit recognized the woman in Choppa's painting. Atoone asked the spirit, and Agatha said that woman is Greta Nightingale, a powerful ancient viking sorceress. One of the first humans to come to Pandora. Legends say that she had the ability to wield magic without the aid of magic items. Agatha dreamed of attaining such power in her life, she died trying to swallow a magic item thinking that would grant her power but instead she just choked and died. Gud'rune was more interested if the legends say if Nightingale was a force of good or evil. Agatha replied that Nightingale was considered a very neutral power who cared little what the mere mortals did on Pandora. She did many great and many horrible things in her lifetime.
With the knowledge that the merfolk wanting to flood pandora, the mountain clan on the brink of civil war, and invading forces closing in at all corners of the mountain clan, Gud'rune decided it was worth the risk to releasing Greta Nightingale from the painting. Choppa explained that she had been trying to do that very thing since she found the painting but needed to draw a magic circle located at the back of a red book but she didn't know where the book was. This is when Gud'rune revealed that she had Nightingale's book. Greta in the painting lit up with excitement and using Choppa as a translator promised to give each of them a boon if they released her.
Gud'rune separated the magic nullifying sword from the book and the demonic symbols reappeared within the pages of the tome and atoone drew the magic circle using the blood from her corrupted arm to free Nightingale from her portrait.
A beautiful seven foot tall lanky redheaded woman loomed over the party. She expressed her joy of being free and upheld her promise of a boon for each person.
The party gathered some more bellflowers and traversed further into the tomb on cavern crawlers till they made their way to the final resting place of the first Umber Queen. Freya Umber. In the center of the room was a large circular opening. Surrounding the circle, were piles of trash and rusted metal.
A voice emerged from behind Queen Freya's statue.
It was the strange man from the proving. The man who took the form of Choppa's friend Bug and tried to put Choppa to sleep. The man with the journal Atoone had been trying to decipher.
The Man revealed himself to be a Weaver, a group of rumored to be manipulating Pandora's political powers. Gud'rune huffed and said that the Weavers are a myth, a conspiracy theory mothers tell their daughters so they eat their vegetables. The man's face changed, and now appeared to look just as Gud'rune. In Gud'runes voice the agent explained that the weavers were trying to prevent the mountain clan from falling into civil war. He was assigned to kidnap Jazel at the proving in order to keep her safe but didn't expect Choppa to be a princess body double.
He forfeited his mission tho when he learned of the merfolk's plan to flood Pandora. He then infiltrated their ranks by disguising himself as a merfolk. They gathered here with large quantities of magic items and an Orc cultist performed some ritual where he harnessed the power of the bloodmoon to drain the magic from the pile of magic items. Apparently having that much nullifying power concentrated in this one location was what they used to break a powerful seal locking a passage in this chamber. The hole you see here leads to their means to flood Pandora.
Before the Weaver could finish his sentence Princess Jazel leapt into the hole.
The group didn't hesitate, and leapt in after her.
- Choppa asked for her chain blade to be infused with fire and nightingale also awakened the sword to be intelligent and capable of speech. No surprised it craved blood and hungered for battle.
- Gud'rune asked for Nightingale to protect Jazel and Choppa so the sorceress bestowed magic bracelets on the two girls that would resurrect them once if they were to die.
- Atoone wished for a weapon to help defeat the enemies that were going to flood Pandora. So Nightingale took out one of her golden hairpins and created a golden arrow that Atoone could control with whistles and song.
- Jazel wished for her small water elemental friend Sips to become guardian of the Umber Tomb to prevent future grave robbers from attempting to desecrate her ancestors final resting place.
- Killa Dakka Waaa asked for Nightingale to fix her vision so she could become a great warrior like Choppa. So the sorceress granted the child a 3rd eye on the center of her forehead that allowed her sight beyond what mere mortals could see.
- Amleth asked for gold so he could help feed the starving men of the slums. Nightingale held up both her hands and gold coins spewed from her fingertips till it formed a pile as tall as Amleth Himself.
