Tomb of Annihilation - Session 15
General Summary
The party emerges in a small, stone-walled room lit by a single torch and the glowing glyphs around the teleportation portal. The only other exit is a closed door, locked from this side. Looking out the room's narrow window, Dunch observes that they are on the second floor of a stone building, probably the keep of Fort Tajar. Extending across his field of view is a 12' tall wooden wall that presumably surrounds the fort. A guard can be seen in the distance patrolling the walkway atop the wall.
No sound is heard from the other side of the door. The shadow Yollotl, still with them for another few minutes, casts Invisibility on Ixtli, who exits the room to scout. He telepathically communicates his progress to Yollotl, whose deep, eerie voice relays it to the others.
The door opens on a torchlit corridor. Another narrow window looks out on the keep's central courtyard, which features a large statue of a turbaned man. Opposite the window is an ironbound door, its portal surmounted by a blue triangle. A little further on, a wide staircase leads down to the courtyard, while on this level the corridor continues around the inner wall of the keep, with rooms to the outside. The door to the first room is ajar, and Ixtli can hear a snoring sound from the interior. The rest of the second floor seems quiet.
Deciding to take advantage of his invisibility to explore more dangerous areas, Ixtli sneaks down the stairs, which open onto a torchlit wooden boardwalk surrounding the central courtyard. To the right are a doorway and a large hallway beyond, while to the left are two more doors. Above the first of these can be seen a bell tower protruding from the roof of the keep. On the opposite side of the courtyard is another, partially open door, showing a flickering light from the interior.
Cautiously cracking the door to the right, Ixtli finds that it opens on what looks like a guard barracks. Hearing snoring sounds from within, he quietly closes the door and moves to peer down the nearby hallway. A large corridor leads to a set of huge doors, barred shut, with two guards on duty idly chatting.
Circling around to the other side of the courtyard, the still-invisible Anasazi ignores for the moment the first door, passing instead through the second. It opens on a 20' corridor, at the end of which are two doors on opposite sides. Both are locked.
Warned by Yollotl that his time grows short, Ixtli returns to the central courtyard and then, reluctant to let the opportunity pass, passes through the adjacent door, leaving it ajar to provide some visibility on the courtyard. The door leads to a single room: the bell tower, with a rope dangling from the bell high above. Abruptly the monk becomes visible again, while up on the second floor, the other party members watch as Yollotl dissipates into a dark mist.
Dolan scans the ironbound door with the Sceptre of the Honored Voice and finds it magically protected. Ignoring it for now, he and the others wait at the top of the stairs while Chibuzo sneaks below. Using the statue for cover, the ranger passes unnoticed by the hallway guards to peer through the open door opposite the stairway. The room beyond seems to be a mess hall; he sees a table and stools, and hears eating and drinking sounds.
Listening more closely, he makes out three male voices, presumably guards, two with Nizamish accents and one Marakuran. Their conversation turns to one of their number, Leeto, who is supposed to be back from patrol by now. One of the guard lays a wager that he is napping somewhere.
Back at the top of the stairs, Dunch leads Mokomoko and Dolan down the corridor to the room from which Ixtli heard snoring sounds. It looks to be a sitting lounge of some kind, with low tables and cushions scattered about. Lying on one of the pillows is a uniformed guard, a young Marakuran man, snoring loudly.
Approaching quietly, Dunch grabs him, covering his mouth while Mokomoko disarms him and seizes the ring of keys attached to his belt. Behind Dunch's hand, the youth begins hyperventilating. "I don't want to kill you unless I have to," the half-orc quietly whispers. "Tell me what I want. I tie you up. We walk away. Do you understand?" The guard nods frantically.
To Dunch's questions, the guard relates that there are about 20 people in the keep at the moment; most are guards. The dungeon is in the basement, through the door past the bell tower, and then through the store room to the left. But his keys won't give them access. They need the keys of his uncle, the guard commander, which might be in his office opposite the store room, or in his bedroom, through the fourth door further down this corridor. He doesn't know how many prisoners there might be; hardly anyone is allowed into the dungeon.
As for Rashaad, he was last here about four days ago. The room behind the ironbound door might be a library of some kind, but no-one is allowed in there except Rashaad. The wizard also has a bedroom further down the hall on this level.
Dunch and the others bind the guard's hands and feet, gag him, and conceal him as best they can behind a low table and under some cushions. From the corridor outside, Dunch signals to Chibuzo in the courtyard below that they are investigating a lead on the second floor. Chibuzo joins Ixtli in the bell tower, then climbs up the inner wall to the top to keep watch, readying his longbow.
In the upper hallway, Dunch, Dolan, and Mokomoko advance cautiously past a couple of unused guest rooms. Ignoring the third door, they advance to the fourth, an ornate door which turns out to be locked. However a fifth door at the end of the hall opens. Dunch leads the way in, finding a reading room with an inner door.
Despite Dunch's best efforts, the inner door screeches on its hinges, awakening the man in the bed on the far side of the room. The middle-aged Marakuran, clad only in a loincloth, springs out of bed, seizes his battleaxe, and falls upon the intruders.
A brutal battle ensues. Dunch strikes numerous heavy blows with his greatsword, while Mokomoko stabs with his spear and Dolan hits with magical bolts. But the man does not fall easily. His amber eyes blaze with fire, and his axe bursts into flame as he repeatedly strikes Mokomoko. In the end, Mokomoko falls, wounded and burnt; Dunch too is singed by the flaming axe, but finishes the foe with a reckless attack, spinning to bury his blade through the man's shoulder into his spine.
In the aftermath, Dolan casts a healing spell, enabling Mokomoko to recover at least partially. Searching the room, they find a ring of keys and a strongbox under the bed containing 220 gold pieces and a glowing yellow gemstone. Using the Sceptre of the Honored Voice, Dolan confirms that the gemstone is magical but the axe is not. Whatever power caused it to burst into flame when attacking stemmed from the wielder, not the weapon itself. Dolan takes the glowing gem, and Dunch the gold for later distribution.
Leaving the bedroom, Dunch, Mokomoko, and Dolan lock the door behind them and circle back to the stairs. They try to sneak downstairs, but in his heavy scale armour, Dunch's footsteps on the boardwalk echo loudly. A voice calls down the hallway: "Leeto, is that you? You find anything up there?"
Dunch doesn't answer, but leads the others to and through the second door on the left. Seeing them pass, Ixtli slips through the bell tower door to join them, while Chibuzo waits above on watch.
A guard walks into the courtyard from the hallway. "Leeto?" he calls. There is no answer. He turns to his fellow down the hall: "I'm going to take a look. Be right back." Then the man heads towards the stairs to the upper level. Chibuzo waits until the man is out of sight, then scurries down the bell tower, pops out of the door, and follows the others.
At the end of the corridor, Dunch unlocks the left door with one of the keys from the guard commander, locking the door behind them once they are all through. The store room is filled with shelves containing foodstuffs and other supplies. A strongbox sitting atop a table opens to another key. It contains four Potions of Greater Healing, four spell scrolls, and five arrows, all detecting as magical. Dunch quickly downs one of the potions, while the others are distributed among the other party members. Dolan takes the scrolls—two of Lesser Restoration, two of Purify Food and Drink—while Chibuzo takes the magical arrows.
Beyond a curtain, a staircase leads downwards. Chibuzo takes point, advancing down the stairs to find a small room at the bottom. To the left is a doorway, a stool and a table, atop which is a ledger. At a quick glance, it contains names and dates going back decades. He seizes the book for further analysis. To the right is an archway, behind which he hears the sound of screams, while ahead of him are two passages leading downwards to banks of cells. Another room is dimly visible beyond them. He beckons the others to join him.
Mokomoko swiftly joins Chibuzo, and they investigate the cells down the rightmost passage ahead. The first two cells hold malnourished Marakuran men they don't recognize, and who barely register their presence. "Yemi? Yemi?" Mokomoko calls out frantically. "Mok'?" he hears back. "Mok', I'm here!" The third cell holds Yemi, Mokomoko's youthful brother. "We're going to get you out of here," Mokomoko promises him. "You're going home." But none of the keys open the cell. Chibuzo rejoins the others, while Dunch opens the door behind the table to find a simple bedroom, so sparsely furnished it seems like a monk's cell.
Meanwhile, Ixtli looks through the archway. He sees a large chamber, its pillars carved into serpent shapes. In the middle of the room, a Marakuran man is bound to an altar, screaming and begging for his life. Standing above him is a cloaked, chanting man holding a large knife with a wavy blade.
Calculating that this blasphemous sacrifice could only be harmful to their cause, and that rescuing the man might prove helpful, Ixtli dashes into the chamber. He strikes the cloaked figure twice with the Blood Spear, using his ki to perform a stunning strike. The man is rendered immobile, and the cloak falls from his shoulder, revealing that his left arm is comprised of a mass of writhing snakes.
Ixtli continues his attack, biting the enemy with his jaws. Chibuzo joins him, spearing and slashing, then calling upon the power of Atsu's Lance to shock the sinister foe. Then two great snakes, each ten feet or more in length, detach themselves from the surrounding pillars and attack Ixtli and Chibuzo. Ixtli dodges his attacker; Chibuzo is wounded, but his hardy constitution enables him to withstand the serpent's venomous bite.
Howling his rage, Dunch rampages into the room, chopping the sinister priest with his greatsword until the man goes down. Ixtli kills one of the snakes with the Blood Spear, then pummels the other with his Hand of Harm to kill it in turn.
In the aftermath, Ixtli takes the priest's keys, while Chibuzo seizes the sacrificial knife—it has a snake-headed handle, with emerald eyes—and Dunch frees the captive, Polo, who is effusive in his gratitude. "My brother is in one of these cells," he says. "Yeah, there's a lot of that going around," Chibuzo answers.
The keys open all of the cells, and the party quickly frees Polo's brother Achebe, another Marakuran man from the next cell who is too distraught to speak, and Yemi, who has an emotional reunion with Mokomoko. The room on the other side of the cells contains a bloodstained table with manacles and various sinister implements: a torture chamber.
Recoiling from this room of horrors, the party focuses on liberating the remaining prisoners. The next cell holds a Nizamish woman, bound hand and foot. She looks calmly at Chibuzo: "And you are?"
"We're here to rescue you," Chibuzo answers.
"I will graciously accept your assistance," she responds.
Once freed, she identifies herself as Saadia al-Tahir—Rashaad's sister. "My brother has much to answer for," she says. She briefly recounts her history. She and Rashaad were both born in Marakuru, but their father decided that Rashaad would inherit, even though Saadia was the elder. She was sent back to Nizam, but once she made her way here, she learned what Rashaad was doing. The siblings disagreed, and she was imprisoned to prevent her from speaking out.
But her imprisonment has taught her that her brother's actions are even worse than she thought. "I can no longer let this stand," she declares. As to why she was bound, this was for the protection of the guards, as Saadia is an accomplished martial artist.
In the last cell, they find a gaunt, bearded, brown-haired Asturian man: Elmar Norcross. The archaeologist is missing his left eye, and his barely-healed scars suggest recent experiences in the torture chamber. Seeing Dolan and the others, he can scarcely believe his eyes. "By the Maker, how did you get here?!? But I don't care—how do we get out of here?"
Leaving the dungeon, the party regroups in the storage room above. With the six prisoners they have rescued, they are now too many to teleport using the Sceptre of the Honored Voice. Hearing voices in the hall outside, they fall silent. An unseen hand checks the door, finding it locked. "It doesn't look like they've been here yet," a voice declares. "Let's check back upstairs again." Footsteps recede down the corridor.
They resolve that Chibuzo, Dunch, and Ixtli will try to break out of the fort, while Dolan transports the still-injured Mokomoko and the prisoners to safety. They arrange with Dolan to have Captain Radovich and the Brazen Pegasus pick them up on the shore of the Bay of Marakuru. After they bid each other farewell and good luck, Dolan casts Bless on the three combatants, then raises the Sceptre and invokes its power. Dolan, Mokomoko, Yemi, Saadia, Polo, Achebe, Elmar, and the other prisoner vanish through the Serpent's Way.
The three who remain pass down the corridor towards the central courtyard. No sooner have they opened the door than the call goes up immediately: "Intruders!" Half a dozen guards are present in the hallway and around the boardwalk.
Moving like the wind, Chibuzo dashes through the door to the bell tower and starts climbing to the roof. To cover their retreat, Dunch attacks a pair of guards advancing towards them, killing one. The other misses his counterattack, and Dunch succeeds in dodging the crossbow bolts fired at him from the guards in the hallway. Ixtli kills a threatening guard with the Blood Spear, then enters the bell tower and speedily climbs to the top. Levelling his short bow, he puts an arrow through the eye of one of the crossbow-wielding guards, then fires two more arrows into the leg and chest of the other. Both drop dead.
Disengaging from the advancing foes, Dunch retreats into the bell tower, jamming a dagger under the door to hold it as long as possible. Chibuzo climbs to the roof, then tosses a rope down to Dunch, while Ixtli cuts the bell rope with his obsidian dagger.
Dunch climbs up Chibuzo's rope at full speed as the guards burst through the door. One aims a savage blow at the half-orc's legs, but Dunch avoids the blow. After he joins the others, the three of them head to the northeast corner of the keep, where the distance to the walls is shortest.
All three succeed in leaping to the walkway, landing quietly enough that the guard in the tower to the west doesn't notice. Ixtli simply vaults over the parapet to the ground below, while Chibuzo and Dunch follow more slowly, climbing down the outer wall.
Outside the fort, the terrain has been cleared for some distance. Dunch takes point, leading the way with his darkvision, and they pass between what cover is available. No alarm is raised as the three of them reach the jungle and vanish into the darkness.