Session 19 - "Echoes of the Past, Ruins of Gauntlight - Part 6"

General Summary

Toliday, 4th of Desnus, 4721 AR

Gauntlight Keep

Level 2 - Servants' Quarters

Processional

2.31p

Upon catching their breathes, the party notices that this lower level is much the same as above. Debris is laying about everywhere and is moisture beading on walls, however the spell scotched areas are not down here as like the first level. The 12 foot ceiling shows metal brackets hanging from it. Zor'ahn can just barely make out a slight shimmer of pale green light near the floor further down. There's also a painting nearby on the wall, behind which he finds a secret door that leads back into the abandoned guard room. Zor'ahn begins looting the morlock bodies as Kaliff attends to Tristan's wounds and Ehrn attends to his shield.

2.41p

Proceeding further, a door is seen in the alcove to the east and several other doorways coming off the hallway itself. Kalitos, noticing brackets in the ceiling, realizes they could've once held ballista. Tristan offers that they were probably used to fire up and down the hallway. The shimmering pale green light glows from under the door to the north. The hallway bends to the west and holds two more sets of doors. The sound of soft, ghostly chanting appears to be coming from behind the northern door as well. Almost in a daze, Zor'ahn pushes it open

Haunted Washroom

In the center of the room is a tub, but most obvious is the rippling ribbons of sickly green light. They suddenly coalesce into letters in the air:

"I was Otari… save me from below!"

Then, just as quickly, they melt together into a single ribbon and begins to worm towards the doorway. Kalitos steps back with Kaliff and the ribbon moves towards the doors. Tristan notices that ghostly footsteps appear under the ribbon as it continues, roughly at a walking pace. The party follows.

Reception Room

It enters a ruined room with smashed furniture, giant-sized bones strewn about, and a rusty glaive. Within, the light appears to be swirling about the room. As the party enters, the bones begin to shudder and moves towards each other. The light exits the room and Ehrn with Kaliff attempts disrupt the bones, but it is difficult. Kaliff enters the room and grabs a femur from the mass, goes to the doorway and throws it into the hallway before closing the door. Tristan drags the rusty glaive away as an arm forms. Kalitos smashes the arm bones, but even the shards attempt to reknit themselves. Zor'ahn believes that the skeleton once belonged to a minotaur, however this act is not the typical was that undead form. Usually the entire body is reanimated. Tristan begins smashing at the bones and Kaliff examines the central point the bones appear to be gathering. He makes out some minotaur horns in the rubble. He indicates them to Kalitos, who pulls them out. Kalitos tells Tristan to smash the horns. They suddenly go up in a chalky, dusty cloud and all the bones suddenly stop and lay still. Picking through the rest of the rubble, while the table and chairs are moldy and rotten in some places, but it appears they were damaged in a battle of some sort, not due to age.

Well

2.51p

Continuing, the hallway continues and bends to a set of stone stairs leading down into a cavern. As Tristan begins to descend, Kalitos notices a secret door in the western next to Ehrn. He calls out to her. It opens onto a small stone landing with stairs that descend.

Moldy Beach

The party decides to continue exploring on this level and closes the door back. Tristan uses his sword to push on the ground, looking for traps, when he suddenly sticks it into mass of cold mold. The air around him is sudden leeched of warm and frost bites into his skin. Kaliff ponders if magical fire would harm it, however this version of brown mold feeds on fire and can grow. With this in mind, Kalitos begins cast frostbite on the mold until it's no more. Reaching the sandy shore, they come upon a green, swampy body of water with the top of the ceiling only 3 ft. above. Turning back, they return to the previous hallway and open the double doors.

Hall of Hatred

It reveals a long hallway with alcoves that hold models of a large city. The first diorama on the right shows flames, actual flames, flicking around the city and the left one show a tsunami wave over taking the city before looping back. The city in question: Absalom. Upon realizing this, a model of the Gauntlight Keep behind the model casts an apocalypse beam, throwing Zor'ahn down. Another one consumes Tristan in flames and he falls.
Kalitos moves forward an attempt to destroy the fire Gauntlight, but his sword just cracks against stone. Kaliff steps and pours a healing potion down Tristan's gullet. Zor'ahn states the need to leave this area immediately and drags Tristan out of the room, who is quickly followed by Ehrn also dragging Kaliff. Kalitos tumbles through into the hallway. The dioramas never change or stop.

Cleaning Supplies

3.11p

The healers huddle around Tristan and patch him up. The party continues on with the next unexplored door. It opens to a short passage and another closed door. Tristan opens it into a small room with shelves lining the wall, like a cleaning closet, which appears to have been recently used. He also notices a silver headed cane. There are additional doors to the north and south. Kaliff picks up the cane to examine it and finds it to be a sword cane.

Zozzlarin's Room

The door to the north is opened and the party is greeted by a horrifying scene. Blood and gore are splashed everywhere and a bastard hybrid of toddler and fly buzzes over the scene. Ehrn rages in and slashes at the creature with her glaive. Kalitos moves into the room and attempts to lay into it, but is unsuccessful. Zor'ahn goes to move and the rest of the party repositions themselves. The ranger also squeezes into the room and slams his wooden Rose Argentis into its body. The buzzing atrocity steps and begins to cast a spell as a doorway opens around it and it suddenly appears beside Kaliff. Kaliff yelps and fires a phase bolt at it before retreating into the room. Tristen maneuvers out of the room and moves up on the creature.
Ehrn follows in kind and takes position next to her husband and prepares to aid him. Kalitos moves beside the monster and attempts a double slice, but it is too agile. Zor'ahn moves to nearer the hallway and uses his shadow hand to close the door at the end of the hallway. The fly moves and begins to cast a spell, but Tristan slashes into it viciously, however it disappears. Kaliff casts forbidding ward on his brother and seeks out the monster, but is unable to locate it. Tristan looks, but is unable to find it as well. He lashes out with his sword, but connects with only air. Ehrn, however, is certain that it has not yet moved but is unable to score a hit. Kalitos attacks ineffectually. Zor'ahn strikes forward but his weapon fails to find it as well. The fly creature attempts to extract itself and is finally able to breakthrough. Suddenly, Kaliff detects a rotten egg smell and hears a child's voice in his ear. He yells, "It's in here!" before striking it with a void warp. He then hears:
"Wait please ... she made me do it ... please do not kill me. I can provide you with valuable information. Call them off!"
Kaliff tells it, "Drop the spell and I can guarantee your safety."
"Yes of course, anything, please," it responds.
Tristan moves on the abomination, but its passiveness lends it an air of pity. Kaliff helps the creature pull the spiritual splinter from its body. It claims to have been a prisoner of "her" and that she is a cruel master. His purpose is to clean this area 6 hours every day by her command. When asked whose, he responds," Belcorra". He admits that he has heard the morlocks call her the "Ghost Queen". The creature explains that she is a powerful being and that he was forced into a bargain centuries ago. He doesn't like her, explaining that she has a cruel sense of humor because 3 of the 6 hours he is to use his tongue to clean with. He doesn't not know where she resides. Zor'ahn asks what information he has to bargain his life with. He says he can share something with them that occurred centuries ago in their mind's eye with a touch, that a human traveler like the party had came through before. Kalitos suddenly seems startled by his words, but volunteers to go first and Zozzlarin puts one fly appendage on his head. The magus begins to experience a vision as if he was there:

He sees to the south a stairway down to a dirt beach. A part of the wall opens and a man runs out that he has seen various painting of and heard described: Otari. He looks wounded, his armor torn, and he is sweating and breathing hard. He then runs right into a minotaur wielding a giant glaive. A duel ensues and Otari is able to put the beast down. He looks behind him with fear in his eyes, and Otari runs east. The area is recognizable, but it is clean with no rubble. He stops for a moment and listens. Cursing under his breath, he continues. Otari looks south along a hallway where ballista are attached by metal bracers to the ceiling before going into a small washroom. He shuts the door before slumping into an iron tub inside.

Zozzlarin says that such a vision is worth mercy. Kalitos asks how Otari died and he touches him again.

It feels like some time has passed. Otari appears to have bled quite a lot, but he is bandaging his wounds and drinking a potion. He then slowly sneaks out of the room and heads back towards the way he came, entering the secret door and descending the stairway.

When asked, Zozzlarin says his bargain with the Ghost Queen is binding, that she said if he worked for a millennia that she would give him a piece of her power. When asked why he would agree to such an agreement, he responds simply that she was very persuasive. There is a smell of power about her and he wanted it. Chief administrator of the bargain is a contract devil, Urevian and it is he who holds the agreement. He doesn't know about anything other than this level and cannot say what lies below. The models the party encoutered earlier are toys to Belcorra and she visits them often, fiddling with them somehow to do deactivate them. Zozzlarin says he has gotten past them before, but if he loses concentration he has been attacked, so one must move slowly and silently. Zozzlarin says that he does know that the swamp holds a river dragon, and that Graulgust is leader of the morlocks. He concludes that near to the southwest there is another way into the flooded cavern and near that entrance is a hidden portal chamber to the morlocks domain.

Report Date

15 Sep 2024

Primary Location

Gauntlight Keep

Related Characters

• Ehrn Ricard
• Kaliff Raiboren
• Kalitos Raiboren
• Tristan Ricard
• Zor'ahn the Dark Ranger

Constellations