Crab Catch-Up

Written by Chrundle_the_Great

General Summary

Overview

Leaving people for dead is a surefire way to make enemies, a lesson Chuma has learned the hard way. With Calporesmus and Gobimi separated from the party in the Crab Maze, the Acquisitions Expert of Kapital leaves the task of liberating the grippoli in Azrael's hands, while he ventures back into the uncharted swamps to rescue a recent ally and the guild's newest recruit.
Will Chuma find and rescue his marooned companions? What dangers, secrets, and dangerous secrets will they encounter in the unexplored marshlands of the Zunker River?

Stranger and the Swamp Thing

With his all-seeing hellsight, Chuma followed giant crab tracks and easily regrouped with Calporesmus and Gobimi. All of them tired, and Calporesmus especially injured, the party huddled around a campfire and slowly regained their strength. While resting, Chuma noticed a cloaked figure hiding in the shadows of nearby trees. Warily, the elven woman stepped into view, saying she spotted "rising black fumes a mile away." She noticed Chuma's pendant of the Brass Bankers and merely introduced herself as Stranger.
Suddenly, as she and Chuma were discussing payment for guiding the party out of the swamps, an intensely putrid smell washed through the camp. Stranger quickly gestured for the party to pack up and follow her into the forest. Chuma detected the buzzing of carrion-eating morgul flies in the direction Stranger was leading them. As he stopped her, confused Gobimi squinted in the direction of the foul smell and unfortunately locked eyes with the source: an exceedingly dangerous swamp creature, the long-necked, poison-spitting catoblepas. Knowing they were ill-prepared and outmatched by this creature, Stranger cast gust and directed the catoblepas's stench towards the morgul flies, who frenzied. Swarmed by the morgul flies, the catoblepas charged the party and spewed noxious fumes before retreating into the murky depths. Retching and reeling, the party barely avoided danger and sprinted through the forest. They soon found respite at the base of a huge gnarled tree... with an armored knight hanging from its highest branches.

A Sword Speaks

Sensing great magic from the knight's corpse, the party pondered how to scale the humongous tree. After some trial and error, Gobimi leapt from branch to branch, using minor telekinesis to propel his light body higher. The sorceror struggled and strained to remove the huge knight's potion belt; as the party caught valuable potions sent tumbling through the air, Gobimi pocketed the knight's belt for himself. Finally, he yanked on the hilt of a longsword peeking from a decorative scabbard. As the blade slid out, it whispered in Stone Giant and called to Calporesmus:

I am Stonekiller. Stone must be silenced. It must be dead.

— Stonekiller

As Calporesmus grasped the longsword, he felt a strong connection and suddenly recognized the Giant runes carved into the blade. He read the names of three slain stone giants and sensed Stonekiller's hunger to kill more. "I think this is the start of a beautiful partnership," whispered the sword.
As the party inspected the knight's corpse, they discovered he was a dragonborn with faintly glowing scales. None of them experienced with using heavy armor, they stashed his midnight-black armor in the tree's hollow. Meanwhile, Gobimi surveyed the Brackwater Swamp from the treetop. He pointed out harpies battling two mages, floating mountains, and a black dragon hunting large beasts. Interested in winning potential allies, the party swifted towards the mages and the harpies.

High Demand for Mages

The party arrived as two harpies flew away, each with one arm looped around the male wizard as his companion slung spells to defend herself. While the harpies wove curses and attacked with wicked claws, the party quickly felled them with hellfire, acidic breath, curse wards, and wild magic; Gobimi surged with the latter and completely blinked out of existence during the battle.
As the party tended to wounds (and searched fruitlessly for Gobimi), the mage introduced herself as Thalia and implored the party to help her rescue Landon, the mage who was abducted by the harpies. Thalia, who was clearly enamored with Landon, said he believed the harpies were harboring live prisoners and hoarding spell components. Additionally, the two mages had hired Goldhand, a powerful dragonborn mercenary from Greyhawk. Matching Thalia's description to the corpse they found earlier, the party realized opposing the harpies would be more difficult than they first thought. Still, Chuma saw great opportunity in saving Landon, and the others agreed. While they discussed a course of action, Gobimi had a small adventure of his own.

To the Moon!

Gobimi reappeared in the middle of a strangely beautiful, but still alien, landscape; unbeknownst to him, he was far, far away from his friends and standing on one of Tallamh's moons. Awestruck by something shiny, the goblin sorceror scurried towards it and came face-to-face with three illithid performing a dark ritual. Three times they tried to dominate him, and three times Gobimi used his sorcery to evade their control. Impressive as this was, Gobimi soon discovered something known only to scholars, worldhoppers, and lunar knights:

To cast a spell on the moon is to invite the ire of its Mad King.

— Unknown

Space twisted apart as a gleaming rapier sliced open a rift, mad mutterings echoing from the other side. Drawn to the casting of spells like a moth to flame, the Moonlit King pounced behind Gobimi, his noble face twisted with insanity and fury. "Who dares speak the language of my queen?!" he shouted. He raked a ghoulish claw through the air, and three pillars of blinding light disintegrated the illithid where they hovered. Then, the Moonlit King severed Gobimi's head from his neck, although the sorceror did not die; as he caught his head in his hands, Gobimi watched as the Mad King, upside down from his perspective, banished him from the moon.
Gobimi blinked back to the party and Thalia, who screamed in horror at the "undead goblin." However, seeing his demeanor was unchanged, the party hesitantly accepted Gobimi's headless form and his attempt to explain where he had gone. The party wordlessly trudged through the swamps, following a trail of fallen feathers and sparse droplets of Landon's blood.

Infiltrating the Nest

The trail led the party to two plateaus; one where the harpies roosted high above, another where a tyrannical necromancer's dilapidated tower still stood. Chuma spotted a nightmare tearing into a rotting corpse near the tower. Although drawn to it, he decided to leave the creature alone for now. With a potion of stone giant strength, Calporesmus heaved everyone else onto his back. Then, he drank a potion of flight and began gliding towards the heart of the harpy's nest. As sentries spotted them, Chuma read a scroll of wraith, summoning a powerful undead creature from the Pale Master's broken tower. As it drained the strength from the harpies, the wraith turned its gaze to the party... and saw nothing. Protected by Stranger's curse wards, the party evaded the wraiths and landed at the top of the plateau.
Stealthing deeper into the harpy's caves, the party ducked behind walls and watched as more guards flew by them. As they entered a central chamber, a pale-eyed harpy screeched in alarm, and dozens of warriors surrounded the party. Queen Aelia, who wore skulls at her belt, halted pale-eyed Nephelia before she could bloody her claws. Aelia wanted Landon's help to break her people's curse, and the party convinced her they could assist him with the taxing ritual. However, Nephelia was not swayed; while Thalia reunited with Landon, she approached the party in private.

Deals and Double Crosses

Nephelia, who relished in her great strength, did not believe her people were cursed and suspected that Landon was using her queen's desperation to his advantage. Chuma convinced her that the party could lure Landon into a trap, if she agreed to ally the harpies with Kapital. Driven by love and loyalty to Aelia, Nephelia agreed before shoving Chuma to the ground and ordering the party to assist Landon.
A short discussion with Landon proved Nephelia's fears true; allowing himself to be captured by the harpies, he knew of no way to break their curse, and instead wanted to steal their rare and valuable eggs. Caring little for Thalia and even less for his imp familiar Pbhaub, Landon was purely motivated by greed. Despite Pbhaub's best efforts, Chuma tricked Landon into accepting his help without the need to sign a contract. Meanwhile, the illrigger asked the rest of the party what they wanted to do. Calporesmus and Gobimi agreed to help the harpies instead of Landon. Stranger, who was hired to bring Landon to safety, weighed her options and decided she was more likely to survive by standing with Kapital; she formally introduced herself as Mesca of Crow's Perch, mercenary and monster hunter.
As Chuma schemed with Nephelia, the rest of the party waited for Landon to trace his "curse-breaking" sigils into the earth. Levelling grave insults at Nephelia, Chuma sneered at the harpy before she caught him in her talons and flew through an opening in the ceiling. As Landon completed his ritual, the ground shook, and an earth elemental rose from the stones. Stonekiller raised above his head, Calporesmus leapt into action, condemning the elemental to silence and death. Meanwhile, Mesca loosed acidic crossbow bolts into Landon's chest, and Gobimi caught the mage in an earthen grasp. Slinging spells of his own, the wizard commanded his familiar to retrieve his staff; Pbhaub complied as slowly as possible. Finally, Landon crumbled into dust, felled by the scroll of disintegrate Chuma read from high in the sky.
After the dust settled, Aelia returned from guarding the harpy eggs. Seeing her sisters' corpses littering the throne room, the queen seethed and crushed a skull in her claws, casting hold person on the party. However, Nephelia absorbed the spell with her bracers and defied her queen. Aelia steeled herself and exiled Nephelia, telling her broodmate she may leave with the party. "My sisters lie dead by your hands. I will allow you to leave with your lives, but you must never return. Let this be my final act of kindness," she said.

Alliance with the Cursed Folk

Stunned silence hung heavy in the throne room. As the party backed away, Nephelia stood still in total disbelief. Before Aelia could speak again, brave Gobimi marched to the center of the room, his head held high in his arms.

Nephelia did what she did because she cares about you! I know what it's like to be seen as a monster. You can't overcome it alone; you gotta let others help.

— Go & Bimi

As the goblin sorceror spoke, wild magic surged within him, and he shaped it into a powerful charm that washed over the Aelia and the other harpies. The queen's expression gradually softened. Although she blamed herself for the destruction caused by Landon, she now knew punishing her second-in-command and the party was not the solution. Instead, she forgave them and decreed that the harpies would send two ambassadors to Kapital; first to guide the party out of the swamps, second to establish a "mutually beneficial relationship," as mentioned by Chuma. However, she let it be known that the ambassadors were not to be harmed, even during those times when a more feral nature consumed them. Chuma agreed on behalf of the guild.
Meanwhile, Pbhaub pitched a partnership to Chuma; he never wanted to be under someone's heel again, and the imp saw possibile upward mobility in the Nine Hells by working with the illrigger. Rarely one to turn down a business arrangement, Chuma agreed. As their first deal, Pbhaub planned to have the grieving Thalia become an archdevil's warlock; in doing so, the imp hoped he could save her from an early death while seeking revenge on Kapital.
Nephelia volunteered as one of the two ambassadors. Between the two of them, the harpies gathered the party in their talons and soared over the swamps back to the Caves of Chaos.

Rewards Granted

Partnership (negotiated with Pbhaub)
Partnership (negotiated with Queen Aelia and the harpies)

Looted from Goldhand

Magical Potion Belt
Stonekiller

Looted from Landon

Rod of the Pale Master
Wizard's Spellbook

Harvested from Earth Elemental

1 x Lesser Essence
1 x Mote of Earth

Report Date

04 Feb 2023

Primary Location

Baleful Bogs

Related Characters

• Calporesmus
• Chuma
• Go & Bimi
• Mesca of Crow's Perch