Session 42 - Lumen

General Summary

Squeaking Pipes

The Allseeing's hideous laughter echoed in the chamber. The beholder flew away through a pipe carrying Avandra's Lot and S'thom's arm in its mouth.
Red cast a healing spell on S'thom to stop the bleeding. The flesh stitched together but did not regrow the missing limb, nor did it heal the shock in and horror in S'thom's heart.
The group sat quietly for a while, contemplating what to do next. A shuffling and scraping sound interrupted their thoughts.
They tracked the sound to a small pipe, roughly two feet in diameter. Gorgoroth and Red opened an access panel and peered in. Something blocked the pipe but they couldn't see what. Possibly a corpse?
Red transformed to a panther and entered the pipe. The corpse was small and desiccated. It was a gnome and looked to have been dead for months or years, though the clothing was neat and relatively clean. Red took the corpse in his mouth and began to drag it out, but a hand further down the pipe reached out and grabbed at him.
"Let go of him!" a voice echoed in the small confines. Red removed the corpse from the pipe and backed away while Gorgoroth stood guard. The voice warned them several times not to desecrate the corpse while the man struggled to exit the pipe.
He was an air genasi, blue skinned and golden hair, wearing heavy armor and carrying a greatsword. How the big man had stuffed himself into that small pipe was beyond comprehension. Only after Red gently placed the body on the ground did the newcommer relax.
Introductions were made. The genasi was Lumen Tan, a member of an adventuring party who had only arrived in the region two days prior. He and his group had originated from the continent of Selduria and paid an incredible amount of money to a drow mage for teleportation passage to Harmonious Opal where they searched for "The Lady's Dice". Lumen was a paladin of Avandra and the dice was one of three holy relics that acolytes associated with the goddess' tenants:

Avandra's Trinity:

"Luck favors the bold. Take your fate into your own hands, and Avandra smiles upon you." This was symbolized by The Lady's Dice. Avandra was a favorite deity among gamblers, and when Lumen's crew heard about the city of Nanoen, they had to come search for themselves.
"Strike back against those who would rob you of your freedom and urge others to fight for their own liberty," was symbolized by "Lightbringer's Torch", an artifact that sailors hoped to find near a lighthouse. The party showed Lumen Aufklarung and guessed that it and the torch might be one in the same.
"Change is inevitable, but it takes the work of the faithful to ensure that change is for the better." The last tenant was symbolized by "The Winds of Change", an elemental magical force with no physical body that could only be contained by an equally powerful vessel.
Gorgoroth told Lumen of their recent loss of the dice and of the Orb of Time, destroyed by the beholder's disintegration ray. Lumen assured them that if the artifact was a holy relic created by a deity, it could not be destroyed by so simple a spell. It would require the power of another artifact or another god to do so.
Lumen and his wizard friend Beatrix, whom sacrificed herself fighting the beholder so that Lumen could escape, often argued this point with the paladin. She had always asserted that if a holy relic was threated by enough physical or magical force, it may have the ability to teleport to a safe place. A holy site, it's last resting place, or with a trusted friend were all possibilities.
Renestrae used the Sending Stone call to Bit and asked for her help getting them to Mechanus. Bit didn't have that ability, but was heading to Kaverna Proklet, the hidden warforged research lab beneath Timberfall in Selduria.

Claustrophobic

The survivors discussed all of this in a Rope Trick's pocket dimension. When they were ready, they picked the largest pipe and began to navigate away from the beholder's territory.
Red scouted ahead of them in panther form. He smelled reptillian creatures in the tunnels and heard the clicking of many clawed toes. He finally saw them. Kobolds. They were accompanied by bursts of flame every so often. He did not approach them and they did not attack him, but they outflanked him and surrounded the party.
One quiet voice whispered in draconic, "Ashbreather? Ashbreather? Show your flame." Gorgoroth responded with a small flames breath and told them he had recruited allies. The kobolds were numerous and were ready to attack the surface. "Fear from below, death from above, yes?"
The party found themselves amid the ranks of an army of Seethe's flame kobolds, ready to attack the Bulwark Road district of the city of Nanoen.

Lumen Tan

Report Date

13 Mar 2023