Session #11: The Artist

General Summary

Alex sits in worry at night, prior to the armored blood's assassination attempt on Luthrin Arcaidis. They decide to move outside in worry, where they hear a weird ominous chant accompanied by the beating of a drum, fairly muffled inside a nearby building. As Alex enters the building, they look inside a room where they see a man dressed in a suit of gem-forged armor, hanging limp by ropes wrapped about their person, surrounded by hooded figures. However, before they can react, Alex feels a sharp pain in their back.
They awaken in the same room that they saw last night in chains. They watch as multiple people are tortured and executed, with their death promised to occur soon, so Alex attempts to escape by removing their prosthetic hand to escape from the manacles upon their arms. Failing to do so, Alex notices the sound of fighting from another room in the building.
After hearing that, Alex is saved by a half-orc man, known as Azlar the Axe, who seemingly crushes the throat of the executioner/torturer who has been terrorizing Alex and the other now dead captives. Azlar reveals himself to be a mercenary working alongside a merchants guild to hunt down the members of a mysterious cult known as the Chain Bound. He uses magic to show an image of a well-sized group of people slain, cut apart, and the image of a dead, generic looking man with vines crawling into holes in his arms to show the murders of a known cult member he has tracked to this alley.
Alex says their farewell, and their massive thanks to Azlar before returning to the manor. minus their mask and any other goods separate from their clothes and armor. Upon returning, Alex notes the full moon above. They briefly talk to Kiwigap'awa before noticing the hulking giant rat which runs outside, picks up a pile of things at the door and runs away. Kiwi explains that the rat is Hope Netherrain affected by the curse of lycanthropy.
Hope wakes up the next day fallen asleep in some brush next to a rotted dead cow that was seemingly dragged to its current position, her mouth covered in blood, and a plague doctor's mask and other possessions in her grasp. She slowly makes her way back into the city. Kuro continues his vigil over Meloon Wardragon while all of this goes on, but soon, the whole group meets at the manor, minus Luthrin and Finn.
The group rest for a few days, and Kiwi cures Hope's lycanthropic curse placed upon her by using a boon granted upon her by the Emerald Enclave. After that, the group of four, leaving a sleeping Grimace behind, venture to the location where the Vault of Dragons is located. They walk through the home of a tortured artist, noting the heartbreaking paintings portraying images of monsters swathed in splotches of colors. Coming upon the artist herself in a circular room that is the immediate entrance of the second floor, they try to engage her, but in her lunacy, she accuses the group to be assassins, and she falls into a defensive state, pressing her hands into her most recent painting, pulling out a splotchy, black inked displacer beast. She runs about releasing other creatures, such as a minotaur and a cambion crawler, to fight alongside her displacer beast and rat companions fighting the so-called assassins before she is slain, and her creatures of paint revert to simple ink, sinking into the wooden floor. Afterwards, the party investigates the home, falling through the floor and creating a hole while doing so.
After a while of searching, the party notices the door open and the clunking of armor and boots upon the floor. Kiwi, makes a dash for the exit while Kuro and Alex try to hide and Hope tries to escape by climbing out of a small hole in the roof.
Kuro and Kiwi are caught by the guards who have come into the home, finding the dead body of the artist who was thrown down the hole after the guards entered the home. Hope is found before she could pull herself out, and she is slashed through the stomach after talking back to the guard. Alex reveals themself in an attempt to save Hope’s life, but by the time they reach Hope, they find that her wounds have already healed themselves enough to prevent a lethal outcome, but nevertheless, the four are arrested for breaking into the home and murdering the women inside.

Missions/Quests Completed

Defeated the artist that lived near the Vault of Dragons.

Character(s) interacted with

Azlar the Axe
The Artist

Report Date

12 Jul 2019

Primary Location

Waterdeep