4. Bitten by the Bulette
General Summary
In a low crawlspace deep in The Gulch, the party found themselves in combat with a Bulette. It made short work of Iris, biting through her flesh with Leopold and Lacey trying to keep her alive while Jenny and Sam weakened it. The creature tried to escape by burrowing into the rock but Lacey landed a killing blow. Being woken back up, Iris looted the armoured corpse.
The group returned to the trip wire to find an explosion had been triggered but due to the extensive damage and scorch marks, they couldn't determine what by. They returned to Radmus who was mapping the caves. He confirmed the explosion involved bits of dark red skin - likely the Kobolds the party had previously encountered. Leopold checked the map and noted something, later revealing a downward spiralling tunnel with a note at its dead end, written in Dwarvish - "Voices in the walls.". Iris and Lacey were hesitant to investigate this tunnel but the group convinced them to after a short rest.
The spiral seemed to be an unnatural structure and the walls were marked with faded symbols. Sam heard a voice in a language he couldn't comprehend which Leopold eventually noted was talking about fixing something. Iris questioned what language it was and Leopold rambled about lexicon until she left him alone. Instead she started looking at the walls and both her and Leopold noted the faded markings to be symbols of Madness.
Sam seemed to have strong opinions on the subject, talking about Madness' cultists being scammers who claim to be able to fix things, as a light mist began to form around the party.
A voice called out from below in Common - belonging to Candour, a woman dressed in a surprisingly pristine suit. She explained she was previously speaking Infernal. The group questioned her a bit more but she was seemingly unwilling, or unable, to answer most of their questions.
Candour revealed there was a portrait of Madness at the dead end, which Jenny went to inspect. Once the group knew he was fine, Sam, Leopold and Iris went to see the carving too.
Leopold did two sketches of the picture and Iris noted this place felt like a cult's place of worship.
While Candour cast Arcane Gate for the group, Lacey found out that the mysterious woman didn't "see eye to eye with the Gods." Iris determined that Candour's magic was instinctive. The spell took the party back to the crossroad tunnel area, and Candour said she saw potential in the party and hopes they could trust her if their paths should cross again.
Back at The Crosscut, Jenny tracked down the Half-Elf, Xorin, who sent the party after the Cave Fishers. He tried to swindle the party with a story about a sick daughter, but Jenny held firm that the party shouldn't give anything to him until they got their information regarding The Sovereign. Sam convinced the man to lead the group to somewhere safe to chat and after a bit of persuasion he took them to a small chamber off one of the tunnels, behind a metal sewer grate.
Xorin told the group he had been communicating with the Sovereign through a sending stone to fulfil requests. He explained there was no payment for this work currently but he hoped to gain more in the future. As the questions continued, the man became increasingly flustered, lying about the origins of the stone. Jenny eventually let him go and he Arcane Locked the party in, leaving them with the Cave Fisher. As Sam investigated the lock, a Knock spell was cast seemingly out of nowhere, freeing them almost as quickly as they had become trapped.
The group decided to sell the haul but ran into Marielle Weller, who asked them to find her brother, Berkard - the same man they were tasked to kill by The Dredgers. The woman gave Sam a large sum of gold for the job, promising more on completion, and confirmed that Berkard had come down to the Gulch to repent for something, despite never being a religious man. She also shared her worries that he would almost certainly be hanged by the Garrigill Guard for abandoning his post with them - an act of treason. The party agreed to help.
In the main market, Iris sold the monster parts and shared the gold with the party, with Leopold refusing to take more of the cut to repay what he had spent. Jenny left to appraise some strange black coins and a bandit's ring, so the rest of the group went to find Sam some new robes (with Leopold acquiring a fine hat for him in addition to these). As Jenny returned, Iris spotted Berkard through the crowd, causing him to flee as the party began their chase...
Report Date
08 Oct 2024
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