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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8240771" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 38: Big Undead Problems Loom</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p>(Note: This session was held on Discord.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>11 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 162)(immediately after)</p><p></p><p>We ended the last session running through the streets of Kalam following a huge undead bird. It was flying in the direction of The Lighthouse.</p><p></p><p>Oda was flying over the buildings and Vinya was running across the rooftops, keeping pace with the rest of the party. They were keeping watch on the bird while the rest of the party was running in the right direction down in the twisty little streets.</p><p></p><p>Vinya saw it land, not at the tower, but in a small-ish park or square. When Vinya saw it land she started trying to sneak across the roofs somewhat, so that it wouldn’t spot her. She was able to get close enough to see that it had a corpse in its talons, which it dropped as it landed. Oda saw the corpse crawl toward a huge pile of other moving corpses -- not individually moving corpses, but sort of a seething mass of them.</p><p></p><p>The bird stayed on the ground and began preening, removing feathers and bits of rotting flesh..</p><p></p><p>Vinya ran down the wall to consult with the rest of the party -- what should she do if the bird took off. We decided that if it took to the air she should shoot it with her shortbow to try and draw its attention, but otherwise she was not to engage it until everyone was in position.</p><p></p><p>She also described the park to the party -- a square surrounded by buildings with some trees in it. From what she could see, the buildings were all shops and businesses and were empty at this time of the evening. Marxine and Lamie went to one side of the square, as near as possible to the seething pile of corpses. Vinya and Aldalomiel went to the side of the square nearest the bird, to try and keep it on the ground. Elderron stayed at the southern edge of the park so he could assist on either side, in cover behind one of the buildings.</p><p></p><p>As Marxine and Elama were getting into position, the bird noticed Marxine, but didn’t move to attack.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, on the ground in the alley next to where Vinya was on the roof, put her hunter’s mark on the bird, then fired two shots at it. One of those shots hit.</p><p></p><p>That was the go signal for Elama on the other side of the park. She cast spiritual weapon and placed it next to the writhing mass of bodies. The weapon attacked and got a nice hit. Then she walked to the edge of the square and cast sacred flame on the writhing mass, but it avoided the flames. Marxine ran up to the corner of the building and threw a couple of hand axes at the writhing mass -- getting a critical hit. Elderron stepped out from behind the building and cast a scorching ray, altered to do radiant damage, on the bird. He missed with one of the rays but hit with two of them. Vinya fired 2 sunbolts at it -- hitting once -- then she did patient defense.</p><p></p><p>The bird, having been hit most recently by Vinya’s sunbolt, took to the air and attacked her from the air. It hit with a claw, but missed with the other claw and the bite.</p><p></p><p>We had surprised the writhing mass of corpses, so it didn’t get to attack.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the bird then turned into her starry archer form and fired a radiant bolt at it. Out of all of that she got one hit, but did a whopping amount of damage. Elama missed the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon, then she cast call lightning and dropped a lightning bolt on the mass of corpses. She moved a bit away from Marxine, into the park, to try and spread out some. Marxine ran in and attacked the mass, wielding her hammer and a shield. She got two hard hits in -- both of them for maximum damage. Elderron cast another radiant-damage scorching ray -- hitting the bird with all three bolts. Vinya, with the bird right in front of her, punched twice (because she figured it would take magical weapons to hit it). She hit one time, doing very little damage. Then once again she did her patient defense.</p><p></p><p>The giant bird in front of her <em>reeked</em>. It also attacked her with both claws and its beak again, but again only hit one time.</p><p></p><p>A corpse sort of fell out of the writing mass of bodies, then stood up. The main mass attacked and missed Marxine. The zombie that came out shuffled to Elama and attacked her. She did her retributive strike, doing it lightning damage in response.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel fired two arrows and a radiant bolt at the undead bird, hitting only with one of her arrows, but once again doing a lot of damage. Elama dropped a lightning bolt from the call lightning between the zombie and the writhing mass, hitting both. She channeled divinity to maximize the damage. That basically evaporated the zombie. Then she hit the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon. Then she moved deeper into the park, to stay out of the range of the seething mass and any zombies it might drop out. Marxine attacked the writhing mass, hitting once. Elderron, noticing that the bird was looking worse for the wear so he fired a radiant damage lightning bolt at it (changing the save to an intelligence save) -- hitting it hard. It noticed that. Vinya punched at it twice, only hitting one time (for decent damage for a change) and dropped it, thanks to Elderron’s radiant lightning bolt. She then ran down the wall and stopped about 30 feet from the writhing mound of bodies.</p><p></p><p>Another corpse tumbled out of the mass and started to shuffle toward Vinya, but it wasn’t able to get close to her. The mound shifted and seethed and moved to a position where it could attack both Marxine and Elama. It missed Lamie but hit Marxine. Marxine wound out being grappled and restrained by the arms of the corpses in the mound.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel moved up a bit toward the seething mound, moved her hunter’s mark to it, and shot two arrows at it, hitting once. Elama, now in melee with the seething mound of bodies, moved her spiritual weapon and hit it with her tiny lightning cloud. Then she fired a wave of lightning at Vinya, who was pretty chewed up looking -- she healed Vinya for a lot, and hurt herself some. Elama was also poisoned by the stinking cloud surrounding the mass.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Wow! Thanks!</p><p></p><p>Marxine, grappled and restrained by the grasping arms and clinging hands of the seething mound, got her second wind, then she broke herself free from the clinging arms. She then surged with energy and attacked the mound -- getting a critical hit. Elderron moved 30 feet closer and cast a radiant-damage blight spell (with an intelligence save) doing a great deal of damage to the seething mound.</p><p></p><p>Vinya shot two sunbolts at the pile of bodies, getting a critical hit and a hit. Then she closed on the zombie near her, doing a flurry of blows and hitting it twice.</p><p></p><p>The seething mass spat another zombie out. It stood up and started shuffling toward Marxine. The mass of corpses attacked Marxine and Elama. Marxine wound out grappled and restrained again. Elama was hit -- it would have been a critical hit but she was able to use the bulette shield to negate that. She was also grappled and restrained. The zombie that had been spit out got into a position where it could attack Marine with flanking, but even with that, it missed. Vinya, on the other hand, suffered a critical hit, but not a huge one.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the writing mass of corpses, then fired a radiant bolt at the zombie on Vinya, dropping it.</p><p></p><p>Lamie pulled another lightning bolt out of the writhing mass, hitting it and channeling her divinity for maximum damage. That dropped it. Marxine then dropped the zombie on her.</p><p></p><p>With all the opposition apparently dead again, Vinya and Aldalomiel went around firing radiant bolts and Elderron fired firebolts at the dead things to make sure they stayed dead.</p><p></p><p>Elama used Vinya’s quarterstaff to poke around in the pile of corpses, but there was no recognizable stuff on any of the corpses. There was a distinct vibe that the things in the pile had been speed-rotted. They all had a distinct vibe of having been bathed in necrotic energy for a while -- the bodies are all beyond any possibility of identification by looking at them.</p><p></p><p>The party was talking about burning the bodies, and if we should do it right here. As we were having this discussion, some of the local Kalam guards showed up. The corporal in charge of the unit was a goliath and very tall.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, with enthusiasm: Oh, hi! It’s good to see you! There was a huge undead bird and it carried corpses here -- a lot of corpses. They all need to get to a crematory.</p><p>Goliath: You said there were undead.</p><p>Vinya: Yeah. We killed them.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel and Elama pointed to the pile of bodies and the corpse of the bird.</p><p></p><p>Goliath: Egad. I’m glad you survived contact with that. We can arrange to get carts to take them to a crematory. It sounded like you were going to burn them here.</p><p>Elderron: We just don’t want to have them get up again.</p><p>Goliath: There have been reports of people seeing that giant bird flying over Kalam for a few days.</p><p>Vinya: Is this part of Kalam abandoned or something? If this bird has been bringing corpses here for days, surely someone would have seen something.</p><p>Goliath: I expect this park gets a fair amount of use during the day. I can’t account for why the bird, and the pile of corpses, hasn’t been seen for days. Maybe it wasn’t always here.</p><p>Marxine: What about body theft? Have any bodies gone missing from the crematories?</p><p>Goliath: There have been some rumblings about it, but friend of friend stuff. Third hand information.</p><p>Vinya: What about people disappearing or being killed?</p><p>Goliath: I mean this is a big city -- there are always going to be murders and people going missing. But there hasn’t been an untoward number of those. At least not in Kalam. Maybe some of those bodies came from a different izirate. Or people who, well, nobody is noticing they aren’t there.</p><p>Vinya: The bird came from that direction. Maybe more people saw it.</p><p>Goliath: I’ll ask around and see if I can get more reports of the bird.</p><p>Vinya, flashing her badge: Please let us know if you hear of anything.</p><p>Goliath, looking at the badge: Dhur. I assume you’re working with Lt. Linnolim?</p><p>Vinya: Yes. You can get messages to us through him.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel tried to see if the writhing mass had moved into the park from somewhere else, backtracking it, but was unable to detect anything.</p><p></p><p>We thanked the Goliath for taking care of the corpses for us then headed out. We stopped by the Well of Screams, with the thought that we could talk to Jorcha about whether that giant undead bird was something that had been seen in the city before, perhaps historically. But the library was closed.</p><p></p><p>We went from there to the Dhur guard house to talk to Lt. Linnolim. We described the huge undead bird to him and the flight path we saw for it.</p><p></p><p>Linnolim: There have been frantic, incoherent reports of something like that flying low over the Ledge. Some people have been grabbed off of it. It’s one of the few places in Daqhi where a bird that huge could actually get to a person on the streets. From there it could get to either Alim or Bakhar easily.</p><p>Vinya: Where might it be going to or coming from in those izirates?</p><p>Linnolim: The Green in Bakhar is vast. Maybe there. But I’m not sure from the reports we’ve gotten that’s where it was going.</p><p>Vinya: Please let us know if you hear anything else.</p><p></p><p>We then went back to Bultir’s and rested for the night. Which passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>12 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 163)(immediately after)</p><p></p><p>We went downstairs for breakfast. Bultir was serving and acting as host, as he generally did.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to Bultir: When you have a moment, we have some questions.</p><p></p><p>When we were finishing our meals and sipping our coffee (or other beverage of choice) he came over to our table to see what we wanted. We described the giant undead bird to him with the thought that it was possibly an undead phoenix.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Have people reported or seen a phoenix around?</p><p>Bultir: I’ve heard about a phoenix. But that’s not always a good thing to have around.</p><p>Vinya: Why?</p><p>Bultir: They’re creatures of fiery destruction -- they rise from their own ashes, coming back if you kill them.</p><p>Elama: So how does one kill them permanently?</p><p>Bultir: Kill them, then throw the egg and ashes through a portal and onto another plane.</p><p>Elama: Are they malevolent?</p><p>Bultir: No. They’re creatures of elemental fire and just want to see everything burn.</p><p>Vinya: Where has one been seen? And when was that?</p><p>Bultir: It was a long time ago, elsewhere in Za’akkesh.</p><p>Vinya: So not here in the city Okay.</p><p></p><p>We thanked him and left. We decided to go to the Ledge to see if we could find anyone to talk to about the huge undead bird and people who have been taken by it.</p><p></p><p>The Ledge is a number of stacked buildings, built on top of each other and cantilevered out over the side of the island. Some of those layers of buildings have walkways out over the water. The top layer of buildings has a public walkway with an open garden nearby.</p><p></p><p>We walked around on the top layer of the walk -- the day was bright and clear. We passed some cafes with indoor and outdoor seating. We decided to perambulate around looking for someone who might be there a lot -- like a gardener perhaps. We found a weathered looking human man, who was taking care of the plants on the upper level of the ledge.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Hello! How are you doing?</p><p>Gardener: Uhhh. Fine. Busy. What can I do for you?</p><p>Vinya: We’ve heard reports of a veryveryvery large bird around here. Have you seen it?</p><p>Gardener: I’ve heard about people getting taken from the top.</p><p>Elderron: Do you know if that’s happened more at night or during the day?</p><p>Gardener: Generally people have been taken when it was getting on toward fully dark. When it was hard to see.</p><p>Vinya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it? [she flashed her badge]</p><p>Gardener: It was all friend of a friend type stuff. I don’t know of anyone who saw anything with this or her own eyes.</p><p>Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing?</p><p>Gardener: I’ve heard of people missing from the top of the Ledge.</p><p>Elderron: Do you know what time of day they were taken?</p><p>Gardener: On toward dark, as I understand it.</p><p>Viya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it?</p><p>Gardener: All the reports I’ve heard are distinctly third, or more, hand. A friend of a friend heard about it.</p><p>Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing?</p><p>Gardener: The waitress in one of the cafes is missing. I haven’t seen her in a while.</p><p>Vinya: Do you have her name?</p><p>Gardener: Intara. I think. Something like that.</p><p></p><p>We talked to someone at the restaurant about Intara being missing, but all we learned is that she hadn’t been around for a while.</p><p></p><p>Before we really dove into that, Marxine pointed out that this was maybe not our best choice. We weren’t likely to learn anything about the bird or where it was coming from, based on the actions the gardener had discover. So we decided instead to go talk to the Goliath, instead.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Is there anything we can call you?</p><p>Goliath: My name is Tulwark.</p><p>Vinya: We’ve asked around and discovered that the gnome Intororum is missing.</p><p>Tulwark: He’s missing?! Isn’t he a courtier at the Kul-Izir’s court? If he was really missing, I’d expect someone on high would be calling for a welfare check.</p><p>Vinya: Hmm. The people in Alliq’s Arch are missing him.</p><p>Tulwark: Well, maybe that’s not the same as missing missing. He might be somewhere away from his home.</p><p>Vinya: Fair enough. He might just not be in his usual neighborhood.</p><p>Tulwark: Would you like to go check on his house?</p><p>Vinya: That would be fantastic.</p><p></p><p>Tulwark went to his superiors to get the mission approved. And to get directions to Intororum’s house. That approval was given.</p><p></p><p>We headed out, with him escorting us into Alliq’s Arch. We eventually ended up at a nicely sized gnome home. Like many gnome houses, it had a front room scaled to human sized guests. Tulwark was going to have to stoop a bit to go inside. The house is in good shape and well-kept and the plants and shrubs are all being cared for -- nothing is growing or going wild.</p><p></p><p>We went to the front door and Tulwark knocked with a cop-knock -- loud and insistent. There was no response, so he knocked again. When he tried the door, it was unlocked. The air inside smelled stale but not foul.</p><p></p><p>Elderron looked at the door to see if there were any signs of forced entry. The door didn’t look like it had been forced. But he did notice that it looked like someone had turned the knob so hard from the inside that the latch will no longer engage. That’s why the door is unlocked.</p><p></p><p>Tulwark pulled the door closed before any of us entered the house. He looked really unhappy about the door being unlocked and the knob being broken. We walked around the house -- the curtains were all tightly pulled and we were unable to look inside the building and see anything at all.</p><p></p><p>We went back to the front door. Marxine went just inside and did her divine sense -- it picks up whether things or places have been hallowed or unhallowed. She picked up <em>bad stuff</em>. Vinya stood at the door and cast detect evil and good through the rod of alertness -- that didn’t pick anything up (but it has a shorter range).</p><p></p><p>Marxine went another step inside.</p><p></p><p>Vinya explained to Tulwark that Marxine can detect the presence of badness and corruption.</p><p></p><p>Tulwark: There are a number of people in the guard with that ability. I thought she looked like she might be able to do so -- something in the way she carries herself. I’m not pleased that she’s detecting bad things.</p><p></p><p>We agreed that the party would clear the house of enemies, because he didn’t feel like he’d be an asset in a combat with any possible monsters we might find. Once we were sure the house was clear, we’d come back to Tulwark and he’d look into anything we found that was especially bad.</p><p></p><p>With an apparently mostly abandoned (at best) house in front of us and unknown amounts of combat ahead, we ended there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8240771, member: 7016699"] Session 38: Big Undead Problems Loom Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin GM - Everyone Else (Note: This session was held on Discord.) 11 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 162)(immediately after) We ended the last session running through the streets of Kalam following a huge undead bird. It was flying in the direction of The Lighthouse. Oda was flying over the buildings and Vinya was running across the rooftops, keeping pace with the rest of the party. They were keeping watch on the bird while the rest of the party was running in the right direction down in the twisty little streets. Vinya saw it land, not at the tower, but in a small-ish park or square. When Vinya saw it land she started trying to sneak across the roofs somewhat, so that it wouldn’t spot her. She was able to get close enough to see that it had a corpse in its talons, which it dropped as it landed. Oda saw the corpse crawl toward a huge pile of other moving corpses -- not individually moving corpses, but sort of a seething mass of them. The bird stayed on the ground and began preening, removing feathers and bits of rotting flesh.. Vinya ran down the wall to consult with the rest of the party -- what should she do if the bird took off. We decided that if it took to the air she should shoot it with her shortbow to try and draw its attention, but otherwise she was not to engage it until everyone was in position. She also described the park to the party -- a square surrounded by buildings with some trees in it. From what she could see, the buildings were all shops and businesses and were empty at this time of the evening. Marxine and Lamie went to one side of the square, as near as possible to the seething pile of corpses. Vinya and Aldalomiel went to the side of the square nearest the bird, to try and keep it on the ground. Elderron stayed at the southern edge of the park so he could assist on either side, in cover behind one of the buildings. As Marxine and Elama were getting into position, the bird noticed Marxine, but didn’t move to attack. Aldalomiel, on the ground in the alley next to where Vinya was on the roof, put her hunter’s mark on the bird, then fired two shots at it. One of those shots hit. That was the go signal for Elama on the other side of the park. She cast spiritual weapon and placed it next to the writhing mass of bodies. The weapon attacked and got a nice hit. Then she walked to the edge of the square and cast sacred flame on the writhing mass, but it avoided the flames. Marxine ran up to the corner of the building and threw a couple of hand axes at the writhing mass -- getting a critical hit. Elderron stepped out from behind the building and cast a scorching ray, altered to do radiant damage, on the bird. He missed with one of the rays but hit with two of them. Vinya fired 2 sunbolts at it -- hitting once -- then she did patient defense. The bird, having been hit most recently by Vinya’s sunbolt, took to the air and attacked her from the air. It hit with a claw, but missed with the other claw and the bite. We had surprised the writhing mass of corpses, so it didn’t get to attack. Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the bird then turned into her starry archer form and fired a radiant bolt at it. Out of all of that she got one hit, but did a whopping amount of damage. Elama missed the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon, then she cast call lightning and dropped a lightning bolt on the mass of corpses. She moved a bit away from Marxine, into the park, to try and spread out some. Marxine ran in and attacked the mass, wielding her hammer and a shield. She got two hard hits in -- both of them for maximum damage. Elderron cast another radiant-damage scorching ray -- hitting the bird with all three bolts. Vinya, with the bird right in front of her, punched twice (because she figured it would take magical weapons to hit it). She hit one time, doing very little damage. Then once again she did her patient defense. The giant bird in front of her [I]reeked[/I]. It also attacked her with both claws and its beak again, but again only hit one time. A corpse sort of fell out of the writing mass of bodies, then stood up. The main mass attacked and missed Marxine. The zombie that came out shuffled to Elama and attacked her. She did her retributive strike, doing it lightning damage in response. Aldalomiel fired two arrows and a radiant bolt at the undead bird, hitting only with one of her arrows, but once again doing a lot of damage. Elama dropped a lightning bolt from the call lightning between the zombie and the writhing mass, hitting both. She channeled divinity to maximize the damage. That basically evaporated the zombie. Then she hit the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon. Then she moved deeper into the park, to stay out of the range of the seething mass and any zombies it might drop out. Marxine attacked the writhing mass, hitting once. Elderron, noticing that the bird was looking worse for the wear so he fired a radiant damage lightning bolt at it (changing the save to an intelligence save) -- hitting it hard. It noticed that. Vinya punched at it twice, only hitting one time (for decent damage for a change) and dropped it, thanks to Elderron’s radiant lightning bolt. She then ran down the wall and stopped about 30 feet from the writhing mound of bodies. Another corpse tumbled out of the mass and started to shuffle toward Vinya, but it wasn’t able to get close to her. The mound shifted and seethed and moved to a position where it could attack both Marxine and Elama. It missed Lamie but hit Marxine. Marxine wound out being grappled and restrained by the arms of the corpses in the mound. Aldalomiel moved up a bit toward the seething mound, moved her hunter’s mark to it, and shot two arrows at it, hitting once. Elama, now in melee with the seething mound of bodies, moved her spiritual weapon and hit it with her tiny lightning cloud. Then she fired a wave of lightning at Vinya, who was pretty chewed up looking -- she healed Vinya for a lot, and hurt herself some. Elama was also poisoned by the stinking cloud surrounding the mass. Vinya: Wow! Thanks! Marxine, grappled and restrained by the grasping arms and clinging hands of the seething mound, got her second wind, then she broke herself free from the clinging arms. She then surged with energy and attacked the mound -- getting a critical hit. Elderron moved 30 feet closer and cast a radiant-damage blight spell (with an intelligence save) doing a great deal of damage to the seething mound. Vinya shot two sunbolts at the pile of bodies, getting a critical hit and a hit. Then she closed on the zombie near her, doing a flurry of blows and hitting it twice. The seething mass spat another zombie out. It stood up and started shuffling toward Marxine. The mass of corpses attacked Marxine and Elama. Marxine wound out grappled and restrained again. Elama was hit -- it would have been a critical hit but she was able to use the bulette shield to negate that. She was also grappled and restrained. The zombie that had been spit out got into a position where it could attack Marine with flanking, but even with that, it missed. Vinya, on the other hand, suffered a critical hit, but not a huge one. Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the writing mass of corpses, then fired a radiant bolt at the zombie on Vinya, dropping it. Lamie pulled another lightning bolt out of the writhing mass, hitting it and channeling her divinity for maximum damage. That dropped it. Marxine then dropped the zombie on her. With all the opposition apparently dead again, Vinya and Aldalomiel went around firing radiant bolts and Elderron fired firebolts at the dead things to make sure they stayed dead. Elama used Vinya’s quarterstaff to poke around in the pile of corpses, but there was no recognizable stuff on any of the corpses. There was a distinct vibe that the things in the pile had been speed-rotted. They all had a distinct vibe of having been bathed in necrotic energy for a while -- the bodies are all beyond any possibility of identification by looking at them. The party was talking about burning the bodies, and if we should do it right here. As we were having this discussion, some of the local Kalam guards showed up. The corporal in charge of the unit was a goliath and very tall. Vinya, with enthusiasm: Oh, hi! It’s good to see you! There was a huge undead bird and it carried corpses here -- a lot of corpses. They all need to get to a crematory. Goliath: You said there were undead. Vinya: Yeah. We killed them. Aldalomiel and Elama pointed to the pile of bodies and the corpse of the bird. Goliath: Egad. I’m glad you survived contact with that. We can arrange to get carts to take them to a crematory. It sounded like you were going to burn them here. Elderron: We just don’t want to have them get up again. Goliath: There have been reports of people seeing that giant bird flying over Kalam for a few days. Vinya: Is this part of Kalam abandoned or something? If this bird has been bringing corpses here for days, surely someone would have seen something. Goliath: I expect this park gets a fair amount of use during the day. I can’t account for why the bird, and the pile of corpses, hasn’t been seen for days. Maybe it wasn’t always here. Marxine: What about body theft? Have any bodies gone missing from the crematories? Goliath: There have been some rumblings about it, but friend of friend stuff. Third hand information. Vinya: What about people disappearing or being killed? Goliath: I mean this is a big city -- there are always going to be murders and people going missing. But there hasn’t been an untoward number of those. At least not in Kalam. Maybe some of those bodies came from a different izirate. Or people who, well, nobody is noticing they aren’t there. Vinya: The bird came from that direction. Maybe more people saw it. Goliath: I’ll ask around and see if I can get more reports of the bird. Vinya, flashing her badge: Please let us know if you hear of anything. Goliath, looking at the badge: Dhur. I assume you’re working with Lt. Linnolim? Vinya: Yes. You can get messages to us through him. Aldalomiel tried to see if the writhing mass had moved into the park from somewhere else, backtracking it, but was unable to detect anything. We thanked the Goliath for taking care of the corpses for us then headed out. We stopped by the Well of Screams, with the thought that we could talk to Jorcha about whether that giant undead bird was something that had been seen in the city before, perhaps historically. But the library was closed. We went from there to the Dhur guard house to talk to Lt. Linnolim. We described the huge undead bird to him and the flight path we saw for it. Linnolim: There have been frantic, incoherent reports of something like that flying low over the Ledge. Some people have been grabbed off of it. It’s one of the few places in Daqhi where a bird that huge could actually get to a person on the streets. From there it could get to either Alim or Bakhar easily. Vinya: Where might it be going to or coming from in those izirates? Linnolim: The Green in Bakhar is vast. Maybe there. But I’m not sure from the reports we’ve gotten that’s where it was going. Vinya: Please let us know if you hear anything else. We then went back to Bultir’s and rested for the night. Which passed without incident. 12 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 163)(immediately after) We went downstairs for breakfast. Bultir was serving and acting as host, as he generally did. Vinya, to Bultir: When you have a moment, we have some questions. When we were finishing our meals and sipping our coffee (or other beverage of choice) he came over to our table to see what we wanted. We described the giant undead bird to him with the thought that it was possibly an undead phoenix. Vinya: Have people reported or seen a phoenix around? Bultir: I’ve heard about a phoenix. But that’s not always a good thing to have around. Vinya: Why? Bultir: They’re creatures of fiery destruction -- they rise from their own ashes, coming back if you kill them. Elama: So how does one kill them permanently? Bultir: Kill them, then throw the egg and ashes through a portal and onto another plane. Elama: Are they malevolent? Bultir: No. They’re creatures of elemental fire and just want to see everything burn. Vinya: Where has one been seen? And when was that? Bultir: It was a long time ago, elsewhere in Za’akkesh. Vinya: So not here in the city Okay. We thanked him and left. We decided to go to the Ledge to see if we could find anyone to talk to about the huge undead bird and people who have been taken by it. The Ledge is a number of stacked buildings, built on top of each other and cantilevered out over the side of the island. Some of those layers of buildings have walkways out over the water. The top layer of buildings has a public walkway with an open garden nearby. We walked around on the top layer of the walk -- the day was bright and clear. We passed some cafes with indoor and outdoor seating. We decided to perambulate around looking for someone who might be there a lot -- like a gardener perhaps. We found a weathered looking human man, who was taking care of the plants on the upper level of the ledge. Vinya: Hello! How are you doing? Gardener: Uhhh. Fine. Busy. What can I do for you? Vinya: We’ve heard reports of a veryveryvery large bird around here. Have you seen it? Gardener: I’ve heard about people getting taken from the top. Elderron: Do you know if that’s happened more at night or during the day? Gardener: Generally people have been taken when it was getting on toward fully dark. When it was hard to see. Vinya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it? [she flashed her badge] Gardener: It was all friend of a friend type stuff. I don’t know of anyone who saw anything with this or her own eyes. Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing? Gardener: I’ve heard of people missing from the top of the Ledge. Elderron: Do you know what time of day they were taken? Gardener: On toward dark, as I understand it. Viya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it? Gardener: All the reports I’ve heard are distinctly third, or more, hand. A friend of a friend heard about it. Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing? Gardener: The waitress in one of the cafes is missing. I haven’t seen her in a while. Vinya: Do you have her name? Gardener: Intara. I think. Something like that. We talked to someone at the restaurant about Intara being missing, but all we learned is that she hadn’t been around for a while. Before we really dove into that, Marxine pointed out that this was maybe not our best choice. We weren’t likely to learn anything about the bird or where it was coming from, based on the actions the gardener had discover. So we decided instead to go talk to the Goliath, instead. Vinya: Is there anything we can call you? Goliath: My name is Tulwark. Vinya: We’ve asked around and discovered that the gnome Intororum is missing. Tulwark: He’s missing?! Isn’t he a courtier at the Kul-Izir’s court? If he was really missing, I’d expect someone on high would be calling for a welfare check. Vinya: Hmm. The people in Alliq’s Arch are missing him. Tulwark: Well, maybe that’s not the same as missing missing. He might be somewhere away from his home. Vinya: Fair enough. He might just not be in his usual neighborhood. Tulwark: Would you like to go check on his house? Vinya: That would be fantastic. Tulwark went to his superiors to get the mission approved. And to get directions to Intororum’s house. That approval was given. We headed out, with him escorting us into Alliq’s Arch. We eventually ended up at a nicely sized gnome home. Like many gnome houses, it had a front room scaled to human sized guests. Tulwark was going to have to stoop a bit to go inside. The house is in good shape and well-kept and the plants and shrubs are all being cared for -- nothing is growing or going wild. We went to the front door and Tulwark knocked with a cop-knock -- loud and insistent. There was no response, so he knocked again. When he tried the door, it was unlocked. The air inside smelled stale but not foul. Elderron looked at the door to see if there were any signs of forced entry. The door didn’t look like it had been forced. But he did notice that it looked like someone had turned the knob so hard from the inside that the latch will no longer engage. That’s why the door is unlocked. Tulwark pulled the door closed before any of us entered the house. He looked really unhappy about the door being unlocked and the knob being broken. We walked around the house -- the curtains were all tightly pulled and we were unable to look inside the building and see anything at all. We went back to the front door. Marxine went just inside and did her divine sense -- it picks up whether things or places have been hallowed or unhallowed. She picked up [I]bad stuff[/I]. Vinya stood at the door and cast detect evil and good through the rod of alertness -- that didn’t pick anything up (but it has a shorter range). Marxine went another step inside. Vinya explained to Tulwark that Marxine can detect the presence of badness and corruption. Tulwark: There are a number of people in the guard with that ability. I thought she looked like she might be able to do so -- something in the way she carries herself. I’m not pleased that she’s detecting bad things. We agreed that the party would clear the house of enemies, because he didn’t feel like he’d be an asset in a combat with any possible monsters we might find. Once we were sure the house was clear, we’d come back to Tulwark and he’d look into anything we found that was especially bad. With an apparently mostly abandoned (at best) house in front of us and unknown amounts of combat ahead, we ended there. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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