The Demon's Sewers Session 6
We pick back up just as the party has gone through a door and been greeted with a mass of dretches and manes swarming up from large pits on either side. The wall of flesh squeezes into the corridor clawing and biting at the party, but is actually pretty easily put down, even with portals in either pit pouring out new demons--which are slowly rebuilding the mass of demons to attack.
With some leading ...and the realization that Arturus' player was talking about Consecrate, just saying the wrong thing but actually catching onto what I was saying, Arturus imbued a couple arrows with Consecrate and fired them into each portal, sealing them and ending the pouring of demons.
--I did realize at this point that a combat to start the session actually made the players get into a lot sooner, so I'm going to try to fit them into my sessions more frequently.
With the horde of minor demons dealt with, the party continued barreling down the catwalk and corridor through the next door.
They find the babau standing before a widening portal, from which many tentacles writhe. Oh, and they can see this beyond it-
Fortunately, the babau is concentrating and they get a surprise round, so Stormblade gets to iaijutsu psychic psionic strike the babau cutting through close to two thirds of it's hp. The babau turns and pops darkness, giving a hidden "Oh Crap" look as Stormblade's bright glow cuts through a sizable portion of it, though not quite enough to reveal the babau itself. It is only a matter of a couple turns before the babau is sliced in twain and it's threat ended, the Gate it was working on closing up, with no one having gotten close enough to be tentacled.
With the party's job done, they go back through to scour for treasure, finding a giant library, at the far wall of which is a large, purple scale bound tome with copper clasp and corner caps on a podium, a painting of said book on the wall above it. Another painting and a mosaic adorn the walls to either side. With the discovery of the book, the party pretty much converges around the book. Ryuk starts looking through, finding a couple of the first five otherwise blank pages have shadowy india ink illustrations of a large demonic spider, and horse with flaming mane, smoking nostrils, and horns and spikes coming from it's brow--which actually move. A bebilith and Half-fiend nightmare are bound into the pages of the book, and there's room for another three fiends to be bound with them. Offering a mug of celestial's blood as payment, Ryuk extracts a promise of one service from the bebilith as he sits in the pages, to be called upon at a later date.
That pretty well wraps things up and leaving the temple and sewers is handwaved, though I make sure they're taking the paintings which are the majority of the reward for the adventure.
Sitting outside the sewer waiting for them is basically this guy, sitting on a barrel, paging through a tome:
He hops down as they climb out of the sewer and holds out four ivory parchment envelopes, each baring one of their names embossed and gold-filigreed. He says they are from Archmage Nailesh, in thanks for their services, and that each invitation has a glyph at the bottom, which they can tap to RSVP. Each envelope is scented differently, elven wines and forest nights for Hrethric, fine meads and tobaccos for Arturus, sweet ashes and oiled leather for Ryuk, and petrichor for Stormblade. Each envelope is sealed with wax, with a signet that combines a well known generic arcane sigil and the elven letter "N."
The invitations inside are verdant green, with glowing purple ink, and smell of fine roasted meats, wines and fruit. They invite the party as guests of honor to a celebration of his son's recovery from his harrowing adventures into the demon-invaded sewers, scheduled three days hence.
Right as soon as the student courier leaves, Stormblade just notices a small semi-precious crystal talisman strike the ground before a large translucent green monster springs up out of nowhere next to Ryuk in the alley. It's roughly arthropoidal, with two large striking limbs hanging from it's mass, and a third arching from it's back. It immediately sets to trying to take out everyone but Stormblade so it can pick him up and carry him off, but, well, it's cut down in just a few turns, its fast healing not able to keep up with its wounds. They drop that thought pretty quickly, however, and split up to sell the loot and start buying stuff for the party. I love shopping sessions. You could have a gaming group entirely composed of the gruffest biker thugs in the world, and they would still turn into teenage girls at the mall given money and a town to shop in. Arturus puts together a simple outfit and otherwise spends his next few days in the company of two of the finest women Greyhawk has to offer. Stormblade goes off to find a fine pair of sandals, and after asking around is directed to a tiny shop in an alley off of a street off of a street off a street off the main road. Inside it is filled with cords of soft and hard wood, coils of fine rope, silk wall hangings and copious cushions, with many paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, a wizened, hunched man with a hawklike nose greets him and measures his feet on cardboard quickly, then calls in his beautiful daughter who washes Stormblade's feet while the man works, carving mahogany into fine sandals for the half giant, then magically shaping them perfectly fit every curve of his feet. Hrethric goes and just gets his clothes cleaned and magically mended, and buys a couple of beard clasps. Ryuk goes all out, getting a black stealth suit and basilisk hide knife corset from her guild and fancy boots and a basilisk hide hood and so on and so forth.
With just a bit of time left in the session, and everyone pretty well set for their fancy party, we skip ahead to the night before the party. Of course, the party is spread apart in three different places--Stormblade and Hrethric in one tavern, Arturus in another, and Ryuk in a room in her guild. Fortunately, Stormblade and Hrethric at least have adjoining rooms, so when Stormblade wakes up with a spider web entangling him, Hrethric can actually hear his name called. Stormblade is sitting up in bed with three large monstrous spiders dangling above him, and Hrethric charges in with only his urgrosh. Fortunately, Stormblade's armour is psychic. Of course that just means he glows and is protected, he's still standing there in a waist cloth. Of course, it's better than being a naked dwarf.
The spiders are a pain in the ass, what with continually throwing webbing nets at Stormblade, but they're not actually hard to take down, what with the two characters' fort saves being pretty high, and Hrethric's damage output being pretty decent.
We ended it there, but at least I've got a couple of the seeds planted, and more time to work on the party.