15 Eidos 1120

House of Ill Repute

A reunion took place on the deck of the Chimera when Quinn stopped by to visit with her old friends Aria and Strontium. After catching up on each others' exploits since their return from Castanamir's Island Quinn accepted an offer to join her friends' new party.

The next day, a messenger arrived from Riley Hanal-Rian asking the group come to Riley's office. They arrived shortly after to find that Riley had someone else with him: a gentle-looking elderly lady whom Riley introduced as Mrs. Gertrude Wilkins.

In short order Riley briefed the group on the purpose for his summons. Since the party had captured the Chimera and discovered the black goop being manufactured, it appeared, by the Servants of the Beast Below, Riley's own agents had been hard at work trying to sniff out the group's headquarters. A few days before, they had hit upon a likely target in Stevens Manor, a former brothel that was now reputedly the home of a rich recluse named Randall Stevens.

The more Riley investigated Mr. Stevens, the more suspicious he became. Stevens was seldom seen in person, doing most of his business through letters or intermediaries. Those who had seen Stevens gave differing descriptions of the man. And a thorough search of public records turned up no trace of Stevens doing any kind of official business or commerce more than a few weeks prior to his purchasing the house. Riley felt certain that Stevens Manor was not what it seemed.

But there was a problem. The Servants of the Beast Below, while largely considered a pathetic fringe cult, were still technically a religion. Riley could not ask the city guard to bash down the door and start searching the place for evidence on his suspicions alone, and even if he did the city could not be seen to be persecuting a religious group without provocation -- and the nature of the black goop could not become public knowledge without risking the peoples' confidence in the city's protections. No, Riley needed agents who were not connected to the government or to his office. Since the party also had their reasons to move against the Servants of the Beast, he asked them to take the job.

Then Riley explained the presence of Mrs. Wilkins. Stevens Manor, he explained, had originally been built by Mrs. Wilkins. She ran the original brothel as a business after retiring from adventuring. After marrying her late husband, she had sold the business to her partner and distanced herself from it. That partner had eventually sold the brothel to Stevens. Mrs. Wilkins, as the original designer and owner, had inside knowledge of the house's layout that would be helpful to the group. She was also a formidable enchantress in her own right.

The group retired to the Chimera to discuss strategy. Mrs. Wilkins described the layout of the house. The building was surrounded on all sides by a wooden fence with front and back gates. In Mrs. Wilkins' day the fence was 10 feet high, but Stevens had added another five feet of height and a continuous topping of razor wire. Inside the grounds were a front door and a back door, but there was also an underwater subfloor and entrance. The inside featured back corridors with peepholes and secret doors into most of the other rooms; the corridors were used by security and domestic staff.

Aria and Quinn took a brief scouting trip to check out the underwater entrance. From a safe distance they noted a three large sharks constantly patrolling the area and a sahaugin guard keeping watch with them.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group sought information on Randall Stevens and the more recent work done at the manor. Mrs. Wilkins found the contractor who had added to the fence and another who had knocked down some interior walls. Both contractors described Stevens, but their descriptions didn't match. The rest of the group learned that Stevens' neighbors believed he was an art dealer who catered to the rich and paranoid, hence his purchase of a house with numerous discreet entrances and exits. The neighbors spoke of comings and goings by night, often by rowboat, and described Stevens as a quiet, reclusive sort who seldom appeared in person.

With this information in hand, the party reassembled and decided on a daytime assault via the underwater entrance. Audas, Caenus and Mrs. Wilkins drank potions of water breathing while Strontium used his cloak of the manta ray. The party swam together, with Baelavin as backup, until they came within sight of the underwater platform. The sahaugin guard spotted them and ordered the sharks to attack.

Quinn sicked Baelavin on one of the sharks and charged the sahaugin on the platform. Strontium backed her up, using his anatomically inappropriate tail as a natural weapon. Mrs. Wilkins tried to use hypnosis on a shark but it proved immune to the spell and instead headed her way until Audas hit it with an eldritch blast.

The sahaugin ran from Quinn and summoned help in the form of two more sahaugin. She was more than happy to engage them with her magic trident while Strontium kept an eye on the door above. Mrs. Wilkins tried a whelm on the nearest shark and had more success, but Aria noted the sharks' far superior speed and worried that the non-aquatics could be in serious danger. She called out a strong suggestion that everyone make for the platform, where the sharks could not reach, then defended herself against the shark that bore down on her.

Caenus and Audas heeded Aria and made for the platform. Mrs. Wilkins, with a shark heading straight at her, cast a defensive mirror image first and succeeded in confusing the predator into eating an illusory Mrs. Wilkins instead. Aria headed for the cluster of little old ladies with the intention of dragging Mrs. Wilkins to the platform before she ran out of duplicates or luck.

On the platform, Quinn made short work of the first sahaugin but the trident slipped from her hand as she engaged the second. Unable to cast spells in manta ray form, Strontium kept stinging with his anomolous tail. Caenus pulled out his trident and engaged sahaugin as well and Audas provided eldritch blasts in support.

Aria reached the cluster of Mrs. Wilkinses. Four outstretched hands -- one real, three illusory -- took hers and allowed her to drag them all to the platform. The sharks took one last bite at a fake posterior but were not able to fit into the closed-off platform. Quinn saw that Baelavin was losing his battle with the larger enemy and instructed him to flee. The last sahaugin also liked that suggestion and swam for his life through a cloud of his fellows' blood.

A quick search of the three rooms on this level yielded nothing of interest, so the group ascended to ground level. They found themselves in the servants' corridor at the back of the house, apparently alone. They made their way forward through the pantry and kitchen to the formal dining room while Mrs. Wilkins took great delight in noting how much of the original bordello artwork was still hanging on the walls.

They walked out of the dining room into the entry foyer and encountered their first above-water resistance. As they gathered in the foyer a volley of crossbow bolts assaulted them from above. The heroes scanned the railing hoping to catch a glimpse of their assailants but saw nothing. Quinn, Aria and Audas dashed up the stairs while the rest tried to fight back from the floor.

At the top of the stairs Quinn immediately saw one of the snipers, a sea kith with a light crossbow in hand. She rushed forward, grabbed the half-sized creature, and tried to hurl it over the rail. The wirey kith managed to grab the rail and hung suspended there, but Strontium had a magic missile volley ready. The missiles struck the kith; he lost his grip on the rail and fell to his death.

Caenus spotted another kith and loosed an arrow at it. The creature grunted and fled through a nearby doorway. Two more kith fired bolts but missed badly, and one was so inept that he revealed himself to Strontium. While he punished the miscreant with magic missiles Mrs. Wilkins produced a light crossbow from her handbag and finished the kill.

The upstairs contingent had the final kith cornered. With nowhere to run, it executed a tumbling move between Quinn's legs and stabbed at her from below. The kith's upskirt view of Quinn would be his last view of anything, as she exacted swift revenge with a fatal blow from her trident.

A quick sweep of the office turned up a large volume of paperwork: bills, receipts, copies of letters ordering supplies, even correspondence regarding the remodeling of the fence outside. All of the letters were written in the same hand and signed "Randall Stevens."

Next the party entered what had been the Madam's private quarters. Again Mrs. Wilkins was pleased to see the decor largely intact, as she had gone to great expense to outfit the rooms with taste and comfort in mind. She led the party to the strong room, which was secured by a heavy iron-bound door. A knock spell opened the room and revealed a tough cast-iron safe large enough for a man to step inside. The safe was locked, and Mrs. Wilkins was out of knock spells. She tried the old combination from her time and, surprisingly, it worked.

Inside the safe were the shelves she remembered, and on each shelf sat a small box or container filled with gold, jewelry, or other valuables. At first the party thought they'd found a treasure, but then Mrs. Wilkins' sharp eye told a different story: all of the valuables were fake, and the lot together had a cash value of maybe 100gp.

The group stood back while Mrs. Wilkins donned her spectacles (of minute seeing) and examined the inside of the safe. She spied a seam, and then an opening mechanism. The entire back of the safe swung back on a silent hinge to reveal a secret space under the winding staircase from the foyer. Inside that room the party found the real treasure: two large chests filled with cash, real jewelry that Mrs. Wilkins recognized as belonging to her former partner, and several useful magic items. They also found 18 large bound volumes -- the spell books stolen from Leopold's shop some weeks before (Trouble Brewing). Also in this secret room was a teleportation circle painted onto the floor. Strontium examined the markings and determined that anyone who stepped into the circle would be teleported about 200 feet straight down. Presumably that meant open water under the city, but the group was loathe to test that theory with the house still only partially explored.

As the group began to move on from the strong room another ambush took place. Quinn felt a crossbow bolt whiz by her ear. Aria dashed out in pursuit only to be smacked by a thrown tanglefoot bag. She managed to avoid being stuck to the floor but was slowed by the sticky goop. She continued on and was struck herself by the escaped sea kith's crossbow.

Strontium fired a magic missile volley at the human thug who had thrown the tanglefoot bag at Aria, and Mrs. Wilkins backed him up with crossbow fire. Aria continued to advance on the sea kith and was struck from her blind side by a full-sized arrow from a third enemy. She reached the kith just in time to deliver a sharp blow as it tried to scuttle under the bed, and the kith died.

Caenus ran in to assist Aria and found the third enemy in the closet. He beat on it savagely with his spiked chain. Mrs. Wilkins took a crossbow shot at the second man but the bolt went astray and hit Strontium instead. Quinn finished off the man with her trident and then healed Strontium while Aria charged in to deal the final blow to the last enemy.

A search of the bedroom turned up a hatch in the floor below the bed. If Aria hadn't caught up to it, the sea kith would have been able to escape into the water below the deck. The rest of the room held clothing and personal items, mostly women's and of a style Mrs. Wilkins associated with her former partner.

The party explored the former servants' quarters and determined that this was where the sea kith had been quartered. They found nothing of significant value and headed upstairs via the servants' stairway. Many of the upstairs rooms were either empty or being used for storage of weapons or furniture taken from other bedrooms. At the end of the hall, however, they found something new since Mrs. Wilkins' design: two smaller rooms had been combined into one, and the party's look through the hidden peephole suggested it was a training room of some sort.

Aria opened the secret panel and entered first, seeing three opponents ready and waiting. Strontium let fly with a chain missile spell before both he and Aria were hit by human thugs. Mrs. Wilkins tried using charm person on one of them but with combat already in progress the thug easily shook off the spell.

The third enemy was an ominous-looking man with pale skin and yellow eyes barely visible under the hood of a heavy black cloak. His odd eyes fixed on Mrs. Wilkins for a moment but he made no outward moves and said nothing. Caenus charged into the room and struck the man with his spiked chain, and a disturbing thing happened: the hooded man took very little damage from the blow, but Mrs. Wilkins was momentarily staggered and bled as if struck herself.

Aria stepped back to use the Rod of Health on herself and Strontium unleashed more magic missiles at the thug who'd hurt him before. Quinn, Audas and Caenus engaged the other henchman rather than risk damaging Mrs. Wilkins by attacking the leader with lethal force. Strontium caught the hooded man's eye and felt a sudden assault on his psyche; he resisted, and in the process recognized that the strange figure was using psionic power.

Mrs. Wilkins tried a whelm spell and felt the slight strain as she worked to overcome the hooded man's innate spell resistance. The spell worked, but again Mrs. Wilkins felt herself taking damage. As the first of his henchmen fell, the psychic sent a blast of energy out in a 1o-foot radius that dazed Caenus and Quinn momentarily. He used the distraction to bolt through the door and away while Caenus recovered and killed his other underling. Aria and Quinn debated giving chase but were too badly injured to risk it; instead they took doses of the rejuvenating water they'd found in Castanamir's villa and saw to the rest of the party.

They made their way around the main hallway, pausing just long enough to make sure there were no enemies lurking in the rooms they passed. The party worked their way around to the other end of the house to the last few doors. Strontium opened one and poked his head inside. He had just enough time to note that the room appeared to be a well-supplied magical lab before four magic missiles zoomed in at him and sent him backpedaling with his hair smoldering.

Strontium paused just long enough to warn the group that there was a mage of at least seventh level inside, then ducked back into the room and let fly with a blast of force at the mage. Caenus and Aria followed and noted two of the pale, hooded men with the mage. Both bore wicked-looking spears in addition to the formidable mental power the group knew they had. Aria engaged the psion who had escaped from the previous fight while Quinn advanced on the mage with her trident.

The mage reacted strangely. Instead of fighting back, he grabbed his head and seemed to be arguing with himself. "No," he shouted, "I won't do it!" Those in hearing range surmised that the mage was an unwilling tsochar host and seemed more able to fight the parasite's control than most. Still, they knew that the tsochar would eventually emerge and kill the mage in the process and continued to fight.

Audas focused on one of the hooded men but found it frustrating trying to overcome the creature's spell resistance. The hooded men may have also experienced some frustration, as the party's strong collective will allowed them to shake off several mental attacks. Caenus entred a rage and concentrated his efforts on the second hooded man. The man had a supernatural constitution that seemed to negate a good portion of the damage from each blow, but Caenus persisted and slowly wore his enemy down.

Mrs. Wilkins found that she was no longer taking damage from wounds to the enemy and capitalized with whelm spells that penetrated spell resistance effectively. Strontium continued to blast away with another chain missile but then, seeing the party bleeding on all fronts, took the Rod of Health and used it to heal his comrades and himself.

The mage continued to resist but a pair of tsochar tentacles emerged and performed the necessary motions for casting his spells without the mage's cooperation. A cone of cold dealt serious damage to several in the group and then a shocking grasp hurt Quinn badly. Aria dealt the mage a Stunning Fist that caused the human to collapse, but the tsochar emerged unscathed and began fighting with tentacles.

Caenus's enemy tried a desperate attempt to get free of the warrior's fury by sending a mind thrust at him. Caenus reeled momentarily, but had just been healed and was able to absorb the attack and still come back for the killing blow. Audas got an eldritch blast through to the tsochar and set it up for a fatal magic missile from Strontium to end the battle.

Curiosity about the hooded men led the party to remove their cloaks and chain shirts. The bodies underneath were mostly human, but clearly also part aberration. The skin of the corpses was cold and clammy, even just minutes after death, and the hair was shocking white. Most telling, though was that each had two long tentacles folded up under the chain shirts. Strontium recalled a lesson from his old teacher about half-farspawn, creatures who were who were part man and part aberrant outsider. It seemed likely that the hooded men were such creatures.

With plenty of time now to search, the party uncovered exactly the information Riley would need. They found a world map that had been laid out with markers, though the markers had been hastily spilled before the party could see where they lay. In the office they found information on contacts in the other capitals, along with the deed to the house (which Mrs. Wilkins secreted in her bosom). In the lab they found the formula for the black goo, the recipe for making the anti-magic paint, and some notes on the paint's short shelf life and usage. Combined with the gold and valuables they had found and claimed, with Riley's blessing, for themselves, it made for a highly successful outing.

The tired adventurers returned to the Chimera to rest and recover. Mrs. Wilkins, having proven her mettle, received and accepted an invitation to become a permanent member of the group.

<MR>
9/20/06