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24 Eidos 1120 Down the Rabbit Hole
The incident at Stevens Manor (House of Ill Repute) was followed by a series of discreet official actions. The party stood by and received regular unofficial briefings on the situation through their Adventurers' Guild contact, Grimaldi. Immediately following the party's battles in the house the Marhaven government took possession of the property and sealed it pending an investigation into the person or persons behind "Randall Stevens." A few nights later, however, a highly suspicious fire broke out on the property and destroyed almost everything above the main deck. This news hit Mrs. Wilkins hard, as she had been the driving force in the design and original building of the house and had harbored hopes of regaining title. Still, she began putting out feelers and inquiring as to the whereabouts of Betty Price, her former partner and the woman who had sold the house to Stevens. On the morning of 22 Eidos the party received a visitor: the guide Maenon, whom Quinn already knew, came bearing a note of introduction:
Friends, This is to introduce Maenon, a member of the Guild with whom you have a common interest. He is already known to Quinn from having acted as a guide in an earlier expedition into the cave system below Marhaven. If you are still interested in using that teleport circle you found in Stevens Manor, you might need his skills and knowledge on the far side. Speaking of which: the circle is artfully hidden under a pile of debris, but it can't stay that way for long. If you want to make use of it I strongly suggest you do so in the next couple of days. I'm including a couple of items that should help; consider them on loan from the Guild's equipment stores. -Grimaldi Along with the note Maenon bore two gills of Hamachi, magic choker necklaces which allow the wearer to breathe water. The gills, combined with Strontium's cloak of the manta ray and Audas's new swimming the Styx invocation, would make it possible for the entire party to spend an indefinite amount of time underwater if necessary. With the breathing problem covered and Maenon's expertise with the underwater caverns on hand, the party had all that they needed to return to the teleport circle and follow it wherever it might lead. They went immediately to Stevens Manor, uncovered the teleport circle, and stepped through. As Strontium had inferred from the circle's markings, it took the party 200 feet down into the sea below Marhaven. The group found themselves a hundred feet or so east of the undersea mountain that had once supported the original Marhaven island. Maenon took a moment or two to get his bearings and told the party that the cliff side was dotted with caves and tunnels, some of which were used as training grounds for adventuring parties. He knew of one in particular that had fallen out of use in recent years when several parties had gone in and never come out. It seemed like the most likely place for the group's enemies to be hiding, so they headed that way. Near the cave system entrance the party spotted shadowy figures moving into their path. They looked like manta rays but were actually ixitxachitl, intelligent marine carnivores. The creatures took position in front of the opening and hovered menacingly. Quinn and Baelavin moved in immediately to attack. Aria fired off a shot from her aquatic crossbow and Audas landed an eldritch blast. The ixitxachitl fought back. One bit Baelavin and drained a portion of the shark's life energy. The party noted the dark crackle of energy and became more cautious in their approach. Strontium killed the first enemy with a stilled magic missile while Audas and Mrs. Wilkins combined an eldritch blast and a whelm spell to disable another. Maenon performed a coup de gras on the unconscious ixitxachitl and the final monster fled. Maenon happily took his position at the front of the marching order with Quinn, prompting a few snickers at his obvious infatuation with the druidess from her companions, and the party entered the cave system. The first chamber they reached was littered with cast-off adventuring gear, most of it destroyed by the salt water. Scrawled written messages covered most of the wall space. Among the things written, the party spied several interesting passages:
Searching the refuse yielded two prizes: a potion of air breathing (near the scrawl about Durnan) and a wand of restoration with two charges remaining. Quinn used one charge to restore Baelavin and they pocketed the other items for possible use later. The next room the party entered was empty save for a large monstrous crab in the middle of the room. Its shell was cracked open and four turtle-like creatures were feeding on the meat. Quinn recognized the creatures as tojanida, neutral animals native to the Elemental Plane of Water. These were juveniles, and clearly incapable of having killed the monstrous crab on their own. The party surmised that one or more adults must be near and skirted the area carefully so as not to disturb the young. As the party approached the next chamber the water grew cloudy and the stench of death and decay assaulted their senses. Quinn sent Maenon to the back of the order and, after he reluctantly complied, she and Baelavin entered the chamber first. She got about 20 feet inside before she was set upon by two decrepit, filthy creatures -- lacedons, or aquatic ghouls. One bit her with its foul teeth and Quinn was paralyzed instantly. The party reacted quickly. Audas send an eldritch blast at the only target visible in the muck. Strontium, wearing his cloak of the manta ray, swam forward and stung at a lacedon with his anatomically inappropriate tail. Caenus used a bull rush attack to push one ghoul away from Quinn, only to find two more in the area and ready to attack. Maenon saw Quinn incapacitated and rushed to her rescue. He swam full speed into the room, grabbed Quinn, and pulled her away from the undead monsters. That cleared the area for the rest of the party to charge in and attack, but Maenon soon found himself standing between Quinn and a fifth lacedon. He stabbed it with his sword and then watched it fall to an eldritch blast from Audas. Soon after that Strontium, Caenus, and Audas felled more of the filthy beasts and Aria took out the last. Quinn recovered from the ghoul bite a little irked at having been rescued by "the kid" but intact. A cure disease hit from the Rod of Health made sure she would not contract ghoul fever the next day. A search of the ghouls' lair turned up a minor ring of swimming, a small amount of gold, and a magic short sword that seemed to have some kind of acid enhancement properties. Mrs. Wilkins took the sword and the rest went into the Haversack for later examination. Strontium pulled Caenus aside and exchanged his cloak of the manta ray for Caenus's borrowed gills of Hamachi, figuring that being able to speak -- and therefore cast spells -- was more important for himself than the increased mobility and anatomically dubious tail, while Caenus had no particular need to speak and could use the swimming help. Now assured that there was nothing nasty left to flank them, the party took the final passage downward into the mountain and found themselves in a round chamber with a smooth floor that sloped down into a central tunnel like a huge funnel. Hovering over the opening was a huge swirling mass of animate water -- a water elemental. Quinn initiated hostilities with a great thunderclap that stunned the elemental and allowed the rest of the group to move in. Mrs. Wilkins hasted the party and used whelm to weaken the enemy for Strontium's magic missiles and Audas's eldritch blasts. The magical attacks combined with physical blows from Aria, Caenus, and Maenon quickly slew the defenseless elemental before it could launch an effective counter. The group swam down the floor tunnel into another round chamber, but this one was empty. A single passage led down and east so they followed with Maenon reasserting his position up front with Quinn. The passage made several turns and then opened out into a rough, stomach-shaped cavern littered with debris. The party's way was blocked by two large, humanoid bodies with bent noses and vicious-looking webbed claws: scrags, an aquatic form of troll. Behind the scrags they also spied two smaller enemies that Strontium recognized as kopru, aquatic aberrations with mind control powers. Those powers became immediately apparent as Maenon's face went blank and he began swimming past the scrags and through the cavern exit on the far side. Quinn tried to charge after him but she was stopped in her tracks by a scrag's claw. Mrs. Wilkins again cast haste on the group and readied a whelming burst. Caenus charged at the monsters from his position at the rear, pausing long enough to take the corrosive short sword from Mrs. Wilkins, as the scrags landed powerful blows against Quinn and Baelavin. Quinn felt a kopru trying to dominate her mind, threw off the attack and focused on the scrag in front of her while ordering Baelavin to the rear for his own protection. The scrags, perhaps unaccustomed to close quarters, accidentally clawed each other instead of Quinn and lost an opportunity to do more damage. Strontium let loose with a pair of chain missile spells that wounded both scrags and the kopru, who were keeping away from the battle line to guard the exit. The party could see the scrags regenerating, but knew they were on the right track. Caenus made that abundantly clear by delivering a devastating blow to a scrag using the short sword. One of the kopru disappeared through the rear tunnel, presumably to deal with Maenon, and the other took a defensive position at the tunnel opening. Strontium peppered it with magic missiles while the rest of the party focused on the two scrags. The combined damage inflicted by the heroes outstripped the trolls' regeneration and soon they were both on the ground and helpless. Caenus used the acid sword to ensure they would not rise again as the kopru fell to Strontium's missiles. With their guide presumably a captive of the kopru the party felt a need to pursue, but their resources were nearly exhausted. Most were wounded and Strontium in particular was low on spells. Quinn surmised that had the kopru intended to kill Maenon they'd have done so immediately, so the party opted to search the cavern and then seek the coral garden alluded to on the walls of the entrance chamber. The search turned up a wand of fly and a bolt case half full of magically-enhanced crossbow bolts. The party secured those items and headed off in search of the garden. They found it a bit deeper into the cave system. The group swam down a sloping passage that ended at the top of a huge chamber filled with different types of coral, sea plants, and fish. A swarm of shimmering, colorful fish enveloped them and the group felt the energizing sensation of positive energy permeating the water around them. As the party took in the sights and sensations a curious creature approached. Half man, half hippocampus, he introduced himself as Equillas, keeper of the coral garden. The party learned from Equillas that the colorful fish were celestial clownfish, known for their ability to heal living creatures by infusing the water they breathe with positive energy. Equillas encouraged the group to take advantage of the effect, which would even accelerate the process of recovering spell slots, and to avail themselves of the hospitality of his garden. This oasis was exactly what the group needed, of course, so they happily did so. Two hours later the party was fully rested, healed, and had an entire day's spell quota prepared for the search for Maenon. They thanked Equillas for his hospitality and set off in the only remaining direction, deeper into the mountain. They followed a long, turning, sloping passage and found themselves in a huge, ominous-looking chamber. The walls and floor were perfectly smooth, and the floor sloped downward to an oval-shaped flat. Across the middle of the flat area a crevasse bisected the room. The group immediately recognized that the entire room was designed in the form of the malignant-looking eye symbol used by the Servants of the Beast. No sooner did the party enter the room than a dark purple energy field sealed off the entrance and a new current formed pulling gently toward the crevasse in the center -- the water was being drained from the room. Quinn acted quickly and retrieved the air breathing potion from the haversack. As the last bit of water drained down the trench, she poured the potion into Baelavin's mouth and was relieved to see his gills quiver with the passage of air. She quickly tied a rope around him in case he had to be dragged. Everyone in the group stood still as a voice invaded their minds. Each hero heard the words in his or her own voice, speaking his or her own native language, yet the tone of the voice was cold and precise: “At any moment now," the voice said, "it will occur to your underdeveloped intellects that this entire dungeon crawl has been an elaborate trap. Acknowledge that fact and then put it aside, because the means by which you came to be here are no longer relevant; instead, focus your complete attention on the events of the next few minutes and you may yet have an opportunity to learn from your mistakes. “You have been quite effective in disrupting the activities of those in my service. Amusing as it has been to usurp the ridiculous religious beliefs of the lower humanoids, I am clearly going to have to raise my standards for choosing my agents going forward. Take these, for example.” There is a flash of purple light across the room from the group. When the light faded there were three familiar figures in its place: W'Illot, Uiq, and Pendrul. The voice continued: “These humanoids thought they could oppose me; now they obey me. You cannot save them, but if you best them you may save yourselves.” Their former colleagues left the party no time to speculate on the nature of the voice or the implications of fighting old friends. Pendrul opened the battle by leaping across the chasm and charging Aria with rapier in hand. Aria responded with a Stunning Fist but Pendrul was unaffected by it. Mrs. Wilkins tried an inevitable defeat spell but that, too, failed to stop Pendrul. With a quick flash of light from the ring of spell storing on his hand W'Illot turned invisible. Audas, having heard stories of W'Illot's ability to steal magical abilities, decided that was a good idea and used walk unseen to become invisible as well. Quinn cast capricious zephyr and shouted a taunting remark at Uiq, but he was not provoked; instead of charging into combat he manifested a force screen and moved deliberately toward Quinn and Strontium, who greeted him with a few magic missiles for old times' sake. Then, in an ugly surprise, the entire space filled with the images of knights and warriors fighting a mighty battle. Clanging steel and heavy footfalls filled the air. Quinn immediately recognized the phantom battle spell and called out a warning to her friends that there was a gnome illusionist around. Most of the party was able to block out the distracting noises and images, but to Caenus they seemed entirely real and confusing. Pendrul responded to the attempted attack on her mind by piercing Mrs. Wilkins twice with her rapier. W'Illot used his invisibility to position himself for a sneak attack on Strontium; a shortbow arrow pierced the wizard's hide and W'Illot helped himself to one of Strontium's prized magic missile spells. Audas retaliated with an eldritch blast and Strontium knocked W'Illot off his feet with a blast of force. Uiq continued moving deliberately toward Quinn with his bastard sword drawn and used animal affinity to augment his strength. Mrs. Wilkins went into defensive mode with mirror image, creating five additional copies of herself all clustered together in hopes of avoiding more attention from Pendrul. Caenus, still fighting to ignore the phantom warriors around him, advanced on Uiq and landed a blow. The illusion may have worked; Pendrul turned her attention to Aria instead and hit the monk twice while dodging another Stunning Fist attack. W'Illot got back on his feet and used his stolen magic missile spell in an equal exchange with Strontium while Uiq traded blows with Caenus and used body adjustment to heal the damage he'd taken. The unseen fourth noted Quinn, Baelavin, Strontium and Caenus in a cluster and sent a whelming blast their way, reminding them that not every combatant in this fight was in the open. Quinn tried a double magical attack on Uiq: as she cast winter's embrace to do cold damage, she also moved her zephyr into his space in a bull rush attempt. Uiq avoided being knocked over by the wind ball but took damage from the spell. With W'Illot once again invisible Audas and Strontium focused on Pendrul while taking positions intended to avoid another sneak attack from W'Illot. Aria and Caenus engaged Uiq and kept him too busy to retaliate against Quinn, but the druid fell victim to attack anyway: two longbow arrows struck her from an unseen source that she instantly deduced to be an invisible and mind-controlled Maenon. Now apparently facing five, the party pressed ahead. Quinn's zephyr managed to knock Uiq to the ground where Quinn, Caenus and Aria all stood poised to attack him. W'Illot was still invisible and could be anywhere, along with the unseen spellcaster and possibly Maenon. Faced with multiple weapons, Uiq tried a power the group hadn't seen before: dimension swap. In a flash Uiq stood next to Aria and Mrs. Wilkins and Pendrul took his place on the floor at Quinn's feet. She tried a tumbling maneuver to get out of harm's way but failed and received a fatal blow from Caenus instead. Uiq's dimensional move had improved his position for melee by reducing the number of capable fighters around him, but it didn't gain him any advantage against spells. Strontium demonstrated this with a chain missile aimed solely at Uiq, hoping to catch a clue to the location of the invisible enemies by the secondary fire, but there was none. Caenus followed to engage Uiq and took a longbow arrow in the back in the process while Aria landed a flurry of blows against the psychic warrior. Finally, Quinn moved in with her frost trident and landed a crippling blow, allowing Strontium to perform a coup de gras with his dagger. With Uiq and Pendrul dead the nature of the combat shifted from frontal assault to a cat and mouse game with the invisible enemies. A column of solid fog enveloped Quinn, Strontium, Caenus, and Aria and showed that the spellcaster was still in the fight. Mrs. Wilkins tried to dispel the fog but found herself unable to overcome the caster's power. Quinn emerged from the fog and case a cloudburst that covered most of the chamber in pouring rain in hopes of exposing the unseen opponents. Mrs. Wilkins cast see invisibility on herself and was able to pinpoint two invisible people: W'Illot, who was aiming his shortbow at Aria, and Maenon. Before she could shout a warning W'Illot fired and his arrow struck Aria as he turned visible to all. Audas greeted him with an eldritch blast and Strontium with another magic missile volley, but it appeared as though W'Illot had used his invisible time to engage in some serious healing and did not fall. The next ugly surprise came when Maenon, still visible only to Mrs. Wilkins, did something nobody thought him capable of doing: he cast legion of sentinels, an illusion spell beyond even Mrs. Wilkins' current abilities, in the area where Caenus, Quinn, and Strontium still stood. Mrs. Wilkins warned them all about the spell's affect -- the phantom warriors would attack anyone who tried to move or cast a spell -- and marked Maenon's location with a dancing lights spell. Quin dismissed her cloudburst to facilitate ranged weapon attacks on Maenon. Meanwhile, W'Illot made a fast movement with his hand and surprised Aria with an adamantine dagger. It slipped between her ribs with a wicked accuracy, but was not enough to take her down. Instead it was W'Illot who fell when Audas favored him with a fatal eldritch blast attack. The dancing lights gave Strontium a target area, so he sent a magic missile volley at Maenon but missed because of the boy's concealment. Maenon shrugged off the attempt and cast charm person on Caenus. The warrior succumbed easily to the spell and became Maenon's defender even as Mrs. Wilkins used glitterdust to further reveal his location and form. Maenon tried one more spell -- a blinding color surge against Strontium -- but failed to save himself. Quinn thrust her trident into his outlined form and Audas finished him off with an eldritch blast. Before anyone could react to their victory, the party was enveloped by a purple light and suddenly found themselves floating on the surface a few hundred feet from Marhaven's residence sector. The voice entered their minds one more time: "You have done well. My congratulations. You will make excellent thralls when the time comes." Quinn's rebellious retort went unanswered.
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