THROUGH ULTAN'S DOOR
16-17 Meadowlark, 4433
Characters:
Two-Faced Humphrey, human spy 1 (Tim)
Avala, human elementalist 1 (Brielle)
Octavian the Bloody Fist, human spy 1 (Tim)
Krull the Barbarian King, human fighter 1 (Brielle)
*****
Two-Faced Humphrey and Avala, shaken by their bizarre experiences in the Drydale monastery [way back in Session 1] returned to Viridistan for a while. Humphrey spent his time greasing palms & trying to start criminal schemes, none of which panned out. Avala worked on artistic endeavours. Soon they craved further adventure and joined with a sinister spy named Octavian and a buff fighting-man named Krull with the grandiose title "The Barbarian King." They all decided to investigate rumours circling in the Bazaar of a magical door to Wishery, the land of dreams, beneath a printmaker's shop.
Finding the shop in the shadow of the Great Aqueduct on Market St was no problem. The owner Ultan was a stooped & ancient man with ink-stained fingers. The shop was cluttered with tools, wood blocks, and handsome framed prints on the walls. Ultan demanded 10 silvers up front per person before anyone could even see the door. Avala tried to haggle but the old man stood firm on his price. After business was concluded, Ultan's nephew Samir conducted the group into a back room. In a narrow basement closet beneath the stairs was the door:
Painted sky-blue and adorned with gold leaf in swirling, elaborate patterns. Its handle carved into an elegant, arching swan's neck. Nothing like this door is known anywhere else in the Viridian Empire. Now convinced the stories were true, the party proceeded through into the land of Wishery!
The First Expedition
They entered Wishery in a dark room that smelled like a sewer. A hallway led to the left into a larger circular space, and a door to the right was blocked by something. Octavian and Krull pushed hard against it, and with a mighty heave they shoved through!
Inside were two pale, emaciated men with white hair and black-stained mouths, accompanied by a hideous doglike creature with a horse's skull for a head. One of them ran away while the other reached for his weapon. The group offered food to the strange man and attempted to parley. He turned out to be mute, which made communication difficult. He could understand the party's questions, but only gesture with his hands and make "uh, uh" noises.
At this point they heard a flapping sound behind them. From the other direction, two black bundles of feathers & wings flapped into view, like scrambled ravens with one large, central eye. The odd beasts flew towards the group, and even meeting their monocular gaze caused deep cuts to well up on Humphrey's face!
The whole group piled through the door over the mute's protests, slamming it behind them. Another tense stand-off occurred when a crew of five more pale mutes arrived to investigate the commotion. Offering more food, the party managed to avoid hostilities. They gleaned some clues with more charades:
-These mutes are outcasts of some kind, accursed by their society.
-It was shocking to the mutes that the group didn't wear masks, which are commonplace here for everyone except them. But, mask-wearers are dangerous.
-There is a city far away, and high above their heads.
-Pig-nosed bipedal creatures infest the area, and the mutes want them destroyed or driven out.
After the conversation, the mutes made it clear that the group couldn't pass through their territory. Hoping the winged eyes were gone, the group left the way they had came, and proceeded back through the door to Viridistan.
The Second Expedition
After Humphrey had recovered from his wounds, the group went to Hightown to buy masks for themselves. In a store called Hawk's Antiques they found four for sale: two hideous ghoul's faces, an elegant feathered domino, and a squid with tentacles for a beard. Prezerus Hawk the proprietor said they were all the rage at social events this season. He also had an elegant carved urn for sale, made by the Mycretians living in the distant Holy Cities of the desert. Nobody was really interested, and the group returned to Ultan's.
Avala tried to negotiate again, but Ultan was having none of it and demanded his 10 silver, the group grudgingly paying.
This time they explored a larger domed room, finding hanging corpses wearing robes and hooked plague-doctor masks. They brought the corpses down to search, narrowly avoiding the rusted bear-traps hidden in the straw beneath. Searching through ruined bedrooms, they found a small gold pin in the design of a web.
While Octavian was stripping off his filthy armour, another group of pale & stained mutes surprised everyone, emerging from a locked door. These were hostile, so the group hurriedly jumped in the boat and floated downstream.
The sewer river was an old brick tunnel about 50' across. Metal pipes discharged effluent at intervals. The smell was horrible. After about an hour, they heard buzzing up ahead: on the sewer's surface three huge flies skipped, their eyes glittering like jewels. They doused their lights to avoid the flies, which still followed the party at a discreet distance for a while.
Soon, a light up ahead revealed a slick of viscera, blood & fat on the water's surface. Giant flies and moths buzzed around it. The stench of death was near-unbearable. Regular bursts of gore flowed from three huge gaping faces carved into the tunnel wall. Between them, two staircases led upwards and into the sinister red light.
"There's NO way we're going up there!" Avala said.
The group turned their boat around immediately. They paddled back upriver past the dock and still further, seeking a way upwards into the city they'd heard of. Another hour of rowing past a few side branches brought them to a stone dock and a wide cavern opening above them. Distantly, they could see a bright point of light in the cavern's ceiling. Could it be daylight?
The Leprosarium
The cavern was huge, but illumined faintly by the light from above. It held some kind of ruined underground city. The houses were once fine, with multicoloured paint now dusty and chipping. Nearby the group heard the sounds of conversation and chains creaking.
Humphrey and Octavian snuck forward amongst the buildings to see what was happening. Some people were gathered around a wooden platform with an open-fronted cage on it. All wore masks. A few armoured men stood guard, while a huge shirtless laborer cranked some kind of windlass attached to chains that hung from high above. A woman in robes was climbing into the cage, which was lifted off the ground by the chains. They watched the elevator dwindle high into the distance, towards the light at the roof of the cavern. This was definitely a way out!
The guards were baffled at seeing strangers here that they hadn't brought down on the elevator. They asked to see the group's tongues, and didn't like what they saw. "First time down here?" asked a guard. "No way you're getting back up to Zyan without a dose of Bluetongue. Get it at the Temple, and don't come back to me until you do." He indicated the a huge stone building at the back of the cavern.
The temple was guarded by silent armoured soldiers with smooth, eyeless helms. Petitioners in filthy rags crowded the entryway outside, begging admittance. The guards must have liked the look of the party though, and stepped aside to let them in.
Inside they spoke to the proctor, a man with leprous skin and red robes. He explained this place was a colony for those afflicted with the Walking Plague. Without a dose of the blue medicine, visitors could not return to the city for fear of spreading it. Humphrey tried to bribe him, but didn't have nearly enough money.
In the Leprosarium's small marketplace, a half-dozen infected men sold strange medicines:
- Bluetongue - 100 gold - inoculates against exposure to the plague in the last 24 hours
- Graydream - 100 silver - brings pleasant dreams of dead relatives
- Hole - 100 copper - relieves feelings of grief
None in the group could afford the Bluetongue necessary to pass up to the city. However, Octavian managed to convince one of the lepers to gamble him for it, and won with his set of loaded dice! They got what looked like a pot of blue paint, and each party member slathered some of the sparkling paste on their tongues.
Returning to the elevator, the guards now allowed them passage upwards. After a slow ride, they emerged into daylight. They were finally in Zyan!
Treasure:
Golden web brooch
Enemies Defeated:
none
