The party arrived in the pentagram, in a wood-panlled room with all the traps tastefully hidden. The wraithformed people ended the effect upon arrival, while Elbleem gave a hand signal and said something in EC, which Nightwing translated into WC for the barbarians (and a few others).
The party left the pentagram room and were introduced to Xeel, House Jeltha's head of security. Specifically, Elbleem introduced everybody but Yves.
- Xeel:
- "Master Elbleem, I didn't catch his name."
- Elbleem:
- "He is not here. Understand?"
- Xeel:
- "Perfectly, sir. Things have been quiet overall. There was a food riot a few days ago, but we sustained no damage."
(Apparently the siege is having some effect.)
- Xeel:
- "How long will you be here, Master?"
- Elbleem:
- "TBD. I will be holding a private meeting with Master Chibeel. Please summon him to my study. No one is to talk to these adventurers. They shall be operating on Reduced Information basis."
The party cooled its heels in a nice little waiting room; Elbleem cautioned them to, "keep the noise down. People may be sleeping and the walls are thin," before going off with Master Chibeel and Yves (who didn't understand a word of the following conversation but made Chibeel uneasy by his presence). A servant arrived in the waiting room shortly after Elbleem left.
- Servant: [E.C., of course]
- "Welcome, honored guests and smelly swampfolk. Would you like food or drink?"
"Nightwing" ordered a chilled pomegranate juice, and Beeel said everyone else was fine; "Seel" and "Bujeel" tried to impersonate meditating kensai so their lack of response wouldn't draw attention.
After about 20 minutes, Elbleem returned with Chibeel, who was looking quite flustered.
- Elbleem: [to party, in E.C.]
- "Based on the latest reports from Master Chibeel, I have received confirmation of our suspicions. House Jeltha assets have been smuggled out of the warehouses into the sewers, and we have cause to believe that it is an internal operation. Tsk. We cannot let people within House Jeltha use Imperial resources to strengthen those damned revolutionaries. We will go take care of it personally. Xeel will come with us."
- Xeel:
- "I should continue to monitor the situation here, sir?"
- Elbleem:
- "We need the extra help. And maybe you can show the Chthul-Ra kensai some tricks. Let us waste no more time. We will enter the sewers from the garden."
- Xeel:
- "I will go alert the guards, Master."
- Elbleem:
- "No, we must move swiftly."
- [to "Nightwing"]
- "Tell your barbarians that they are to act as instructed by Xeel in the upcoming mission."
- [to Yves, stuff in dwarvish that nobody understood]
- [to Xeel]
- "You should be able to parry the occasional berserker if need be, right Xeel?"
- Xeel:
- "Master Elbleem, I protest strongly about this mission. I cannot lead this party without adequate preparation -- we have never worked together. This could be a suboptimal configuration."
- Elbleem:
- "You must make do with your resources."
(Can you say "execution", boys and girls?)
Chibeel arrived with a pouch for Elbleem. While the exchange was taking place, Xeel surreptitiously activated something, but Yves noticed her and quietly informed Elbleem. The party headed into the sewers, with Xeel in front. They walked for about five minutes and came to a fork in the tunnel. Elbleem indicated a left turn, Xeel said she'd prefer right, Elbleem insisted on left, and Xeel ran off down the left passage. Elbleem chose not to pursue her, figuring her allies were waiting nearby. The polymorphed people dropped their disguises, and everyone headed due south toward the sewer outflow.
A few minutes later, they ran into a beggar, who freaked at the sight of an elven warrior. Elbleem silenced him with a commanding tone, gave him some food, and sent him away.
- Elbleem:
- "Hard to tell whether he was a real beggar or not. I suspect that he was genuine. But even the genuine ones work for Baleel."
- Ganeth:
- "If there anyone on the plane who does like you?"
- Elbleem:
- "Silvator likes me, I'm sure."
The passageway continued to an archway, which (according to Elbleem) led to a community of beggars on the shore of an underground lake the party would have to cross. However, the human skeleton, cat skeletons, normal zombies, zombies that emit ghast stench when punctured, and spectral hand in the passageway indicated that something had changed recently, as did the curtain of darkness that was pulled across the archway. Minor combat and undead turning ensued until a cease-fire was called with the mage behind the curtain, a white-masked woman with hands covered by blood-red robes.
- Woman: [W.C.]
- "Well-dressed high elves..."
- Ganeth:
- "I'll tell my tailor you approve."
- Woman:
- "What Clan do you hail from, elves?"
- Silvana:
- "If we wanted people to know, we'd wear our insignia."
The party entered the settlement, and Elbleem/Silvator went off to discuss passage with the woman. The human beggars thronged the human party members (and were especially curious about the reduced ones) but seemed frightened of the elves. And over by the water, someone looking exactly like Glurf was calmly watching Ganeth.
(Ah, what to say about Glurf? Basically, there have been many Glurfs over the years, all priests of various religions [including an atheist who got spells anyway, but not including a doppleganger who was impersonating a Glurf]. The Glurfs are somehow tied to Nuket, a CN demi-god who gave them all the same name and face so she wouldn't have to remember who was hers and who wasn't. While the Glurfs are normally priests of other religions [which may or may not actually exist], they may become aware that they are actually Nuket's priests when she needs them. The presence of a Glurf in Banzeel presumably indicates that Nuket is taking an interest in events there.)
- Ganeth: [approaching Glurf]
- "You look like someone who might have a question."
- Glurf:
- "Greetings, sir. I am Glurf, priest of Hellbane."
- Ganeth:
- "I'm not familiar with that religion."
- Glurf:
- "You know, we heal people."
This Glurf, a first-level priest, has been in Banzeel for about a month; he has no memories prior to that. He believes that he was sent there "to heal a guy called Tubbins", but Tubbins was already dead by the time he arrived. (Tubbins' body hung from "the Tower" for several days and then was stolen.)
Glurf also remembers getting "the healing touch" in a dream. In the dream, he was standing under a bridge, looking up at Ganeth and either a dark woman in a robe or a woman in a dark robe. Ganeth fell off the bridge and almost died, but Glurf healed him and woke up with healing spells. Glurf was a bit surprised that G didn't remember any of this, despite his awareness that it was only a dream. (It could almost relate to the night when G woke up with 10 mysterious points of damage and the blood-red whetstone in his hand, but the timing seems off by a few months.)
With Tubbins dead, Glurf isn't sure what he should be doing (aside from healing people). He's been hanging around LakeView because he'd thought that the leader might have been the woman from his dream, but he's figured out that she's not. He wanted to go with Ganeth, but when G pointed out the level mismatch and the high probability of getting instantly killed in random area effect spells, Glurf opted to remain behind, at least for the moment.
- Glurf:
- "We'll meet again, I'm sure."
Ganeth expanded a collapsing turtle boat while Silvana cast water walk on herself, Pepper, Frankel, Rogroc, and Yves, and the party headed off onto the water. The party had a brief encounter with lacedons, notable only for Yves fumbling and dropping his sword into the water (though he was able to recover it before it sank too far). Both of the party's intelligent swords had something to say about it.
- Elissa: [elvish]
- " Something this stupid would never happen to me. Not since I got this nifty scabbard, heh heh."
- Ganeth:
- "We'll be sure to thank Sirax if we ever go visit him in prison."
- Elissa: [louder, to party]
- "I can teleport back into the scabbard any time."
- Ganeth:
- "I think they already knew that."
- Elissa:
- "Stupid orcs just don't know how to make a decent weapon."
- Ganeth:
- "Guess balance isn't their strong point..."
- Orcish sword: [orcish, to Yves]
- "Next time I'll slice your neck before I sink."
The party heard the sound of bats ahead, and El/Si reported a rumor that there was a vampire living in the sewers. Silvana cast invis to animals on the party, and the passed through the bats' territory uneventfully. The canal went through several forks, and the party found themselves in a narrow passage barred by a portcullis. There were no means of lifting the gate, though there were poisoned needles on the bars for anyone trying to lift them.
Rogroc was able to pull out a few of the bars. Immediately afterward, a wall of fire went up in front of the party; after that, a 10-die lightning bolt came through. (Beeel successfully retreated before the spell went off but missed a dex check and landed in the water.) The party ended up in combat with a fire mage and a succession of water weirds (created by a Klein bottle under the water by the portcullis). The mage herself went down in about a round, but her pact was much tougher: Hittable only by +2 or magical cold weapons, more than 70hp, AC around 0, magic miracle (to heal another 17 from Silvator's magic missiles -- how nice to know elemental mage pacts provide priestly spell powers), and two attacks per round (at a very good THAC0 -- never hit worse than AC -3) for 4d8 each. Ganeth was briefly killed by the creature, though he was revived before any interesting consequences came to pass.
When the creature was finally killed, it left a glowing red gem (or at least an image of one) floating in midair. It seemed likely to detonate in a big delayed blast fireball, but Silvator dispelled it with a wand of negation (which burned out). The party folded up the boat, and everyone took off along the walkway along the canal. (They also picked up the items around the ashen remains of the mage's body: a bright crimson robe, a red crystal wand, a pair of dark shoes, and a black hood.)
Since the mage was unusually powerful for a random encounter, she was probably there to meet (or ambush) someone, all the more reason to hurry along.
The party encountered another 8 or so lacedons and won.
- Elbleem:
- "We are within one encounter of the exit."
- Silvana:
- "One encounter? How do you know?"
- Elbleem:
- "I know because there isn't a whole lot of sewer left to hide stuff in."
Of course, the last encounter was likely to involve lots of Insanity priests (with lots of scrolls, since their temple has an artifact that lets them make scrolls very cheaply), some otyughs, rats, and leeches, and maybe some water snakes, crocodiles, or Imperial guards. After that would come a half-mile-square of open marshland overlooked by various grottos with archers on guard. Clearly time for a scouting run, so Yves went forth.
The first thing Yves noticed was that the stench was getting worse; he had to make a save to avoid being at penalties. Next he passed a sleeping snake coiled up on the path. And after four rounds (ignoring a few side passages and following the flow of sewage -- the Insanity worshippers may have dammed the other passages, creating the backup and the stench), he reached the entrance of a large chamber, containing smoking braziers, statues he couldn't see well, at least twenty masked people (some chanting, some guarding, some in robes, some in armor), and least six otyughs doing some kind of dance. One came toward him, and he climbed the nearest wall to get out of the way. There was some sort of moss on the wall that started feeling sticky; Yves was able to pull himself away (making a strength check), but he noticed several small punctures on his hands: the moss had been sucking his blood, though he'd pulled away before any serious damage was done. He made it make to the party and gave his report.
[For future reference, the chamber was roughly elliptical, about 120' across EW and 40' across NS. The passage entered from the middle of the east end; the other exits were a passageway and upward stairs toward the NW -- presumably leading to the Insanity Temple itself -- and a 30'-wide sluice leading to daylight in the center of the south side. A narrow path ran along the north wall, and there was about 30' of dry area at the west end; the rest of the place was under about 6' of sewage. The ceilings were roughly 50' high with various bas reliefs.]
The party started planning but were interrupted by a group of lacedons, a decoy lacedon filled with mildly poisonous gas, and a lacedon priest/shaman. It was a short interruption. Precasting happened, and the party advanced.
The snake Yves had seen was no longer asleep and its eyes were glowing red...but it was also paralyzed by Silvana's Aura of Terror and couldn't do anything. It didn't last long.
When the party reached the chamber, they realized that there was something interesting going on: The chamber was much smokier than it had been (and the smoke from the braziers was making entirely too interesting shapes by the ceiling), the sewage was rippling as if tentacles were waving beneath it, two groups of cultists were busy at the far end, and the statue between them was doing something psychedelic.
A big combat ensued, where the party hosed the cultists with a fireball, a top of interruption, darkness, and an ice trail, 1 HD (or less) bats with tentacles instead of heads tried to possess people (though this turned out to be good, since the melee kept Yves from running into the sewers after a cultist caused fear in him), one of the otyughs turned out to be neo, a lucky cultist's dispel magic wiped out some needed party spell effects (like prayers and G's fly), and (of course) some summonings went uncontrolled. The statue, once it animated, was 9 feet tall with tentacles growing out of its head; it also had an insanity-causing aura, an AC of -4, and a pair of 3d6 punches. It stopped moving when Silvana whacked it with a rod of cancellation. A big tentacled creature (dubbed the Big Oops) also put in an appearance: Its tentacles had snake heads on the ends and could simultaneously bite and grab; Elbleem/Silvator though it might be related to an All-Mother (and thus have a big central maw under the water somewhere). Silvator used a wall of ice to make a path to the exit, and the party managed to escape before the Big Oops could fully manifest and get more than one tentacle into action. (Beeel and Ganeth both failed their dex checks and fell off the ice, but they were saved by water-walking equines.)
The party emerged into open marshland, where archers on the city walls were happy to take shots at them. The water walkers and fliers sprinted away (with Beeel riding on Frankel), while Stealth and Ganeth swam through the marsh, using the water itself for cover. Nobody got shot, though Stealth was mildly poisoned by a snake.
The party (at least half diseased by this point) was met by skirmishers affiliated with the Temple of Belhor and learned that the nearest encampment was under the command of Lady Rogwaxene. Ganeth was treated with a course of three Dispel Magics (cast by Gorakheel), a Dispel Evil (from Silvana), two Know Alignments, and a Detect Evil (from Omijarvis), then put on ice for a week until Nomistrus could get to the encampment; the others were brought before Omimajish (one at a time) for debriefing and Cuthbert scanning.
- Omijarvis: [to Silvana regarding Ganeth]
- "Please keep him under close watch. Who knows what evil lurks inside..."
- Ganeth:
- "We already know there's plenty on the outside."