16 Doing the Work for Our Undead Overlord
Previous Session: 15 Finding a Unicorn || Next Session: 17 Underking Schmunderking
Let’s go do what the weird corpse told us to
Yeah, so now we’re working for the Mannamarco King of Worms because that’s apparently what we do now.
We decide to head over to Rahana Hammuoni’s place before we break in so that we can get the blessing of Nocturnal before we head down into the bottom.
While we’re praying in the back room Teromeda Theoseus appears at the table where Leanne and Kihrazad are having tea. She does some small talk with them about our quest.
We do get some more information about Liches, and we understand that they are immune to anything lower than glass quality. We additionally get the blessing of Nocturnal which gives us advantage on sneak while going into the basement.
We take a break, get some tacos, and then take our rest for the session.
Infiltrating the castle
We decided that the best way to get into the dungeon was for Terfir Lif to conjure a scamp for the guards to chase the thing around the dungeon.
Skill Use
Casts uses Detect Life (Illusion)
Turns out that there are a lot of guards down here, but not only that - Leanne’s mother Lielle is also down here. It turns out that she was captured during the war, when she was acting as healer. She’s been down here the entire time, which means that the Lielle that we met the first couple of times was not the real Lielle…
Skill Use
Kihra picks the lock open (Security) and then sneaks Lielle out of the dungeon (Sneak) and breaks her personal stealth advantage in the process.
Detecting the Lich
The three remaining of the group try to find the secret door to get down into the dungeon.
Challenge
Find the secret door: Casts: Success Lianne: Success
At the end of one of the hallways, we feel a breeze near a sconce which turns opening a secret passage.
The passage narrows quickly and this looks more like a pyramid structure, with hieroglyphs along the walls, and some alcoves with bodies in them (though some of them are empty).
Skill Use
The whole group tries to discern the language, and Casts manages to identify the language as Yakudin
Challenge
Sneak past the skeletons Casts: Success Terfir: Success -2 stamina Leanne: Failure, -4 health, stepping on a bunch of rakes
Fight the skeletons
Leanne is attacked: Successfully blocks
Leanne attacks them: Successfully kills one.
Casts: Backstabs one, killing it
Terfir: Kills the final one with a fireball.
Skill Use
Casts uses (Restoration) to heal Leanne for 2
Descending further
Once we get further down into the tomb, the alcoves go away and we’re greeted by a bunch of sarcophagi - some of which are open, and some of which are closed.
(Meanwhile, as Kihra is still fleeing the dungeon she spots some shiny gold and steals it on the way out)
One of the rooms that we come across, there’s a faint glow coming from it. There’s a lich sitting on a sarcophagus in this room, so Casts activates his birth sign to not be noticed.
Skill Use
Sneak
Lich!
Casts: Successfully stabs the lich, -9 stamina (Stealth)
Terfir: Summons Ox, who is immediately imploded
Leanne: Attacks with a battle axe, success -10 stamina
Lich: Attacks Casts, who blocks with Shield (Alteration), but is blinded
Terfir: Uses Desctruction to flames him
Leanne: Attacks with the Axe, and collapses in front of it.
We find 3 alchemical ingredients, a grand soul gem, and 30 gold (worth of gems)
Getting back to the House
We make it back out of the dungeon, and back to Rahana Hammuoni’s place, and have a short chat with Lielle. Turns out she was captured by the Redguards during the war, and has been there ever since.
We brought up the fact that there are two of her, and it became clear that Leanne’s father might be in great danger. We spend a fair amount of time figuring out how we should get back to Ancus’s place, and come up with Teromeda could teleport us, or we could go see the King of Worms and see if he’d teleport us there.
Skill Use
(Survival) for the trip back to the Ancus’s place. Everyone succeeds. Casts -2 health, Leanne -4 traveler’s kits.
We make it back to the cabin, and find the place has gotten less lush - and Leanne finds Ancus in bed, alive but only just.
Leanne rushes up to him, and is attacked by a creature!
Fight
It’s a Hagraven! Leanne gets jumped by the hagraven! (Ouch!) She’s in bad shape and slumped up against the wall Kihra slashes it with her claws Terfir decks it right in the face, and it dies. Casts leisurely strolls in and observes the aftermath.
Casts uses (Restoration) to heal Leanne enough so she won’t bleed out.
Terfir blacks out for a bit, and sees Morna in Hermaus Mora’s realm, and offers her a cure from the book, if Leanne were to renounce worshiping the divines. Which she does! She brews up a potion while in a daze. Shrugging, Casts-No-Shadow and Kihrazad carry the corpse of the hagraven out of the building.
Turns out that the hagraven that took over Lielle’s life was looking for a way to unlock the power to create hagravens, not to cure them.
Sidequest complete, back to the main quest
We eventually get back across the bay, and make our way back to Scourge Barrow.
We head into the depths and go back through the large doors - seeing a bunch of dead wandering around. We hand the lich’s soul over to the King of Worms. He tells us that the Underking knows where Lysandus is buried. He also will let us know who the underking is. He’s Zuren Archus - who was betrayed by Tiber Septum, and his soul is bound to his body because of the Numidium and he is unable to die. He’s been a thorn in Mannimarco’s side for centuries and if he were to regain his mortal body then the entire continent would be thrown into chaos.
He’s seeking just that, and our quest may align with his, but we should not allow him to regain his mortal form.
He pays us 20 gold each, and sends us on our way.
Finding the Underking
So we decide to go back to Sentinel and try to contact the underking again. We give Medora an update on our progress.
The following day, Arvel comes up to Kihra with a note from a naked courier.
Queen Akorithi of Sentinel spoke highly of you as a brave, able, and unprejudiced group. Her actual words were 'a hero.' For some time, we have been looking for someone like that. I will not lie to you about our loyalties. We serve the Underking. If you are a believer in fairy tales and consider the Underking the ultimate force of evil, we apologize for misjudging you. Otherwise, we need your help. You can find me at The Fire and Steel of the town of Chainlink of Hammerfell. I will wait one month.
This is highly convenient as we needed to figure out where the Underking is hiding so that we can do his bidding.
Chainlink is in the province of Tigonus, which connects 2 of the rivers together. It’s a mercenary town where the fighter’s guild has a strong presence.
Arriving in Chainlink
It appears to us to be more like a fortress rather than a town, mostly that it was an outpost which people started building houses around it. We’re not underdressed, per se, but we don’t look like any of the mercenaries.
They send us to the Fire and Steel where we are soon greeted by an agent of the underking. He introduces himself as Baurus. He’s surprised to see us.
Quest
We need to go to Castle Llugwych and find a crown which is being protected by the blades. This item is cursed and the curse acts as a beacon so that the necromancer can send its legions there.
We end the session by doing a survival roll and we make it to the aforementioned location.