September 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)
Past the eastern door is a short passageway that ends in a tee intersection. There are doors on both the north and south walls. The party creep forward and look down both directions of the tee, but only see another passageway that extends to the north and to the south to the limit of their lantern light.
They listen at the two doors in the passageway; they hear nothing to the south, but they hear faint scuffling sounds to the north. Searching the door for traps, they find nothing, so they decide to burst suddenly into the room, hoping to surprise whatever is inside that is making the noises.
The door is made of heavy stone, so it is difficult to open quickly. The group elect to have Arik take care of this, but he struggles a bit, alerting the creature on the other side of the door before getting it open. Through the door is a smallish room that appears to be a bedroom, containing a desk, a bed, a chest, and various other simple furnishings. Emerging from underneath the bed is a monstrous lizard creature, pale blue in colour and about the size of a man (although quadrupedal). Zedlyn and Arik move forward and attack it, and dispatch it in short order.
With the immediate danger taken care of, the party search the room more thoroughly while Zedlyn stands guard. Adokas searches the creature for poison that he can salvage, but finds nothing. The rest of the party search the room proper, and for the most part it seems empty. There is nothing of interest in the chest, on the desk, etc, so it seems that either the room has already been looted, or whoever once lived here took everything before leaving. They do find one thing of interest, though - underneath the bed is a partially-eaten corpse.
The corpse is of a human, but very pale skinned and fair haired, possibly an albino. It is dressed in an elaborate, brightly-coloured bird costume, including a gold inlaid bird mask. It looks valuable, so the party take it.
Moving on to the southern door, after checking it for traps as well, the party once again burst through, hoping to take any occupants by surprise. The room beyond turns out to be another bedroom, very similar to the previous room, but unoccupied. They search the room, but the only item of interest that they find is a small, wooden holy symbol depicting a balance. It seems to correspond to the balance held by the bearded statue they saw at the top of the pyramid.
Heading to the tee at the end of the hallway, they decide to explore the northern branch. The hallway goes for about fifty feet in this direction, then ends - a dead end, apparently. They search the hallway thoroughly for a secret passage, but discover nothing.
Returning to the tee and heading south, they find that it goes for sixty feet before ending, but unlike the northern passage, it contains two doors on the western wall and a golden statue at the end of the hallway. The statue is of the same bearded man depicted by the statue on the top of the pyramid, again holding a balance and a lightning bolt. They search the statue for secret mechanisms of any sort, but find nothing.
Turning their attention to the two nearby doors, they listen at both, and from beyond each they hear muted conversation. They pick the southernmost of the two doors, and as before, burst into the room in the hopes of surprising the occupants. Inside is a bunkroom containing six beds, and six occupants who are standing around talking to each other. These occupants are men wearing chainmail with blue tabards, each wearing a steel helm with a golden mask that matches the statue outside. They are the right size to be human, but since they are showing no exposed skin, none of the party can say for sure.
The men are taken by surprise, and Zedlyn leaps into the room with his trident drawn, demanding that they drop their weapons. One of the men, evidently the leader, instead steps forward and demands to know who the party are and what they are doing. The man speaks a very strange, barely-intelligible dialect of the Common Tongue, and most of the party cannot really understand him. Similarly, it seems that the men can barely understand the party as well.
After several attempts at communication mediated by Iriellis, eventually both groups become accustomed to the others' manner of speech and are able to basically converse. The men identify themselves as members of the Brotherhood of Gorm - Gorm being the name of the bearded deity depicted in the statues - and the leader identifies himself as Kanadius. The party explain that they are in the area searching for signs of a demon. Upon hearing this, Kanadius responds that his group, too, opposes a demon, and begins explaining their situation to the party.
He explains that he and his brothers come from a city located deep below the pyramid, ruled over by the demon Zargon. Ages ago, his people once lived in the city above and worshipped Gorm, god of war, storms, and justice, Usamigaras, god of healing, messengers, and thieves, and Madarua, goddess of birth, death, and the seasons. However, the water in the city dried up and people were forced to relocate underground, where sources of water still existed. There, they encountered the demon Zargon, who enslaved the people, and still controls most of them today. He keeps the people under control by feeding them various hallucinogenic substances, and most of the worshippers of Zargon can barely distinguish between fantasy and reality any more.
His organization, the Brotherhood of Gorm, seeks to restore the worship of Gorm and break the hold that Zargon has over the people. Evidently, there are corresponding organizations that worship Usamigaras and Madarua, but the three groups cannot agree on most things and do not usually work together. Kanadius asks if any of the party are willing to join the Brotherhood, but only male warriors are allowed to join, and none of the group who qualify are willing to take up worship of Gorm.
Kanadius is reluctant to offer any concrete help to those who are not members of the Brotherhood, and the party are unable to get much more information out of him. He does reveal that the Brotherhood is run by the Grand Master, who can be found in the group's hidden headquarters in the city below, but he is not willing to reveal their exact location. He does, on their request, provide them with a written note explaining to other worshippers of Gorm that they might meet that they are basically trustworthy.
Kanadius having explained that the other nearby door leads to another room occupied by the Brotherhood, the party decide to back off and return to the central room where they fought the fire beetles and explore another path. This time, they take the northernmost of the two western doors. The door leads to a winding passage which they slowly traverse, on the lookout for traps. They find nothing of the sort, but Iriellis notices a concealed door along the southern wall. The group listen at the door and hear a buzzing sound coming from beyond. As usual, they prepare to burst through the door and charge into whatever is beyond.
Arik pulls the door open and reveals the room beyond; it is a mid-sized room that appears mostly empty, apart from a large pile of dust and debris in the center. Flying about the room are seven insectoid, blood-sucking creatures, about two feet long each. Adokas charges in to attack, and in response four of the creatures attack him, with two managing to latch on and start draining his blood. The rest of the party charge into the room and attack as well, except for P'hla and Sharla who stay back with missile weapons. The rest of the creatures target Flossaria.
Eventually, the party manage to dispatch the creatures, with both Flossaria and Adokas taking moderate wounds. The clerics patch both of them up, and the party move on to searching the room. They find two features of interest. First, there is a small hole in one of the corners of the ceiling, from which sunlight is streaming in. This is apparently how the creatures got in. Second, among the pile of dust and debris are four valuable gems, which the group take.
They return to the passageway that they were following, which continues west, turns north, then turns back to the east. At the end of the eastern passage it turns south, but there is also a door on the south wall. They listen at the door but hear nothing. Bursting into the room, they find that it's an ancient storeroom, containing crates of food and bales of cloth. However, all is long decayed to a state of uselessness. The party find nothing of interest in the room, so they exit and continue to the east.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Session 28: The Lost City, Part 2
September 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)
Upon entering the mysterious city, the party split into three groups. Zedlyn and Arik start searching nearby buildings, looking for shards of pottery, metals, or other clues about the city besides the stone that could have survived. Iriellis and Flossaria search for wells or other sources of water, which would extend the amount of time that the party can last before needing to leave. Sharla, Adokas, and P'hla decide to head directly for the pyramid.
Zedlyn and Arik discover a few relics, although most are too old and weathered to provide any specific clues. They note that the vast majority of the metal items they find are made of bronze, rather than iron or steel, another indication that the city is extremely ancient. Zedlyn takes a few bronze knives with him. Iriellis and Flossaria, meanwhile, have no real luck - they find several wells, but all appear to be dry. As they do this, there are using spells to detect evil and detect magic, but neither spell registers anything.
Sharla, Adokas and P'hla head straight for the pyramid, a trip that takes about half an hour. The pyramid itself is a five-level step pyramid, with each level 20 feet in height, for a total of 100 feet. A stone stairway runs up one of the sides to the top level, which is topped by three statues. The three adventurers make their way up the stairs and observe the statues more closely. They are, from left to right, of a strong, bearded man holding a balance in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other; a winged child holding a wand in one hand and a handful of coins in the other; and a beautiful woman holding a sheaf of wheat in one hand and a sword in the other. Each statue is thirty feet tall and made of bronze. No one recognizes any of the three figures depicted.
However, while they are climbing to the top, Adokas notices that, on the level below the statues, one of the massive stone blocks is askew. It seems to be an opening that leads into the pyramid. They decide to gather the rest of the party before exploring any further. Sharla uses a spell to amplify her voice and shouts across the city, calling the rest of the group to meet them at the pyramid.
The rest of the party make their way to the pyramid, and once everyone has arrived, they enter. The first thing they notice is that the "stone block" that is askew is actually no such thing at all; it is a much thinner veneer that appears designed to be opened. The next thing that they notice is the corpse of a hobgoblin several steps into the pyramid, lying on its back with a crossbow bolt embedded in its chest. The corpse appears to be only a few days old.
Carefully searching the area, they find a pressure plate that the hobgoblin must have stepped on, and a hole at the end of the hallway that the bolt must have shot from. The bolt itself is bronze-tipped, much like the other metal implements that Arik and Zedlyn discovered.
The passage continues until it ends in a door; based on the layout of the pyramid, this door would appear to lead into the pyramid proper (whereas the hallway they were just in was underneath the stairway). The door opens by sliding to the side, and Adokas pulls it open, but it appears to be counterweighted in such a way that it will slide shut if left alone. Arik holds the door open while Adokas peers into the room, and Sharla throws around a pair of Dancing Lights so he can see.
The room is forty feet on each wall, and appears to contain nothing more than three bronze cylinders, which are about five feet wide each and run from floor to ceiling. Each has a door set into its front. Adokas checks the area around the door for traps, and once he's satisfied that there are none, he steps in and motions for rest of the party to follow. Zedlyn stays at the door and wedges it open by snapping the haft of one of his javelins into several pieces and wedging them in.
Inside, the party search the room thoroughly, and Iriellis takes note of several features. On the west wall is another crossbow bolt-sized hole, lined up perfectly to hit someone opening one of the doors in the three cylinders. In front of the rightmost cylinder, one of the floorstones is slightly loose and can be pushed up and down.
Zedlyn goes to block the crossbow bolts by holding up a rock to the hole, while Arik opens the rightmost door, being sure to stand away from the loose stone. He opens it and finds that the cylinder is hollow, and contains a ladder that runs both up and down. Up, he can see nothing, but below he sees a faint reddish glow. With the door open, Adokas finds that he is able to push open the loose stone, which reveals a pit down to the same reddish glow. The party surmise that this must be a pit trap, triggered when someone opens the door on the cylinder.
Arik moves on the the middle cylinder, which contains essentially the same thing. He continues to the leftmost cylinder, which is also identical to the first cylinder, but this time, opening the door triggers the trap that Zedlyn is blocking. Not one but four crossbow bolts shoot from the trap; the first is blocked by the rock, but the force knocks it out of Zedlyn's hands, the second goes wide, the third hits Adokas, and the fourth hits Arik. Fortunately, the wounds are only minor.
Arik, Adokas, and Zedlyn decide to climb the left, middle, and right statues, respectively. They climb to the top of the ladders, where they each find a platform full of levers and machinery, along with a voice box in each cylinder. They realize that from inside each cylinder, they can control one of the three statues above the pyramid and speak through its mouth. Flossaria pulls open the door for Iriellis to go watch the statues, and sure enough, when various levers are pulled, the huge bronze statues move their various joints. The party guess that these devices must have been used in religious ceremonies.
Flossaria pulls the door open to let Iriellis back in, but when closing it, she loses her grip and the counterweights slam the door shut. Immediately, the party hear a hissing noise coming from all around. Zedlyn rushes back down the ladder and, with great effort, pulls the door back open; as soon as it opens, the hissing stops. He then wedges is securely open again.
The party decide to use the ladder to descend to the next level of the pyramid. Climbing down, they see that the reddish glow was caused by a pack of Fire Beetles. The group climb down in waves, three at a time, and easily dispatch the giant vermin, taking no wounds. They saw the still-glowing fronds off of each beetle to use as light sources.
Looking around, they find themselves in a room the same size as the one above, with three exits - two doors on the west wall, and one on the east. The room contains various spare parts for the machinery above, a small forge, and two large, covered pots of oil. The party refill several of their empty flasks, but when they try to burn the oil, they find that it is quite impure and burns poorly.
With no particular reason to pick one poor over another, the party head through the eastern door to continue exploring the pyramid.
Upon entering the mysterious city, the party split into three groups. Zedlyn and Arik start searching nearby buildings, looking for shards of pottery, metals, or other clues about the city besides the stone that could have survived. Iriellis and Flossaria search for wells or other sources of water, which would extend the amount of time that the party can last before needing to leave. Sharla, Adokas, and P'hla decide to head directly for the pyramid.
Zedlyn and Arik discover a few relics, although most are too old and weathered to provide any specific clues. They note that the vast majority of the metal items they find are made of bronze, rather than iron or steel, another indication that the city is extremely ancient. Zedlyn takes a few bronze knives with him. Iriellis and Flossaria, meanwhile, have no real luck - they find several wells, but all appear to be dry. As they do this, there are using spells to detect evil and detect magic, but neither spell registers anything.
Sharla, Adokas and P'hla head straight for the pyramid, a trip that takes about half an hour. The pyramid itself is a five-level step pyramid, with each level 20 feet in height, for a total of 100 feet. A stone stairway runs up one of the sides to the top level, which is topped by three statues. The three adventurers make their way up the stairs and observe the statues more closely. They are, from left to right, of a strong, bearded man holding a balance in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other; a winged child holding a wand in one hand and a handful of coins in the other; and a beautiful woman holding a sheaf of wheat in one hand and a sword in the other. Each statue is thirty feet tall and made of bronze. No one recognizes any of the three figures depicted.
However, while they are climbing to the top, Adokas notices that, on the level below the statues, one of the massive stone blocks is askew. It seems to be an opening that leads into the pyramid. They decide to gather the rest of the party before exploring any further. Sharla uses a spell to amplify her voice and shouts across the city, calling the rest of the group to meet them at the pyramid.
The rest of the party make their way to the pyramid, and once everyone has arrived, they enter. The first thing they notice is that the "stone block" that is askew is actually no such thing at all; it is a much thinner veneer that appears designed to be opened. The next thing that they notice is the corpse of a hobgoblin several steps into the pyramid, lying on its back with a crossbow bolt embedded in its chest. The corpse appears to be only a few days old.
Carefully searching the area, they find a pressure plate that the hobgoblin must have stepped on, and a hole at the end of the hallway that the bolt must have shot from. The bolt itself is bronze-tipped, much like the other metal implements that Arik and Zedlyn discovered.
The passage continues until it ends in a door; based on the layout of the pyramid, this door would appear to lead into the pyramid proper (whereas the hallway they were just in was underneath the stairway). The door opens by sliding to the side, and Adokas pulls it open, but it appears to be counterweighted in such a way that it will slide shut if left alone. Arik holds the door open while Adokas peers into the room, and Sharla throws around a pair of Dancing Lights so he can see.
The room is forty feet on each wall, and appears to contain nothing more than three bronze cylinders, which are about five feet wide each and run from floor to ceiling. Each has a door set into its front. Adokas checks the area around the door for traps, and once he's satisfied that there are none, he steps in and motions for rest of the party to follow. Zedlyn stays at the door and wedges it open by snapping the haft of one of his javelins into several pieces and wedging them in.
Inside, the party search the room thoroughly, and Iriellis takes note of several features. On the west wall is another crossbow bolt-sized hole, lined up perfectly to hit someone opening one of the doors in the three cylinders. In front of the rightmost cylinder, one of the floorstones is slightly loose and can be pushed up and down.
Zedlyn goes to block the crossbow bolts by holding up a rock to the hole, while Arik opens the rightmost door, being sure to stand away from the loose stone. He opens it and finds that the cylinder is hollow, and contains a ladder that runs both up and down. Up, he can see nothing, but below he sees a faint reddish glow. With the door open, Adokas finds that he is able to push open the loose stone, which reveals a pit down to the same reddish glow. The party surmise that this must be a pit trap, triggered when someone opens the door on the cylinder.
Arik moves on the the middle cylinder, which contains essentially the same thing. He continues to the leftmost cylinder, which is also identical to the first cylinder, but this time, opening the door triggers the trap that Zedlyn is blocking. Not one but four crossbow bolts shoot from the trap; the first is blocked by the rock, but the force knocks it out of Zedlyn's hands, the second goes wide, the third hits Adokas, and the fourth hits Arik. Fortunately, the wounds are only minor.
Arik, Adokas, and Zedlyn decide to climb the left, middle, and right statues, respectively. They climb to the top of the ladders, where they each find a platform full of levers and machinery, along with a voice box in each cylinder. They realize that from inside each cylinder, they can control one of the three statues above the pyramid and speak through its mouth. Flossaria pulls open the door for Iriellis to go watch the statues, and sure enough, when various levers are pulled, the huge bronze statues move their various joints. The party guess that these devices must have been used in religious ceremonies.
Flossaria pulls the door open to let Iriellis back in, but when closing it, she loses her grip and the counterweights slam the door shut. Immediately, the party hear a hissing noise coming from all around. Zedlyn rushes back down the ladder and, with great effort, pulls the door back open; as soon as it opens, the hissing stops. He then wedges is securely open again.
The party decide to use the ladder to descend to the next level of the pyramid. Climbing down, they see that the reddish glow was caused by a pack of Fire Beetles. The group climb down in waves, three at a time, and easily dispatch the giant vermin, taking no wounds. They saw the still-glowing fronds off of each beetle to use as light sources.
Looking around, they find themselves in a room the same size as the one above, with three exits - two doors on the west wall, and one on the east. The room contains various spare parts for the machinery above, a small forge, and two large, covered pots of oil. The party refill several of their empty flasks, but when they try to burn the oil, they find that it is quite impure and burns poorly.
With no particular reason to pick one poor over another, the party head through the eastern door to continue exploring the pyramid.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Session 27: The Lost City, Part 1
September 5, Year 3488 (SE 118)
As the session begins, several days have passed after the party was captured by the Vizier's guards and imprisoned. They are jailed in the higher-security jail located in the military district of Viskha, and each party member is alone in a cell. None can see the others, and there appear to be no obvious opportunities to escape. Notably, Flossaria spends her sixteenth birthday in prison.
Finally, on this day, each party member is approached one-by-one by Lieutenant Hadia, who gets the guard to release each party member and asks him or her to follow her lead and not try anything. One-by-one, she leads each adventurer to a small, private interrogation chamber.
The entire group is reunited - Flossaria and P'hla included. Neither of them has any memory of what happened; each remembers closing her eyes, then waking up in prison, with no memories of anything in between.
Hadia explains that she has gathered them together so that someone can speak with them. she urges them to speak quickly, because she's going against procedure in gathering the group and allowing someone to speak with them. The longer they take, the more trouble that she's in. She then admits their visitor into the room.
A man walks in, and several members of the party recognize him - he's one of the members of the cult of the half-closed eye that they had been spying on. The man confirms his membership in the group, but tells them that he (literally) cannot tell them any details about the group. He also declines to give his name.
He explains that he's come to offer an exchange of services to the party. His group opposes the other cultists, the ones who worship the entity that had possessed Flossaria and P'hla. He confirms that the Vizier himself belongs to the cult, and tells them that the cult has recently recovered a map, showing a location in the desert to the west, and that they are currently preparing an expedition to this location. This is, of course, the map that Sharla found, which was taken from her when the party was captured by the Vizier's men.
Thus, the man presents his offer. His group's numbers are too few to both combat the cult's growing influence in Viskha and stop their expedition to the west. They also don't know the exact location that the enemy is travelling to. But Sharla, having studied the map, does know the location. So, he asks them to travel to the location on the map, find out what the cult is looking for, and stop them from acquiring it. In return, his group will break them out of prison, retrieve their gear, and outfit them for the expedition.
The party don't take much convincing; they are scheduled to be executed soon and have no other way to escape, and they were planning on fighting the cult anyway. However, they are concerned about the demon's ability to influence their dreams, and its existing influence on P'hla and Flossaria. The man explains that his group has two ways to block the being's influence. The first is a magic ring that they possess, which essentially blanks the user's mind, which prevents it from being influenced. However, they only have one such ring.
The second method comes with a cost. His group has knowledge of a ritual which essentially erases the subject's past. All memories of the subject older than about a month are completely destroyed in the minds of all others, and somehow this prevents the demonic entity from affecting the subject. This, of course, means that all of the subject's family and friends will completely forget about him or her - essentially, his or her past life will be completely erased.
The man explains that this is completely optional, except for Flossaria and P'hla, who have already been affected by the creature, and therefore must be closed off against its influence. One of them can use the ring, but the other will have to undergo the ritual.
The man prepares to leave, in order to allow the party to discuss who will undergo the ritual. They point out that they have another method that could protect against the demon's influence - the spell that prevents the subject from dreaming, still held by Varanac at the Mages' College. After they describe what it does, he agrees to retrieve it, since it could be useful to his group as well.
Finally, the man departs and the party are led back to their cells by the guards.
September 6, Year 3488 (SE 118)
The next day, the cultists of the half-closed eye put their plan into action. Several cultists arrive at the prison, and convince the guards to let the adventurers go free. The guards are obviously under some sort of magical compulsion; the reasoning that the cultists give is extremely flimsy and yet the guards seem to accept it unconditionally; not to mention the fact that they are taking orders from the cultists at all. Regardless of how it is done, the compulsion has the desired effect, and soon enough the entire party is let out of the prison. They are reunited with the man who spoke with them yesterday, who is accompanied by several other cultists.
The man, who seems to be the leader of the cultists, warns them that the spell that they used against the guards will most likely last for several more hours, at which point the guards will realize that the prisoners are gone. He leads them to the cult's new hideout (the old one having been discovered) so they can plan their next move.
The cultists return the party's gear, which they successfully retrieved from the prison, and they begin by discussing the memory-erasing ritual. In the end, two party members decide to undergo it: P'hla and Zedlyn, while Flossaria will wear the protective ring. The ritual takes an hour for each participant; while this is happening, Sharla begins studying the scroll of Dreamless Slumber that the cultists obtained from Varanac. When Zedlyn, and an hour later P'hla, exits from the ritual chamber, the ritual appears to have been a complete success. None of the other party members can remember anything about Zedlyn and P'hla from more than a month ago.
By this time, it is approximately noon, and the cultists urge them to leave as soon as possible, but the party has a few more errands to complete around town. Sharla and P'hla head out to purchase the inks and other components that they will need to scribe the Dreamless Slumber spell, while Iriellis writes a personal letter and leaves it at the Temple of Slid.
Finally, the party are ready to leave. The head cultist leads them to the outskirts of Viskha, where they are introduced to their guide - Zaerin, a Desert Elf ranger. She provides them with supplies and appropriate attire, and explains the route that they will take. The first several days will be in the fertile river valley area, so travel will be business as usual. After that, however, the rest of the first week will be through the desert. They'll need to exchange their horses for camels if they wish to continue riding. This first week in the desert should be fairly simple, as it will be in territory that is well known by Zaerin's clan.
The second week will be more dangerous, because it will be through uncharted desert; Zaerin will not know the routes or the locations of oases. They will be carrying enough water for the week of travel, two weeks at their destination, and one week back.
With their route explained, the party head out. The expedition that the demon cultists are planning to send has still not left, so they are ahead, but by how much they cannot say.
September 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)
Two weeks have passed as the party travelled to their destination. Everything has gone as Zaerin said it would. After the first several days, they reached the edge of the desert and traded in their horses for camels at a small trading village. During the second week, Zaerin appeared to lose her way a few times, but managed to recover the correct path and lead them to their destination within the expected time. During this time, both Sharla and P'hla manage to learn and scribe the spell of Dreamless Slumber.
Finally, they see what must be their destination, in the distance. It appears to be a city, dominated by a pyramid built in the center. As they cautiously appreach, they notice two pieces of information - first, the city appears to be largely in ruins, and second, the pyramid does match the one seen by Flossaria and P'hla in their dreams, although there was no city surrounding it in the dreams.
As they reach the outskirts, Zaerin announces that she will stay behind and keep an eye on the camels and the supplies. Iriellis and Flossaria cast spells to detect magic and evil, and the party prepare to enter the city.
As the session begins, several days have passed after the party was captured by the Vizier's guards and imprisoned. They are jailed in the higher-security jail located in the military district of Viskha, and each party member is alone in a cell. None can see the others, and there appear to be no obvious opportunities to escape. Notably, Flossaria spends her sixteenth birthday in prison.
Finally, on this day, each party member is approached one-by-one by Lieutenant Hadia, who gets the guard to release each party member and asks him or her to follow her lead and not try anything. One-by-one, she leads each adventurer to a small, private interrogation chamber.
The entire group is reunited - Flossaria and P'hla included. Neither of them has any memory of what happened; each remembers closing her eyes, then waking up in prison, with no memories of anything in between.
Hadia explains that she has gathered them together so that someone can speak with them. she urges them to speak quickly, because she's going against procedure in gathering the group and allowing someone to speak with them. The longer they take, the more trouble that she's in. She then admits their visitor into the room.
A man walks in, and several members of the party recognize him - he's one of the members of the cult of the half-closed eye that they had been spying on. The man confirms his membership in the group, but tells them that he (literally) cannot tell them any details about the group. He also declines to give his name.
He explains that he's come to offer an exchange of services to the party. His group opposes the other cultists, the ones who worship the entity that had possessed Flossaria and P'hla. He confirms that the Vizier himself belongs to the cult, and tells them that the cult has recently recovered a map, showing a location in the desert to the west, and that they are currently preparing an expedition to this location. This is, of course, the map that Sharla found, which was taken from her when the party was captured by the Vizier's men.
Thus, the man presents his offer. His group's numbers are too few to both combat the cult's growing influence in Viskha and stop their expedition to the west. They also don't know the exact location that the enemy is travelling to. But Sharla, having studied the map, does know the location. So, he asks them to travel to the location on the map, find out what the cult is looking for, and stop them from acquiring it. In return, his group will break them out of prison, retrieve their gear, and outfit them for the expedition.
The party don't take much convincing; they are scheduled to be executed soon and have no other way to escape, and they were planning on fighting the cult anyway. However, they are concerned about the demon's ability to influence their dreams, and its existing influence on P'hla and Flossaria. The man explains that his group has two ways to block the being's influence. The first is a magic ring that they possess, which essentially blanks the user's mind, which prevents it from being influenced. However, they only have one such ring.
The second method comes with a cost. His group has knowledge of a ritual which essentially erases the subject's past. All memories of the subject older than about a month are completely destroyed in the minds of all others, and somehow this prevents the demonic entity from affecting the subject. This, of course, means that all of the subject's family and friends will completely forget about him or her - essentially, his or her past life will be completely erased.
The man explains that this is completely optional, except for Flossaria and P'hla, who have already been affected by the creature, and therefore must be closed off against its influence. One of them can use the ring, but the other will have to undergo the ritual.
The man prepares to leave, in order to allow the party to discuss who will undergo the ritual. They point out that they have another method that could protect against the demon's influence - the spell that prevents the subject from dreaming, still held by Varanac at the Mages' College. After they describe what it does, he agrees to retrieve it, since it could be useful to his group as well.
Finally, the man departs and the party are led back to their cells by the guards.
September 6, Year 3488 (SE 118)
The next day, the cultists of the half-closed eye put their plan into action. Several cultists arrive at the prison, and convince the guards to let the adventurers go free. The guards are obviously under some sort of magical compulsion; the reasoning that the cultists give is extremely flimsy and yet the guards seem to accept it unconditionally; not to mention the fact that they are taking orders from the cultists at all. Regardless of how it is done, the compulsion has the desired effect, and soon enough the entire party is let out of the prison. They are reunited with the man who spoke with them yesterday, who is accompanied by several other cultists.
The man, who seems to be the leader of the cultists, warns them that the spell that they used against the guards will most likely last for several more hours, at which point the guards will realize that the prisoners are gone. He leads them to the cult's new hideout (the old one having been discovered) so they can plan their next move.
The cultists return the party's gear, which they successfully retrieved from the prison, and they begin by discussing the memory-erasing ritual. In the end, two party members decide to undergo it: P'hla and Zedlyn, while Flossaria will wear the protective ring. The ritual takes an hour for each participant; while this is happening, Sharla begins studying the scroll of Dreamless Slumber that the cultists obtained from Varanac. When Zedlyn, and an hour later P'hla, exits from the ritual chamber, the ritual appears to have been a complete success. None of the other party members can remember anything about Zedlyn and P'hla from more than a month ago.
By this time, it is approximately noon, and the cultists urge them to leave as soon as possible, but the party has a few more errands to complete around town. Sharla and P'hla head out to purchase the inks and other components that they will need to scribe the Dreamless Slumber spell, while Iriellis writes a personal letter and leaves it at the Temple of Slid.
Finally, the party are ready to leave. The head cultist leads them to the outskirts of Viskha, where they are introduced to their guide - Zaerin, a Desert Elf ranger. She provides them with supplies and appropriate attire, and explains the route that they will take. The first several days will be in the fertile river valley area, so travel will be business as usual. After that, however, the rest of the first week will be through the desert. They'll need to exchange their horses for camels if they wish to continue riding. This first week in the desert should be fairly simple, as it will be in territory that is well known by Zaerin's clan.
The second week will be more dangerous, because it will be through uncharted desert; Zaerin will not know the routes or the locations of oases. They will be carrying enough water for the week of travel, two weeks at their destination, and one week back.
With their route explained, the party head out. The expedition that the demon cultists are planning to send has still not left, so they are ahead, but by how much they cannot say.
September 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)
Two weeks have passed as the party travelled to their destination. Everything has gone as Zaerin said it would. After the first several days, they reached the edge of the desert and traded in their horses for camels at a small trading village. During the second week, Zaerin appeared to lose her way a few times, but managed to recover the correct path and lead them to their destination within the expected time. During this time, both Sharla and P'hla manage to learn and scribe the spell of Dreamless Slumber.
Finally, they see what must be their destination, in the distance. It appears to be a city, dominated by a pyramid built in the center. As they cautiously appreach, they notice two pieces of information - first, the city appears to be largely in ruins, and second, the pyramid does match the one seen by Flossaria and P'hla in their dreams, although there was no city surrounding it in the dreams.
As they reach the outskirts, Zaerin announces that she will stay behind and keep an eye on the camels and the supplies. Iriellis and Flossaria cast spells to detect magic and evil, and the party prepare to enter the city.
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