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Session 10, The Ghost and the Smugglers Room

Paldegora 

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Session 10 – 2023-02-11

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Ah, I'm back. I hope you haven't been too inconvenienced by the length of time between the last post and this one. Well, the story this week will make the hair on your neck stand up. Let's see…

It started with a weakened Company making their way back to the room where they killed Skull Cracker, to rest. Eryn threw the levers to close the two portcullises blocking access to this area, for protection. They determined, based on hints from the gods, that the upper levers locked the gates in whatever position they were in. They used those locks to keep the portcullises down and make sure that no one could lift them as Xor had done. They rested with no one on watch. After they rested, Angelique healed Cal-El and Eryn up. The party left and went back to the lever room and reopened the portcullises. They went to the eastern tunnel south of the lever room. The eastern tunnel south of the eastern tunnel to the crapper. They made their way down that tunnel until they came to a domed room with a manmade tunnel going north out of it and a natural tunnel going southeast out of it. They went north.

They made their way north and came to a tunnel off of it going east. They continued north as the tunnel turned more natural again. They continued for quite some distance when they found an area that broke off of the main tunnel going northwest. Some of the ceiling had collapsed here but it was still passable, though a bit of a tight fit. Eryn decided to see what was up that way first. She was small enough to easily slip through the opening and worked her way west from there. The tunnel turned southwest and then south, appearing to circle around and back to the main path everyone else waited on. She let them know when she could see them again and Xor moved down toward her. Meantime, Cal-El slipped through the opening and began checking for hidden doors. He wasn't finding any. Eryn noticed a bluish light dancing around in the area south of her. She pulled out her shield, just in case. The path appeared to dead-end a little further south with the remains of a human lying on the path. The remains were very old and mostly degraded. The clothing it had been wearing was in very bad shape, almost unrecognizable. 

As she was looking at it, the bluish light suddenly moved at her, seemingly attacking her. It missed her. She pulled out her sword preparing to respond to the attack. She announced the attack to the rest who couldn't see what was going on. Angelique moved down and Symon, Cal-El stopped his searches to move down to help. Nothing they did was able to hit the creature. It changed form to mimic the figure on the floor only more like what he probably looked like when he died. His clothing was very out of style. It was a ghostly form. Eryn stayed in a defensive mode, and talked to it to try to get it to back off. Angelique did as well. Nothing seemed to deter it. Each round, it attacked Eryn. Once it finally hit her, she felt a coldness move through her, weakening her, but she took no physical damage. After it became apparent they couldn't hit it, Eryn broke away from it and began to leave the immediate area, thinking that it was defending the corpse and maybe wouldn't follow. That didn't have any affect either. It just appeared out of the wall next to Eryn wherever she was and kept attacking her, weakening her with each attack. She finally bolted in a dead run to get as far away as possible. As she did she shouted that maybe destroying the skeleton would affect it. As she ran, Xor went to the skeleton and took a battle axe and started smashing it. They could hear Eryn screaming at the spirit as she ran so it apparently had no effect. Angelique tried to bless the corpse hoping to affect it but that didn't have any affect either. Cal-El spotted something under the hand of the skeleton, gold and shiny. Angelique brought a light over so they could see it better. Once he got it out of the dirt, he found it was a gold ring with a white stone. It was of very nice quality.

Xor ran after Eryn,  trying to take some of the hits and help defend her but by the time he got there, Eryn was only able to run but a few feet at a time and had grown very weak and clumsy. The creature ignored Xor and kept attacking her until she passed out. Then it seemed to enter her body. Xor grabbed her up and ran back to the rest of the group. He put her down and she woke suddenly, uncharacteristically scared. She started scrambling, looking for something. She kept talking about how there was no more time and that she must find it. They finally got her to say it was the ring she was looking for. They finally got out of her that she was supposed to return the ring to Raif to save a woman she cared about. If he doesn’t get it to him in time, Raif will kill the woman. It must be a man that has taken over Eryn. He seemed truly terrified. They finally found out that Raif wasn't that far away, he was in the tunnels. Cal-El proved to the entity that he had the ring, by showing it to him, which seemed to make him feel much better. Apparently he only had so much time to get the ring and return it to Raif. They tried to explain to him that everything he is describing happened a long time ago and that he was dead. He couldn't or wouldn’t see that, it just didn't register with him. 

They followed him/her quite a distance south and eventually came to a widened area where he/she worked to move some debris before opening a concealed door. This led to a chamber that hasn’t seen life in very long time. They entered the room and found a table with books on it and torches. There were weapon racks, a wine rack, and more. She/he was adamant that Cal-El place the ring on the table. Cal-El was equally adamant that she/he not be allow anywhere near the table with the ring. Xor held her back away from it. Cal-El looked around the room a little for anything that looked like it was in good condition or anything that looked like a trap. The weapon racks had a lot of old rusty weapons and armor but there were a few items that appeared in surprisingly great shape. The wine bottles are covered in dust. There are barrels, boxes, crates, sleeping satchels. One of the books In the table appeared to be in good shape. There was no-one else in the room. There was no evidence that anyone had been here in years. Cal-El pulled out the ring, showed it to the entity and put it on the table. She/he appeared greatly relieved and thanked Cal-El. She looked around the room and noticed a pile of ratty cloth on the floor. He/she asked, ”What’s that!”, as she pointed at it and said, ”That wasn’t here before!”. Symon moved over to examine it. There is a rolled up piece of paper on top of it. Symon picked up the scroll and opened it to look at it. He read it. It said,

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Jacob,
You may never read this. But if somehow you do.

I have to say you surprise me, Jacob. I gave you three days, and just to be nice I waited four. Enjoy the ring and your freedom. It's yours now, bought and paid for with her blood. I suppose you must not have loved her as much as I had thought. My mistake.

If you do want to say goodbye to her. She is in the bucket.

Raif

P.S. If I even so much as get a whiff of your whereabouts, rest assured you will be joining her in that bucket

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Symon look back at Eryn and said, “:Jacob, I presume?”. The entity answered that he was Jacob. He was immediately curious as to how Symon knows his name. Symon told him to look around the room. The person he came to save is not here. Jacob was more interested in what the note said. Jacob seemed to think we got the ring back in time but Symon had to point out that the note said he only had three days to fetch the ring and the person in the note waited four days. He had to point out that the room doesn’t appear to have been occupied in years, not just days. He wouldn’t see the obvious. He only wanted to know what the note said. Symon held out the note and Eryn/Jacob snatched it away. He read the note and hysterically broke down, crying. She/he dropped to her knees. Cal-El tried to explain that he can be with her once more. Eryn, appeared to pass out. Symon showed the note to the rest of the party. Symon went to the rags and looked in the bucket under them only to find the head of a woman. There was a little tiara on it. After a moment of absorbing what they were seeing, a mist slowly rose out of Eryn, forming into the ghostly creature they had seen before. He spread his arms wide and slowly evaporated and faded away. Eryn seemed to return to herself but was cold and very weak. She tried to stand but couldn’t. Angelique suggested that she get some fresh, so she laid down for a while. 

Xor started looking at the weapons. Cal-El collected the ring and put it in his pocket. Xor saw a small chest that was closed. It was locked. There was another chest next to it that wasn’t locked. He looked through the racks and among the dirty and old armor, he found some studded leather that was in remarkably good shape. There was also some chain mail that was in very good condition. There was a shield in good condition. On the weapon rack, he spotted a short sword that appeared to be in excellent condition. There was a quiver of arrows where the quiver was in bad shape but the arrows appeared to be very nice. On the table was a book that appeared to be in great shape. He told Symon about the book and Symon checked it out. It was leather bound with no writing on it. Xor opened the chest with no lock and found a scroll case. He broke the lock off of the other chest and found vials of liquid. He pointed those out to Angelique and Symon as well. Cal-El tried to determine the reason for the room, what was it’s use? He looked for secret doors or compartments but didn’t find any. 

Angelique looked at the scrolls in the scroll case. She found a clerical scroll of ”Protection from Acid”. The next scroll was a “Protection from Poison”. The third one was a scroll of “Silence 15ft Radius”. And the fourth one was a scroll of “Cure Disease”. She turned her attention to the vials. The first one was red, and an obvious old favorite, a potion of ”Extra Healing”. The next one was a potion of invisibility. Eryn had the other one of those they had already found. Two more of the vials were unidentified. Cal-El pulled down the studded leather and something fell out. It was a set of bracers. They are exceptional as well. He grabbed the chain mail and shook it to see if anything fell out. Nothing did. There was nothing behind the shield either. The short sword was definitely elven made. Angelique examined the arrows. There were 10 arrows of exceptional quality. She also found a long bow that was in very good condition. Symon broke down and opened the book. It was a spell book with spells as high as level four. It was a traveling spell book with spells and no additional notes. Of first level spells, there was Detect Magic, Charm Person, Magic Missile, and Sleep. Of the second level spells, there was Invisibility, Knock, and Web. Of the third level spells, there was Haste and Fireball. There was one fourth level spell of Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Symon seemed very excited about the find. He suggested that this place could be a great place for a Company Clandestine hideout whenever we were in the Frosthaven area.

Angelique checked out the wine rack. They were around 50 years old and in good shape. Some of them were even older. Examining the room, it appeared nothing had been in here for about 50 years. Angelique examined the tiara and found it to be very old and worth around 50gps. She decided to leave the tiara. Symon began looking through the papers on the desk. The papers were a smugglers list. It was old dates of shipments from here and there and different names assigned to them, including Jacob’s and Raif’s. Raif appeared to be the big man in charge. It was more of a log of what they’d smuggled in and out. The barrels were old ale that’s gone bad. Xor also found some ration packs but they were bad as well. There was one water barrel. There were sleeping bags prepared to grab and go. Actually, the whole place is set up to be a sort of grab and go place.
Eryn had been slowly regaining her strength. They decide to hang out here a little longer and let her continue to rest and regain her strength.

After a time, she finally regained her strength and examined the place a little. She agreed that this place hadn’t been used in about 50 years. After thinking back, Eryn and Angelique remembered things that Kyra said about the prison not always having been a prison. It used to be a warehouse that Kyra’s father ran. After saying something about that out loud, Symon speculated that maybe Raif is Kyra’s father? They were not sure. In examining the ring, the stone is a white stone, possibly a pearl or a white opal. Thinking back on the circles on that brittle map we found earlier, Symon thinks this room is one of the circles. That would mean the other circle is very nearby. Eryn tried to determine exactly where she was now since she was not in control of her faculties when she came to this room. The rest of the company caught her up. They speculated that the other room was north of here. They moved back out to the main corridor and started checking the walls going back north. 

Eryn and Cal-El started checking the walls on both sides to the hallway moving north. As they started that, Xor checked the portcullis south of us. It appeared to have been lifted recently. It was difficult but he lifted it. Eryn was still checking north. Cal-El moved through the portcullis and began looking south. He checked for tracks and found one set moving through the area. He had Eryn come down gave her the universal sign for, “make sure there are no bear traps in the water down here.” . She checked and didn’t find any traps. The tunnel eventually became only water, nothing solid to stand on. They kept moving forward. The water slowly got deeper and deeper as they sent. It went on for quite a ways and eventually got as deep as her hips. At one point, she found a lever. It was newer than the portcullis north of us. Further south, she could hear a gurgling sound. No light ahead. The tunnel ended a little further ahead and as she studied it, she determined that the gurgling sound was coming from an area of the water that was whirling around, like a whirlpool. She figured it must go out to the river. She eventually moved far enough that the water came up to her stomach. Cal-El flipped the lever to see what happened and Eryn saw no change near the whirlpool. Cal-El went north to see if the portcullis changed. It did not go up. Cal-El did a secret door check all up and down that hallway. Not seeing anything, the company went north again and began checking north again.  

They continued north looking for the other secret door from the brittle paper they saw earlier. When they got about even with the eastern tunnel, Cal-El found the secret door on the western wall. He pointed it out to Eryn and they slowly cracked it. It was dark inside. It was a very short man made tunnel. Eryn checked it for traps and didn’t find any. She moved into it and it quickly opened into a room. There were no creatures in the room. There were some torches and sconces on the wall. There was an old bucket, a table with a pouch and some mugs on it. On the southern wall was a ladder leading to a trap door above. Symon pointed out that the crapper room was very close by, likely A little north and west of their current location. If that is the prison, then this might also be under the prison, apparently near the crapper in the prison. In the pouch on the table, they find some gems. Cal-El tried to determine how long it’s been since someone was last in here and determined that it had been years since someone had been in here. The bucket was empty and there appeared to be nothing else in here to look at. Eryn checked the ladder and it appeared to be sturdy. She checked it for traps and found nothing. She climbed the ladder and there was a latch that she would need to twist in order to open it. It opened up and to the south. We discussed using the invisibility potion to sneak up and see what there was to see. They discussed using a potion pod invisibility and how long it would last. If you don’t do anything to interrupt it or dispel it, invisibility lasts for 24 hours.

Eryn moved up the ladder and oiled the hinges before opening the hatch. She cracked the door and saw no light. She was in a dusty cobwebbed room with a concealed door to the north and some stairs leading up to the east. The hatch was concealed under a grate. There was an unlit torch on the wall. It appeared this room had not been used in a very long time. 

Well, the next section will take some time to get through. We should probably stop here and let everyone absorb what they’ve heard. Exciting isn’t it. Never a dull moment with this crew. Everyone get some rest and we’ll get back to the story next week. In the meantime, may no spirit inhabit your body but yours.

Start the recorder!