Down the Rabbit Hole

***Sar, Eyre 21, 993 YK***

It was a chaotic fight. The Gentlemen beat a quick, but ultimately unfazed, retreat. The party took care of the dolgrims and rescued Kaziim, but were unable to pursue the Gentlemen and were left voiceless. Uncertain of their next step, they decided to speak with Brom again, in the hopes that he may have more information on the Gentlemen. On the way there, a group of Emerald Claw members approached the party and inquired about purchasing the dead bodies they were carrying. Though Ixen and Hohenheim were interested, the rest of the party was less enthusiastic and dragged them away. At Shamukaar, the party bargained with Brom, offering the bodies of his comrades for information. He agreed and told them all he knew about the Gentlemen.

Brom knew that the Gentlemen seem to stay in the Closed Circle. He’d never been inside, but he knew there was a password that only the Gentlemen seemed to know. All he could recall about it was that they always drank from a small vial hung around their necks before entering. He also mentioned that the Tarkanans don’t work for Aubrecker—it’s a mutual arrangement. The scientist is rumored to reside down in The Depths, but he’s never met the man or even seen him. The only one who has any real contact with him is Thora Tavin.

With that information in hand, the party prepared an ambush for the Gentlemen outside of the Closed Circle. After waiting for a few hours, the Gentlemen approached with a handful of dolgrims. Gin, disguised as a vagrant, made his way up to one and distracted him with a magic trick. While he did that, the others lassoed the two remaining Gentlemen. After a short tussle, the party managed to retrieve the vials from the necklaces and also shatter the magical glass flasks that contained their voices, allowing them to speak once more. Yet again, the Gentlemen fled, but the party achieved their goal.

Three party members drank from the vials and each one received a mental image, sound, or concept. All three stepped up to the door and projected their part of the mental password. The rune deactivated and the door opened. The large beast within gave no fuss when they entered. The main room contained dozens of biological experiments. Ixen stumbled across some animal that appeared to be part bird, part marsupial. He took it with him as a pet and named it George. Rohagar found a hidden room that contained a large pool of glowing water and a number of other liquid-filled vials. Siegfried located a hidden compartment in the wall held a single vial of clear liquid. The party stored these away to investigate later. Knowing they needed rest, the party returned to Shamukaar. Brom was nowhere to be found and they were told his friends had come and picked him up. The party slept and planned for tomorrow.

***Sul, Eyre 22, 993 YK***

In the morning, the party returned to the Closed Circle. There, Ixen inspected the large rune in the center of the room and determined it was a teleportation circle of some sort. After some deliberation, they used it. They found themselves in Aubrecker’s laboratory, pitch black except for a dull glow coming from some hallways. Aubrecker spoke to them via a magical intercom. He thanked them for returning Kaziim and told them to surrender and he would make their capture painless. Naturally, they refused, and were confronted with five identical-looking Gentlemen floating in the air, each surrounded by a murder of crows. They simultaneously became invisible and the attack began. While the majority of the party fought, Gin went in search of the missing Changeling, Ril, and Hohenheim sent a furtive filcher to explore the facility. It took time and cunning, but the party eventually realized they were only fighting one Gentleman—the other four had been an illusion—and they defeated him.

Aubrecker sent the other Gentlemen to capture the party, but they didn’t seem to be obeying his orders. Hohenheim’s furtive filcher had, moments prior, stumbled across the two Gentlemen in a one-sided conversation with Ilthane, the black dragon, via crystal ball. He instructed them to ignore Aubrecker and to kill the party. He also indicated that his own boss, Dragotha, had learned the party was after the Ashen Crown and he wanted to prevent them from obtaining the information it contained. The two Gentlemen did not directly engage the party. Instead, they headed down a hallway and released a horde of worm-infested undead. Aubrecker enacted quarantine procedures, which shut off the main teleporter. Gin returned with an unconscious Ril and the party made a dash for a set of closing doors at the other end of the main room.

Through the doors, they found themselves in a large, multi-tiered cylindrical chamber that extended vertically for as far as the eye could see, disappearing into shadow. Catwalks allowed movement from the outside to the center column and spiral staircases circled the column to move from level to level. The circular wall was covered with hundreds of humanoid specimen in large containment tubes. Siegfried and Josephine found and apprehended Aubrecker as he was trying to escape using a one-man, single-use teleporter in the central column. The entrance doors had almost closed, but the Gentlemen used magic to pry them open, allowing the horde to enter. Gin was infected by a spell that caused a vile growth on his body, filling him with pain and rendering him weak. Meanwhile, Hohenheim had discovered Aubrecker’s research and a communication device that had records of a conversation with a man who referred to himself as the Benefactor. Pretending to be Aubrecker, Hohenheim asked the Benefactor for help and was told that he would try to help Aubrecker, but there was some sort of interference.

Hohenheim then inspected the emergency teleporter and figured he and Ixen could modify it to teleport everyone out… but it would take time. Aubrecker was tied up and the rest of the party contended with the Gentlemen and the shambling horde of undead. While they were distracted, Thoon arrived and teleported Aubrecker to safety. As the horde closed in, The Gentlemen introduced another enemy: a worm-infested, now undead Fenn. The worg attacked, viciously, being buffed by The Gentlemen from afar. At the same time, something began warping the fabric of reality around the room, causing metal to bend and twist, as the edges of the room started to curl inward toward the central column. In order to buy Hohenheim enough time to modify the teleporter, Kaziim mounted the undead Fenn and steered him into the horde. As a final act, he grabbed ahold of a Siberys shard given to him by Siegfried. His aberrant dragonmark given to him by Aubrecker activated and he died in the ensuing explosion. Kaziim’s final words were asking Hohenheim if his sacrifice settled their debt, which Hohenheim said it did.

As the explosion rocked the facility and the warping of reality had almost reached the party, Hohenheim activated the teleporter. The modified teleporter ripped a large chunk of the central column out of the facility, party along with it, and deposited them in mid-air over the Hilt of the Dagger River. They tumbled through the air before crashing into the water and falling unconscious.