Expedition 28: Investigating Gandar's Settlement

*Or, "As it turns out, I am afraid of some ghosts"*

### Summary

We investigate Sir Gandar's settlement in the Badlands, and find ghosts that believe we are vampires who have aging effects.

### Detailed Writeup

**Objective:** Our brave adventurers seek to figure out what happened at Sir Gandar's Settlement and return to tell the tale.

Our adventurers set out through the badlands, trudging through the rainy desolate landscape. The settlement should not be not hard to find, as we know its general location, but we will need to push through previously undiscovered territory. Along the way, Uzmir discovers a small brassy sphere with a strange metal pin/spike in it, similar to the one that we removed from the sphinx's throat. Arha removes the pin, and the sphere unfolds into a modron, much like the ones we discovered in the Shriekcliffs.

The modron, named 33657716775, answers a lot of the adventurers' questions in a very literal manner. Calliope finds this endearing, while others find it mildly irritating. We learn that it was created by "1" to explore and to serve, and it was digging to create piping for chemical substances in the area before being deactivated by a human. It does not seem to know what year it is or where it is located. It thinks that the current seat of government is under "mountain." It speaks several languages, is willing to answer questions to the best of its ability, and will follow our orders (again, in a very literal way). Clarity tells it to follow her, and it trails quickly after her, bumping against her legs whenever she stops moving. The pin that was used to secure the modron also seems interesting, inhibiting the function of Calliope's gauntlets temporarily.

The party continues to Sir Gandar's Settlement, finding several old, broken down wooden buildings surrounding a central manor. The buildings were at some point painted, and there is a caved in fence around the perimeter. We suspect that Sir Gandar's head has been left in the central manor, on the central table, but decide to start by investigating some of the surrounding buildings.

The first building we enter was at one point a stable. Looking around, the party discovers that there are bones here, but the bones do not make up an entire animal skeleton, suggesting that something happened to the animal while it was dying. Leaving the building, Nexrin feels a sudden chill, though he shrugs it off as "the wind."

Entering the next building, which seems to have been servants quarters or bedrooms, the party finds splatters of blood on the walls. Examining it, it appears that the blood splatters stop in an odd way, as though something happened to the person bleeding before they died, much like the animals in the stables. It is at this point that Arha feels a sudden chill, and becomes possessed by a ghost.

The party tries to figure out why Arha has become frozen in place and is robotically removing her sword, eventually determining that she has been possessed through Clarity's use of detect thoughts. The party tries to wrestle away her sword and convince the ghost we are not a threat to them, unsuccessfully, and Possessed-Arha continues to attack her friends. Clarity, seeing through the ghost's eyes, can tell that the ghost is hallucinating in some way, and thinks we are all threatening, hungry, shadowy, vampiric creatures with long claws and fangs.

Calliope yells, "Hey, we're not vampires! Would a vampire do this?!?" and starts doing a little jig, casting minor illusion with a bright yellow smiley face over her head. Arha's owl activates a purplish energy shell, protecting Arha. Possessed-Arha then turns to run away. Clarity delves deeper into its mind, seeing that it is seeing hundreds of vampires around the clearing, and sees the origin of the ghost's trauma. The ghost was at one point a human woman, working as a servant or maid. She was sleeping with others in a bedroom when the door was blown open and three vampires entered, slicing and biting into the servants' necks.

When the guard fades, Nexrin heals Possessed-Arha to try to prove he is not a threat, and Uzmir casts Protection from Evil and Good on Possessed-Arha, who makes her save. The ghost exits Arha's mind and reappears. It screeches, and everyone within 60 ft makes wisdom saving throws. The party fails abysmally, and Arha, Clarity, and Nexrin all immediately age 10 years. Additionally, Clarity and Nexrin are frightened. After this, the party quickly finishes off the ghost, and Arha gets the killing blow. With Claire's knowledge of religion, the party realizes that the ghost will not stay dead until the party can put its soul to rest somehow.

Armed with that knowledge, the party decides to return home and come back with better tools to deal with ghosts. On their way home, however, they encounter a young purple worm, and fight it to pacify the badlands.

This fight is harder than anticipated, as the worm's general strategy is to come up, hit someone with its tail, attempt to bite and swallow someone, and then return to relative safety underground. It starts by attacking Nexrin, who was separate from the party. The party struggles at first, readying many actions to strike when the worm appears, as they can't hit things they cannot see. The worm reappears, swallowing Calliope. At this point, the battle shifts, and Calliope begins to pummel the worm from inside, remaining entirely protected from outside damage, and tanking large quantities of acid damage from within the stomach with the aid of her magic armor.

Clarity uses fire bolt against it, which sets it on fire, hurting her fellow adventurers by proximity. Arha slices into it with incredible skill, and several adventurers try to follow it down into the pit as it retreats. Nexrin gets the killing blow, shooting it in the ass with a crossbow bolt. Calliope frees herself from its guts and levitates herself out of the hole, going back for some tail spine trophies for Nexrin.

With the worm defeated and Calliope freed, the Badlands is pacified and the adventurers return home, though they do not tell the townsfolk that they believe the region is now peaceful.

**Result:** Success! Plus Badlands pacified!

**Loot:** One Modron (336), and a purple worm tail spine trophy.**Losses:** Those aged by the ghost pay for lesser restoration to un-age them.