Session 09 "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire... Elementals"

'*Session 9 recap**:*** **“**Where
There’s Smoke There’s Fire… Elementals”

Underneath Kymall’s in labryith like tunnels and halls built
by some ancient civilization, more than twenty of you gathered your bearings
and caught your breath after the chaos in the smoke. This took place back in
the room with the three hanging cages. With so many people there, a lot happened
very quickly:

The new chaos began with the half-orc noble, Lord
Bladesmiles, pointing a crossbow at Marteen, demanding answers. Simultaneously,
a man who looked like he’d been in a few fights with a nose that had been
broken many times and never healed right started assaulting your tied up
captive, lovingly dubbed “Bad Luck Boy” who he called traitor. When Tanek tried
to intercede, the man doing the kicking more or less told the dwarf where he
could go. The only other half-orc in the room besides Bladesmiles seemed cooly
interested in both the crossbow standoff and the kicking. While this was
happening, Rensig was approached by the very powerful looking woman who had
been encaged in the room in the smoke, he knew this woman, Quora, Hazim
Albikar’s personal bodyguard. She wasted no time in asking Rensig for his help
in finding the sovereign. Simultaneously, one of the people from the cell with
the nobles started leading the majority of the people out of this room using
one of the torches Tanek had dropped, back the way you had come in the
direction of Kymall’s. Before this could happen however, Muffy and Rhys had
identified Lord Nadir Kavandros in the group (by calling his name), and quickly
diverted him from escaping with the others, keeping Nadir and his bodyguard
behind.

After Bladesmiles put a bolt into Marteen, and with bad news
boy coughing up blood unconscious, you managed to sort of put a pause to that
stretch of violence as Bladesmiles agreed he’d get no answers out of a
dead-man. Marteen spoke of a woman who could appear as anyone, claiming that he
had been impersonated.

At this point “Dorn” began trying to rally everyone saying
that he knew the way out, that the way the nobles had gone was not safe.
Unbeknonwst to everyone of you except for Bucky, the nobles were indeed
relatively in better standing as the man who had begun walking was Kymall
Everwood, owner of Kymall’s. Bucky had stuck with this contingent of people,
finding that fact out for herself and finding out the fate of the various
nobles which thus far seemed to be somewhat okay, of course below, none of you
knew this.

Muffy and Rhys convinced Lord Kavandros and his bodyguard
not to continue on in that direction as the others, as Dorn kept saying this
other direction was the safest way out. Simultaneously, Rensig convinced Quora
that this was they way to go to find The Soverign as Dorn was also saying that
this “safer way out” first lead deeper into these ruins, and towards whoever
had abducted everyone. This was seemingly a very different tune than Dorn had
been saying only an hour or two earlier, when he was warning everyone of the
dangers that he had heard existed under this part of the city, before you had
entered the sewers to get under Kymall’s. None of you seemed too phased by
that, none except for Tanek. Tanek seemed the only one to adamantly object to
how this unknown path into darkness could possibly be a quicker way out of
danger than the short tunnel right behind you that you knew lead to the casino,
but his comments seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Dorn started moving down the unknown path, and so all but
Bucky who had followed the nobles to safety, followed him down the descending
path, Rensig attempting some weird handstands along the way. Quora traveled
with you, along with Nadir and his bodyguard Leo. Even Bladesmiles joined in,
claiming they had his “property”. As Dorn began to all but run ahead, you all
struggled to keep up. Then as you stood in the tunnels bickering, Dorn went
down another flight of stairs, descending into the darkness, telling you all to
follow him. At this point others besides Tanek started questioning this plan.
Not enough though, as you all eventually followed after Dorn, down the stairs,
and while it was relatively dark before you, suddenly it was very bright… and
hot, a roaring wall of fire burned brightly before you and from behind it, you
heard Dorn’s voice welcoming you, almost playfully, as it transformed into a
higher octave woman’s voice. There was another woman’s voice as well. This one not
the least bit playful, only powerful and commanding. She briefly spoke of how
foolish you were to challenge them, that she was on a pure path, she had been
chosen and empowered by a being of fire and light. She condemned you as violent
brutes, remorseless killers, and said that justice must be served. While you
heard only these two voices, you could see many more shapes behind the fire,
and the tops of a tall very large, unusual, and beautiful tree that stood
behind it, aglow in the fire light. You then heard the commanding woman begin
to chant, and then issue an instruction to “burn them all”.

Momentarily there was silence and then more chanting, but
your attention quickly shifted from anything happening behind the fire, as
impossibly, emerging from the wall of fire a living inferno shot forth,
consuming Muffy, Rhys, Lord Bladesmiles, and Quora. You quickly found
yourselves seemingly in a fight for your lives with the very fire itself.
Things turned quickly deadly, almost everyone in the party being consumed by
flames in seconds. Your usual rather potent attacks seemed to do little against
living flame, but some efforts did give this fire true pause. In particular the
magics of Muffy and Rensig seemed at full potency, but the fire was fast,
deadly and hard to hurt. Rensig seeing his friends being hurt faster than they
could hurt this flame summoned forth a fox spirit, Rhys the first to experience
the healing power of this ethereal being.

While Rhys was being healed, others were being badly
scorched. In short order, Gram fell to the ground in a burning heep, and Tanek
found himself teetering on the brink of consciousness as he ran from the flames
ablaze. Leo, Nadir’s bodyguard, was doing everything he could to get his
employer to safety, barely staying ahead of the flames which seemed almost
everywhere at once. Simultaneously, Quora, Hazim’s fearless bodyguard--with a
very large being of pure fire trying to burn her and the rest of you alive,
walked over to Rensig to let him know of her displeasure at the situation,
seeming to be more focused at yelling at the gnome than dealing with the
enormous living fire that was trying to kill you all (I should have taken
opportunity attacks I missed so many!) When the fire again consumed her, this
time along with Rensig, Tanek, and Gram she decided yelling at Rensig might not
be the best way out of this situation, and so responding in a style Rensig
would have expected (though he did not see this) she let her fists do the
talking, and began to lay into the living flame, decimating it with nothing but
her bare hands and feet, seeming to disrupt the very essence of the flames
energy.

While all this was happening, Rensig had escaped from the
fire, not hearing anything Quoara had been saying to him over the roaring
flames, though seeing his allies in dire straits commanded the fox to heal more
of his friends, bringing Gram back from the brink of death, and also making
Tanik feel a tiny bit better. It was at this point, that Rhys, throwing his
shield to the ground began to walk towards the flames. Perhaps addressing the
fire, perhaps talking to himself, perhaps telling some other entity entirely,
uttered the words “You’re not the only one empowered by a being of light and
fire” and then calling upon Lathander for strength, his sword, which was
already burning transformed into a massive great sword, and glowing with holy
radiant light he struck down at the being, tearing into it, as flames
evaporating in the path of his sword--you could for the first time see that
this thing was actually hurt, its essence flickering. Inspired and rallied
(though somehow believing the attack had been made by the old man, Nadir) you
quickly finished it off, with martial weapons and somewhat more potently
against this creature, magical might. It was the smallest of your number who
struck the killing blow, Rensig leaping directly into the flames, speaking of a
“burning ring of fire” he slashed at it with his rapier and spoke to it, the
harmonic frequency of his words managing to drive it entirely from this place,
leaving behind nothing but charred walls and bodies. Gram had again fallen to
the flames, but Muffy quickly ran over to him and in a fashion you had only
before seen from Rhys, brought the still burning body of Gram back to life with
her touch as Tanek patted the flames consuming Gram out.

In the room beyond with the massive tree, you saw more
hanging cages. There were two smaller rooms off of this one, seemingly cells or
holding areas of some kind. You all went to the one to the right while Lord
Bladesmiles explored the one to the left. In the room to the right behind a
somewhat heavy Portcullis, you found Dorn, conscious, and a little battered,
but mostly okay. He was restrained by hundreds of small roots pinning him fast,
even covering his mouth. Reuniting, you quickly filled Dorn in on what
happened. You then went out to the big room together which was bathed in the
cool blue light of Muffy’s magic. There, you could see that this enormous tree
of white bark and intensely red leaves was special. The walls of the circular
room extended, with vines growing up the sides towards a place in darkness
where the walls ended about 40 feet up, though the room continued higher. At
the very top, you could make out an ancient looking mosaic of an enormous black
serpent coiling around spirialing in on itself, as it consumed the sun.

While you were taking this in, Lord Bladesmiles returned
from the other room and whispered something to Nadir. Gram walked over to the
room that Bladesmiles had been in, peeked in and then walked out…and he kept
going back the way you had come. One of you perhaps weakly tried calling after
him, but he kept walking, lighting a torch going up the stairs, out of your
sight. Nadir and Leo went over to the room where Bladesmiles had just been
while Bladesmiles thanked you all for your help in getting what belonged to him
back. He then bid you adue and told you if you ever found yourselves in
Eshpurta to look him up.

Catching up with Lord Nadir and his guard, you saw a
tremendous array of items in this room and a large chest. Dorn, picking the
lock, saw that it was filled with gold—which excited you all very much before
Leo, Nadir’s guard, reminded you that none of this belonged to you. While he
and Dorn started yelling at each other, Muffy started looking at what else was
in the room, grabbing an interesting rapier for herself, and giving an unusual
looking metallic rod to Rhys. To Rensig she serpetisiously tossed what appeared
to be some sort of wand. And you all through taking turns providing
distraction, managed to dip a couple hands into the gold (roll 2d20 to see how
much you grabbed).

Quoara all the while was getting clearly frustrated, asking
questions that no one seemed capable of answering. Mainly, who were those
people behind the fire, and how did they get out of this room? Rhys began
looking around more and decided to climb the tree to see if he could figure out
what was in the darkness beyond, finding rows of seating overlooking, what from
his perspective, seemed some sort of pit. He found a set of double doors up
there and looking out saw a well furnished hallway. Eventually you all made
your way up to join him, Dorn also climbing the tree and then the rest of you
made your way using a rope Dorn let down…. For some of you a harness was
constructed to hoist you to safety.

At this point, all of you stink from wading through sewer
water, in particular Rensig who almost drowned in it. Dorn who especially
normally stinks is also covered in a fair amount of lizardfolk blood. Bucky,
you have a bite wound on your neck that has stopped bleeding. You all smell as
though you’ve been in a fire due to the massive amounts of smoke clinging to
all of your clothes, and all of you save Dorn, Bucky, Nadir and Leo who
actually have been in a living fire, are covered in char marks. Though Dorn is
covered in char marks as well from the sword of fire the man in the smoke had.
Rhys your wig is badly charred and in the light someone who looks at you can
indeed see bits of brains in it, but probably won’t recognize them for what
they are. You more or less all look and smell like you’ve been through some
real shit.

Gold you picked up: serptisiously dipping your hands into
the chest containing the gold, w/o Leo seeing you were able to grab 2d20 worth
of gold each. Roll now to see how much you grabbed.

And as we pick up, Kolham somewhere in prison, Gram
somewhere in the darkness below, Bucky…well none of you are really sure where
she is, the last you saw of her was in the crowded room with the three hanging
cages, so let’s find out what’s going on with her.

At this point Bucky who’s been keeping an eye on everything
happening upstairs while trying not to be noticed, notices a Hobgoblin woman,
heavily armed who starts making her way towards you. Bucky, roll a perception
check to see what else you notice!! (Two to three more guards making their way
towards Bucky)…you here a large BOOM from behind you, but you don’t see
anything.