Session 313

# September 22nd, 2023 - Council with Cadmus

## Council with Cadmus

The session began the day after the Battle of Grainvic, with the party and the rest of the Red Sun army spending hours scavenging the battlefield and taking care of their wounded. The Red Sun commanders were adamant that no prisoners be taken, as they already were unable to care for the masses of refugees in their city. The party recovered a few magic items from the fallen command group, but weren’t able to identify them until the caravan journey back to Black Landing. By the end of the next day the army encampment was dispersing and the remaining soldiers and their supplies were starting the two day journey back to the Landing. A *+1 heavy crossbow* was taken by Orsais, a *ring of jumping* was taken by Watch, and a pair of *boots of elvenkind* was taken by Carlton. They also recovered a *+1 light crossbow* that they thought the fallen Daelain could use, if they could find resurrection for her.

By the end of the third day the roughly four hundred soldiers that remained of the Red Sun forces had arrived back in the city, and wound their wagon train through the outer slums into the city walls. The party had become minor celebrities among the soldiers as rumor spread that they were the ones that defeated the enemy leaders and caused the army to rout. They enjoyed a restful evening in the barracks within the walls, and early morning the next day they were summoned by the commander to meet the wizard Alburt. He congratulated the group, consoling for the loss of one of their number, but instructed them to bring the body with them. For they were going to meet the leader of the Red Sun and de facto leader of the city, Cadmus Orcblood - who just happened to be a powerful cleric.

Alburt escorted them into the Black Keep, the massive central defensive structure built into the exterior wall and the large bisecting wall through the two main districts of the city. In a modest meeting chamber they met with Cadmus who had with him his brightly glowing god weapon, the *Spear of Sobek*. They put the body of Daelain upon the table in the room, and the cleric thanked them for their work thus far. He also conveyed how important it was for them to continue their efforts, when Raven asked if they were free to go now if they so choose, Cadmus implied that technically yes, but it was in the best interest of everyone to continue working with the Red Sun. Firstly, he rewarded them by bestowing upon their fallen companion a *true resurrection*.

He took his god spear and jammed it into the torso of the dead Daelain, with his eyes glowing brightly as he prayed to Sobek to help return the soul to its body. The process appeared to be taking longer than anyone thought, and Cadmus said something was wrong, something had happened to the spirit and it was resisting. But then the cleric said she was returning, but the body began to shrink, shed its scales and sprouted hair. Cadmus pulled the spear from the body as the wound closed and color and life returned to the corpse, with Daelain awakening in a new body. To everyone’s surprise, she was now a forest gnome. After she was clothed and the group’s shock passed, Cadmus continued with his rewards.

To aid in their next mission, he gifted the party two of his previously used magic items - a *bag of holding* (went to Watch), and a *periapt of wound closure* (went to Joakim). A short human named Bertold was let into the room, and Cadmus introduced him as a member of the Black Brotherhood syndicate. The cleric then went on to give them their next task, to infiltrate the captured city of Ironbay and rescue their Champion friend, General Rachen. Their spies in the city indicated the general was alive and being held in the heavily fortified Iron Citadel. Cadmus and Alburt could not go on this mission because they were very well known in Ironbay, and had other tasks to complete trying to gain favor and aid from the various factions for an eventual counter attack.

Bertold told them that the Brotherhood was ready to help get into the citadel, and gave them the name and location of a contact in the Docks Ward of the city to meet. Along with a code phrase to tell the contact upon meeting them. To get into the city, Cadmus motioned towards Alburt, that the wizard would *teleport* them into a secure location that he knew where a teleportation circle resided - in the basement of High Lady Silverhand’s estate. Knowing the city was under enemy occupation it was likely that the mansion was controlled by opposing forces, but it was much more certain than trying to randomly *teleport* into the city somewhere. At this discussion, Joakim revealed his backstory that he used to be an apprentice of Lady Silverhand, that he was very familiar with the mansion, and that he could verify General Rachen had been taken.

## Vault Cracking Specialists

Cadmus was elated, as this was surely a sign. To be able to return to the Landing upon rescuing Rachen, Alburt also gave the group a single scroll of *teleportation circle* and a parchment that had the rune circle drawn upon it for a circle they have in the Landing. Before they left, Bertold discreetly indicated to one of the party that since they had an apprentice of the High Lady, if they happened to be able to retrieve any valuables from her vault that the Brotherhood contact would see to their lucrative reward. She was a well known master enchanter said to have many powerful magic items in her mansion’s vault, that the Brotherhood had never been able to infiltrate. Before they knew it, the group were all touching Alburt as he *teleported* them into the basement of Silverhand mansion.

They arrived in the bare stone chamber that resembled a prison cell, with magical torches lighting it, and one wall being a set of metal bars with a locked gate. There were no guards or soldiers present in the outer chamber, and so Watch was easily able to pick the mundane lock on the gate and the party was free. One exit led to a staircase going upwards to the main floor of the mansion, but they could hear muffled voices through the side doorway that Joakim said led to the vault entrance and further subterranean chambers. Approaching the door quietly they could hear the voices were draconic, and assumed they were of the enemy. Thus, before going through the group used their many uses of *minor illusion* to disguise the non-dragonborn to look like enemy soldiers.

Going through to the outer chamber that housed the vault door, they were greeted by the enemy captain as the specialists they had asked for. The outer vault door was open and slightly glowing red, which Joakim had indicated meant they did not use the proper incantation to open it and had triggered the ‘alarm’ - meaning its protections were active and Joakim didn’t know what lay ahead. Most of the remaining enemy soldiers were within the first room past the red door, congregating around a stone archway that had an open door with a black void within it. The room had numerous broken mimic chests around, with blood splatters throughout, and a single open regular chest. The soldiers indicated they found the key to the door for the archway in the open chest after going through a number of mimics.

The enemy captain said they had sent over a dozen soldiers through the black void with none having returned yet, which is why they sent for aid. After convincing the rest of the soldiers to leave the room to let them work, the party cautiously sent a familiar through the void with instruction to immediately return, but nothing happened. Thus, they decided to cross the threshold, which pulled them through as they started to enter. The first room they found themselves in was a circular stone room (with no entry portal, they appeared to walk through the wall) with a set of mirrors set facing away from a central statue of Lady Silverhand with a medusa head. Behind each mirror, opposite the statue, was an empty archway. Throughout the room, between the mirrors and archways were twelve dragonborn guard statues that clearly did not figure out the puzzle.

The party had Raven summon eight raptors that they used to figure out the general workings of the magic mirrors, determining which mirror was the correct one that could be looked through such that the exit void appeared in the respective archway behind it. The single non-stone raptor only disappeared after still looking at the mirror and walking backwards through it. The party put all the other mirrors on the ground safely and each looked through the correct mirror and walked backwards through the void - if they turned to look at the archway they didn’t see the exit. In the next chamber, they found a small stone landing with a single dragonborn soldier remaining. After the landing was a vast black chasm with a void beneath it, and a series of eight glass platforms that could be used to jump across to another stone landing with an exit archway and void. The first two glass platforms had half of the platform already broken.

Three enemy soldiers had made it through to this room, and two had made the wrong choice for the first two glass platforms. Along the two sides of the walls on their landing were six series of six letters, jumbled up with the letters that made up the words left and right. The party wrote them out and figured out the cipher, convincing the enemy soldier they knew the proper answers and had him jump across to desired platforms. The third puzzle chamber was much simpler, a mostly empty circular stone chamber with a stone table that had eleven floating crystal orbs of various colors. The table had a stone headboard of sorts that had nine circular indentations, and upon the table proper had a riddle in elvish.

The party figured that the answer to the riddle was the sun and that they needed to arrange the orbs based on the color of the sky around the star as the sun rose and set, but had the enemy soldier put in the orbs first. Their first attempt was incorrect, and the enemy soldier was turned to stone. However, using Joakim’s *unseen servant* they were able to make the simple change to swap one of the orbs and found the exit archway open up with another black void.

The party, feeling more confident than ever, proceeded through the void to the next chamber, and that is where the session ended. It was the nineteenth day since the party first left Black Landing.

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