Session 58 & 59: Vape Dungeon

Cho reunites with the group while Grombrin tries to speak to the undead dragonborn. It responds in ancient Draconic, which even Nan with her knowledge of modern Draconic doesn’t understand. The dragonborn can communicate in Primordial to a very limited degree, and Arran pulls out Nahlot’s journals from Oda-iger to piece together sentences in ancient Draconic. Combining those methods, they gradually communicate with the undead. He says that he works for Bormarech, a friend of Duke Arech. They explain to him that they know Arech and that the war is long over. The soldier, Dinoksu'um, says he was turned undead intentionally to guard this secret entrance and can’t leave his duty without permission from Bormarech. The group doesn’t know if Bormarech is alive, but they vow to search for him. He marks on Arran’s map where Bormarech should be.

As they travel towards the marked location, they find a room full of noxious green gas. Cho holds his breath and wades inside, but the poison still burns his skin. He can’t see through the gas, so he feels around until he finds a door and kicks it down. There is a safe hallway beyond, so he calls out for the others to follow. They all rush through, briefly suffering the pain of the gas. Beyond is a hall with three metal barrels, several corpses, and an undead tabaxi, threateningly pointing a wand at them. They try to reason with it, but only Nan can communicate with it in Infernal. They argue for a while, then Nan suddenly shoots a radiant blast, blowing a big hole in the tabaxi’s body. She calls out that it wants to eradicate the dragonborn and they should stop it.

The tabaxi then uses a device to make more poison gas burst from the barrels. It hides in the cloud and injures Nan with a spectral whip. Grombrin blow his fire breath into the cloud, but fails to hit the mage. Vojta turns into an earth elemental and feels its position with his tremorsense. He grabs it and pulls it to the edge of the cloud. Nan leaps onto Vojta’s shoulders and shoots another radiant blast right into the mage’s face, causing its entire body to disintegrate. She then tries to fly to safety, but chokes on some of the gas anyways and plumets to the ground. Grombrin rushes over to heal her. Vojta then puts the three barrels into the corner of the room and Grombrin seals them in stone. As they pile up the corpses in another corner, they notice that they are juvenile dragonborn.

The next door leads to a room with destroyed furniture, burned parchment, and various weapons and armour lying around. One intact parchment is written by the commander and details the invasion of the demon-summoning tabaxi. Grombrin searches the equipment and finds two adamantine breaching hammers and a suit of plate armour, which they put in the bag of holding. Behind the next door, they find a huge demon with many arms. It doesn’t attack, so they ask if it’s friend or foe. It touches Cho’s forehead, then responds in Cho’s voice that it was called here by the tabaxi to break open the nearby gate and never got out because the passages are too small. Nan asks its name, but it doesn’t want to give it, since that would grant them power over it. Cho suggests they call it Terry. Grombrin offers to banish it back to its own plane, but it says that it doesn’t want to go back into Ho’od’s service and prefers to be set free on this plane. Nan asks what it wants to do here but it doesn’t have a specific answer. The group is ambivalent but they have no way to get the demon through the narrow tunnels anyways. Nan asks Faranehou if the demon can enter her ring, but he forbids it. With nothing they can do, the demon agrees to just let them pass. It also warns them that a hairy humanoid with glasses passed through earlier and never came back.

Behind the broken gate is a long hallway filled with mist. Grombrin senses a divine presence that makes him uncomfortable. Cho advances into the mist, which makes him feel sluggish. Arran, Nan, and Vojta follow and resist the slowing effect, while Grombrin stays behind. They go into an alcove and find a stone bust of a strange-looking dragon. They recognise it as the dragonborn god Pruzahtur the Forgiving, who is usually forbidden from being depicted. Nan touches it on impulse, then staggers back. Feeling nauseous, she sits down against the wall and warns the others not to touch it. When asked if she felt anything, she seems distraught but says it’s nothing. Meanwhile, Grombrin gives in and reluctantly runs through the mist. Unable to see Nan, he trips over her legs and clatters to the ground.

They move on out of the mist but Cho is still sluggish. Further on, there are two doors to the sides and a large throne ahead with a figure slumped on it. Someone is heard humming behind the right door. Cho peeks in and sees a dining room with a skeletal tabaxi. He figures it’s a threat and charges in to attack, but it hides in a bubble of magical darkness. It calls out that it wants to parley and they agree. He introduces himself as Erresentimendu and explains that he was trapped here by Mereteth for desecrating her holy grounds. He knows how much time has passed but can’t leave the dungeon. He acknowledges that his people’s actions were bad and says he will be good if they let him go. Cho objects that his existence as an undead is unnatural, but they agree not to destroy him for now.