Web of Lies

Daemien Rylin

**Underdark Natives**

Montello

Sai

**Web of Lies** is a Brigade mini-campaign run by guest DM Philip. It follows the adventures of surface-dwellers attempting to assist the zoid cultist researcher Xevi in "bringing his research to light".

## Prompt

Friends!

Each day we wait, history only gets longer, and new opportunities lie undiscovered! So let’s go discover them together! I’m calling on dedicated explorers and erudites, muscles and magicians, tellers-of-tales and talented types, and anybody else who wants to have fun! I can’t do this alone, and I know you can’t pass up such an opportunity!!!

What’s in it for me? Well, lots of things! But I assume you want to know what’s in it for you! The chance to be on the cunning edge of science? The chance to experience arcane energy never been experienced before? The chance to earn a percentage of all fees once my findings are published? The chance to make new friends along the way~~~ Even better, bring a friend along! I’m sure the more the merrier and all that.\* But yes, I’m sure we’ll find at least four ways to reward all who come and participate in this grand opportunity!

Attached are directions for how to get from whichever corner of the world this message arrives at to my corner of the world, unless the delivery man doesn’t know how to draw a map.

\*Magic prevents more than seven attendees, including myself, from fully participating. Don’t bring too many friends.

-Xevi

## Character Developments

* First Appearances for
	+ Player Characters
		- Surface Dwellers
			* Alexia Thunderpouch - Thunderpouch
				+ Only Brigade participant
			* Daemien Rylin - Khristina
		- Underdark Natives
			* Montello
			* Sai
	+ NPCs
		- Xevi
* This is the first campaign/oneshot exploring the existence of the Underdark in the Big Stretch, a largely unknown area of the plane.

## Entry #1

Friday NSS-11-906

It's been a day.

Breakfast was fairly normal. Alexander returned from his adventure dealing with Shard's mother yesterday, so during breakfast we heard a greatly exaggerated story of what happened.

After that I left to investigate the job I was considering; a person named Tivi, Tizzy, or something like that needed an escort while he did some sort of magical experiment. Shortly after I arrived, he started to sing and dance. Honestly, it wasn't too bad but it was definitely strange. The lyrics were strange; something about opening your eyes to the truth or something; typical Zoid Cult nonsense. In the end, everyone left during the song except for a man named Daemien Rylin, and myself.

Long story short, he did something strange with a machine or something. Then I saw what I could only describe as... a great cosmic crab carrying on the back of it an entire world. And then a large spider climbed onto it and bit it. I must have blacked out.

When we woke, we were in tunnels underground, surrounded by the chattering of spiders, and webs. Eventually we ran into two lizard people and a hairless cat person. The two lizard people were named Montello and Pattise. The cat person was named Sai. After sometime, Tizi made it so they could speak common; which they knew as Overcommon. They decided we needed to find a man named Elk and talk to him, so we headed out to a Drow city. Apparently they are really cruel, and intolerant of outsiders, so I disguised myself and Daemien as Drow and put on my best "I'm a bully" face.

I didn't speak the language, but Daemien managed to pick it up. We managed to avoid too much confrontation by me throwing my weight around and being angry at everyone. It was actually a little fun, but in a guilty way. Eventually we met some people at a guardhouse. The jig was almost up, but continuing to insist on being an angry Drow Cleric who was cursed by a monster in the caves to forget the Drow language convinced them to take pity on me. One of the women with that leader woman, whatever her name was, looked overly interested in us, so once we left, I cast Sending at her to ask her to meet outside of the town. That's where we are now; just waiting for her while I write in my log book.

## Entry #2

Friday NSS-11-906 cont.

So the woman agreed to find Elk and send him to us, and we waited around. Finally Ek showed up and told us about the plan to destroy the temple some lady named Lirlith was running because Drow are a bunch of jerks. If we agreed to do that, he said he'd send us home. This won't be the first time I am hired to destroy a temple and murder the high priestess of an evil cult, and hopefully it won't be the last. We'll see how it goes.

We needed to find Tvizzini in the mines so we could take him home. On the way there, Daemien was badly injured and poisoned by a spider-demon thing, and we couldn't get him functional again, so I just carried him. Once we found him Tivi, he was acting even stranger than before; he seems to think he's the King (he even has a crown) of the Underdark (which must be where we are now). He also knocked Pattise out and dragged him off to this section of the mines. Pattise is insisting that they need to take care of him now, and the rest of them sort of agree; as usual they are expecting some decision from me, but I told them I don't care.

And... it looks like they decided on violence. Montello is set to make the first attack. If I survive, I'll continue my log.

## Entry #3

Friday NSS-11-906 cont. cont.

Tezzio ended up being even more dangerous than we thought. We managed to escape from him after Montello attacked him, but it was a close call. I also stole his crown. I convinced some Drow lady that I'd let Montello be her slave if she let us sleep here, but only after I showed him off to Lirlith. She wasn't keen on it, but, again, I threw my weight around as a Drow cleric of Spider-Lady, and that was enough to get her to agree. I'm headed to sleep now. What a day.

Sunday NSS-12-906

This was a more normal day. We got up, ate some rations (Underdark food looks gross) and came up with a plan to take down this temple. Sai, the cat person, decided to let loose a squid-faced person we had seen yesterday and hope it caused a lot of problems for the Drow while we destroyed the temple. We met up with Elk, and things went exactly according to plan; Sai let loose the strange creature, we blew a hole in the side of the temple, we killed a few dozen Drow, went inside, killed Lirlith, discovered Elk was a changeling, looted the temple, and headed out. All in a day's work. I feel indebted to Sai, Montello, and Pattise. Less so to Elk, since we did a job for him, but I still appreciate him. I felt like I needed to give something to those other three, though. I gave Sai my cloak, the rest of my rations to Montello, and my torches (because the it's so damn dark here) to Pattise. Surprisingly enough, Pattise was the most grateful even though I felt like I gave him the worst gift.

Elk just finished the ritual to send us home; we don't know where we'll end up, but at least it'll be near Halintar, and not in the middle of the Whirlpool Islands or something. Wish me luck? Then again, if things go poorly, will anyone ever read this? I hope Tefzivi doesn't cause too much chaos down here in the Underdark...

P.S. We ended up in the ocean, and we swam to shore. I'll write more later, but for now, we need to figure out where we are. At least we aren't dead, and at least I have a cool mask that we stole right off of Lirlith's face. I'm starting to like this Daemien fellow. He's dependable. I think we'll survive our trip home.

## Gallery

Oneshot banner. LilgreenfoxDoodles from part 1. LilgreenfoxDoodle from part 2. LilgreenfoxDoodles from the grand finale. LilgreenfoxThe meme redraw done during the finale. Lilgreenfox