Campaign VII Session 10 Summary

**Ord VII Session 10 Summary**

With the defeat of the horde of skeletons and the jester,
the group stays vigilant and awaits the arrival of Krandar and the rest of the
group.  The remainder teleport into the
grizzly scene with masses of bones and are relieved that their capable
pathfinders were able to clear the area of danger before they got there.  Using the maps obtained from the palace, the
group first wants to find one of the secret passageways out of the burrows.  There are three, but navigating may prove more
difficult with masses of undead in the way.

The first and closest exit is to the South, the group come
up on a sheer rock face several hundred feet closer than they should be to the Southern
wall of the Burrows as a large mass of rocks collapsed, blocking the exit and
likely burying many buildings and people.
The group tries for the Western exit next, with the journey being a bit
longer Caidence uses her magic to help the group stealthily navigate the
Burrows undetected.  Nearly there, the
streets have large barricade blocking off a section of the city, it even seems
to have been maintained.  The group looks
around for a few moments trying to discern how old and who could have built it
and find a large sign on the next block over with the continuing barricade
reading “NO BONIES!” as well as numerous other insults and profanity directed
toward bones in particular in the Common and Dwarven languages.

As the group contemplates climbing the barricade, a large
swoosh is heard from above as another winged skull undead starts to dive at the
party.  It is met by a radiant beam of
light from an adjacent building sharing a side with the barricade.  After a few more beams of light, the undead
seeming to be disoriented, flies away.  From
the roof of a three-story building, a humanoid figure makes eye contact with
the party and gestures for them to pass the barricade with no other
explanation.  The group climb over and
made their way through the sectioned off portion of the city until they happen upon
a lit up tavern which appeared to be bustling with commotion.

Further past the building the group numerous humanoids
tending to cave mosses and fungi as farmers would in a populated settlement, the
farmers do not even glance at the party as they head toward the tavern.  Unsure of how anything could survive here,
the group opens the tavern doors to find a lively tavern night one might expect
to find in a city, with nearly two dozen people on the main floor shouting,
drinking, and having contests.  About
half of the people in the tavern are Dwarves, and the rest made up of a few Gnomes,
Halfings, Humans and Goliaths each.  The
group is barely noticed by the tavern denizens aside from a brief glance as they
seem to be completely inebriated.

Cork hears a voice from the bar and sees ales being put up,
he approaches and puts some gold on the table, asking for some of whatever they
have, he sees a small mass of green ooze swipe the gold and push some filled
cups of ale up to him.  Intrigued by an
ooze bartender, Cork inquires as to who he is, the ooze responds “Oh, I’m not
anybody yet.  I’m not very old yet so I haven’t
found anyone to be.  Can I possibly be
you?!”  With a bit of concern but not sensing
any danger, Cork agrees and lets the ooze touch him, a stinging feeling occurs
within Cork but nothing too painful as he just feels a little discombobulated
for a moment and the green ooze before him turns into a copy of Cork.

Cadwick joins the two and spends a great deal of time
speaking with the bartender “Cork” as well as other patrons to figure out what
they are.  Meanwhile, Wildslayer and
Caidence bided over to different tables being asked if the patrons could “be”
them, the two refuse and the tavern denizens are disappointed but demand instead
that they tell them stories about the outside and upper world.  Cork eventually finds that two Halfing
sisters playing the hand-knife game and propositions them to join him in one of
the rooms above, they agree on the terms that they can be Cork afterwards.  Meanwhile, Cadwick pieces together stories
from various “persons” and determines that they were originally Illithid
experiments used for storing memories and that a catastrophe underground freed
them and they simply climbed upward until they found the Burrows, already
deserted except for the undead.  He also
finds out that of the nearly two dozen inhabitants, there are only 4 individual
oozes, who are each projecting several humanoid forms.  This infuriates Wildslayer as two of the forms
are Goliaths and sees this as a total abomination.

When the night is done, the group rests and is given food by
the oozes.  They contend mostly with boredom,
so they have knowledge of where everything is in the Burrows except for a way
out.  They point them in the direction of
the skeleton of King Ironblood, who can be found at the Northern exit, trying
to escape and then wandering back around again.
And they are warned about a being they call “old three face”, a powerful
skeletal necromancer who they have learned to avoid.  They have an artifact called Nuadun’s
Radiance, which keeps the other skeletons at bay, but they wouldn’t be able to
wipe them out.  Cork take a keen interest
in the mace and the oozes offer it to the group if they can kill the
necromancer or get them out of the Burrows as they won’t be needing it anymore.

With knowledge of the ancient king, the group are able to
track him down, as he is also followed by his old entourage as well as the
skeletons of Dwarves who were following him to escape.  He heads to the exit, upon seeing it caved in
shouts with a guttural “NOOOO” and turns around, as he does every day.  The group ambushes the king and group and with
no small amount of effort are able to destroy their skeletal forms.  The king was still wearing his Plate of the Mountain
King, one of the items the group was sent here to look for in the first
place.  The group then rests and
preparest to deal with the necromancer.

Near the center of the burrows, they find Old Three Face
near the massive hole the oozes climbed up through.  Wary that the jester might show up, Cadwick
shares with the group that if they are to destroy him for good, they have to make
a good joke, pun or his destruction must be ironic to keep him from coming
back.  As the fighting starts, Old Three
Face barrages the group with spells while the Jester swaps with Cadwick and he
finds himself trapped in a room full of skull spiders as Cork was before.  Cadwick fireballs several of them but is not
able to escape the room immediately.  Outside,
the group uses their coded phrase to determine if one of them is the jester, “what’s
your favorite food?”, Wildslayer, Cork and Caidence yell “MEATPIE!”, meanwhile
fake Cadwick says “Chicken?”.  The group descended
on the Jester and he was forced to teleport into the trapped room with
Cadwick.  Badly injured and close to
destruction, Cadwick is able to erk out a bad joke, “do you like your meat,
WELL DONE?” and casts a fireball destroying the jester.  With a grim cackle, he says “see you tomorrow…MAYBE!”.

The group prevails against Old Three Face soon after and
wipe out all the nearby skeletons.
Making their way to the Northern exit, using a combination of Meatpie’s
digging ability, Cadwicks earthmoving and the rod of the tunnler, over the next
three days the group is able to clear enough of the secret pathway out for
everyone to get through.  The group leaves
the Burrows with Krandar and the dwarven historians, Lem the Galeb Dur, and 5
oozes.  The secret tunnels lead outside
of the city and the group is able to find their way back to the main path well
outside the main gates of the city.  The
trip back to Burvagt is fast and easy as they take the same way back, so as to
avoid additional monsters.

The group are welcomed back as hero’s and Caidence is
awarded the rank of Deepwarden.  Some
bartering ensues for the magic items collected.
Cork keeps Naudun’s Radiance and Wildslayer keeps the Staff of the Raven’s
Eye.  Just as the group starts to get
settled, the voice of Ahuramazd, whose idol is held by Caidence pipes up, “hear
me children, there is much work to be done.
Giants rule these lands unchallenged and the cowardly Dwarves will do
nothing about it.  It is time to seek
help elsewhere.”  Caidence says that she
knows quite a lot of Half Dwarves who would be willing to listen, and Wildslayer
says that he will help but must go home first.
Ahuramazd bids the group to help Wildslayer as the Goliaths have the
strength that will be needed for their cause.
Cadwick is intrigued about seeing more of the continent and Cork comes
along, trying to figure out this strange influence being held on the
party.  Outside the city before leaving,
Wildslayer eager to test out the Staff of the Raven’s Eye heads to the top of
the nearest mountain with a few flocks of birds nearby.  He activates the staff and waits as the
flocks seem started.