Session 10: Ruins and Rockbacks

The group questions the slave, but he’s incoherent. Lokreth is also incoherent, so Ahrm slaps him to snap him out of it. Lokreth’s body instead breaks open and Pha’uel comes out. He mentions that Lokreth’s pact forbids him from casting spells and that doing so will summon him. He tells the group to remind Lokreth of this, and to give regards to his brothers, then disappears and puts Lokreth back together.

The group arrives at New Galead with the slave in tow, and seeks out some clerics to make him coherent again. The clerics cleanse his insanity, and the slave immediately tries to stab one of them and gets subdued and bound. Meanwhile, Thorim performs for the masses and earns a lot of gold with an epic guitar riff, while Ahrm seeks out Gyrra in his pub. Ahrm tells him about the 7th god, Cerebarieth, and inquires about the remaining acolytes. Gyrra confirms the existence of the criminal at the Spike, who was meant to be executed but proved to be unkillable. He also points them to the King of Thieves in Glyckheart, who supposedly survived an ascent to God’s Rest.

The rest of the group arrives and brings the prisoner to a back room. Ahrm interrogates the criminal, who spits at him multiple times. Eventually he speaks after Ahrm dislocates his arms, but he remembers almost nothing from before he was cursed, only that he was sent here by multiple dragonborn to delay the group. Meanwhile, a group of dragonborn enter the pub. They are friendly with Gyrra, but one of them is recognized as the red captain who commanded the cursed slaves.

Vica executes the prisoner, whose life was forfeit anyways, and the group escapes the pub through a backdoor tunnel to the wharf. Before they flee New Galead, Ahrm insists on going to the thieves’ guild to get the information he needs. He meets some of his contacts, but they threaten him and reveal that the guild is in cahoots with the dragonborn captain. However, to settle a debt, they smuggle Ahrm and the group out of the city instead of turning them in.

The group sails to Rathgard, avoiding Old Galead. After landing, Thorim takes a leak against a tree, and is promptly attacked by a sylvan wolf that appears from the tree and bites him. The others shoot arrows at the wolf, which miss due to Thorim’s perilous proximity, but Thorim catches one from the air and stabs the wolf with it. Several more dryads appear and attack the group for being “corrupted”, but they are defeated after a short and chaotic fight. A pissed-off eladrin then appears and commands them to leave. The group can’t speak to it because it exudes magical silence, so they back away.

The group later approaches Muntgard but decides not to enter. They approach a passing caravan of tabaxi instead, from whom they learn that Ahrm’s shortcut to Red Canyon has been collapsed and the people there decimated. Ahrm figures that the Ornokarth thieves’ guild, led by the red dragonborn, may be trying to isolate Glyckheart. Ahrm then teaches some Rockspeak slurs to a kenku before parting ways with the caravan.

The group heads to Oda-Iger through jungles and swamps. Ahrm meets the rockbacks who live there and has a lengthy ranting argument about who has more value to society, rockbacks or spikebacks. Ultimately though, the inhabitants ask the group to investigate some ruins in the jungle where explorers have gone missing. They accept, some mainly for the greater good and some for the payment, and seek out the overgrown ruins.

They find an enormous closed gate built into a lake. Ahrm and Vica climb over with their claws and find a bunch of levers and buttons. They mash the buttons, which fails to open the gate but causes a second lower barricade to emerge. Vojta freezes part of the lake, so Thorim can leap from the lake to the barricade to the wall with his ki-enhanced jumps, then lower a rope for Arran and Vojta to ascend with.

The group reassembles in a giant overgrown courtyard, where they find abandoned tents. A heavy stone door is pushed open with excessive effort, leading into a dark temple. Inside is a weird mummified body of a bisected tabaxi, and a statue of an ancient draconic god of nature. The statue wards off approachers with holy magic, but comes to life when hit by a spell, transforming into a monster that batters the group with tentacles. They team up on the monster and defeat it. Then Arran harvests its numerous horns while they consider their next step.