Session 54 & 55: Pub Crawl RPG

The following morning, the group goes to the nearby ruins. There is a church and several smaller buildings, all surrounded by a tall stone wall. Some of the smaller buildings are heavily damaged, with claw marks on the walls that don’t fit any natural animal. Vojta climbs into one of the watchtowers to get an overview, but there is nothing noteworthy in the surrounding area. Inside, he finds a panel of buttons that alters the position of the walls, just like in Oda-iger. Arran, Grombrin, and Nan enter the church, where they find a stone war table and a small platinum statue of Mereteth. With his divine senses, Grombrin perceives that the statue contains both holy and demonic magic.

Grombrin tries to dispel the statue, but the enchantment resists. Suddenly, the statue transforms into a large humanoid monster. The creature crawls across the floor with its large arms as it moves to attack. Arran summons his mirror images. The monster cleaves through two of them with its claws, but then bites the real Arran, dispelling his attempt to use his arcane shield. Grombrin casts a bolstering spell on the three of them, while Nan creates an illusory wall of scorching light around the monster. As the being is distracted, Arran repeatedly stabs it with his rapier, then shoves it through the wall of light, inflicting mental damage to it. It slams its arms on the ground, conjuring a bubble that nullifies the group’s magic.

Outside, Cho and Vojta hear the sounds of battle. Vojta turns into an air elemental and flies in through the window. He charges the monster, but its antimagic field turns him human again and he falls to the ground. Cho charges into the church as well and throws two javelins into the monster’s side. Channelling Turagh, Arran summons two spectral grey hands from his shield to push the monster to the ground. In return, it grabs Arran with a pincer and casts a confusion spell on Vojta, causing him to whack Cho. Grombrin then moves with his hammer and strikes the monster in the kneecap so hard that it buckles to the ground and shatters into pieces.

They try to salvage the platinum skin off the monster, but it’s paper-thin and brittle, so Grombrin uses his magic to consolidate it into a small ingot. Arran notes that the monster’s claws don’t match the marks in the other buildings. Cho says they should bring up the dangers of the ruins to the locals. If there are others that they can deal with, they might build trust with the locals and have a better chance to find Redmud. As they prepare to leave, Grombrin notices a strong scent of metal coming from below the altar. They decide to investigate it later, after talking to the locals.

They go back to town and have some time to spend until the evening. Grombrin smiths while Nan and Vojta get an overview of the town. They try to spot any supplies possibly going out to Redmud, but there are too many boats coming through across the rivers to distinguish. Arran and Cho search for medicinal plants in the jungle but are incompetent. They regroup in the evening and go to the Bronze Pants tavern. While they order some drinks, Cho asks about Vojta’s home and personal goal. Vojta tells him about the disaster involving the river. During that time, a friend of his departed to the Lake of Myriad Stars, a spiritually-important but hard-to-reach place, in search of a solution. She never came back, so he wants to go there to search for her. The others easily intuit that he feels more strongly about this person than as simply a friend.

The group then spreads out to speak to the patrons. Cho asks the barkeep if he knows about demons in the ruins. He doesn’t know much because the locals avoid the ruins. Nan speaks to a priestly tabaxi, who relates that the ruins have been tainted for a long time. As a child, he tried to take the platinum statue but was unable to touch it. Grombrin talks to a fellow smith and a leonin. He gets no useful information out of them, but obtains the smith’s permission to use her forge instead of having to pay for the communal one. The others later question whether Grombrin’s request to do this was an accidental sexual advance. Arran talks to a kenku and a burly fisherman, who talks endlessly but not about anything useful. He does mention a stone shrine in the northwest where people make offerings to the gods. Cho joins them and has some fun telling the fisherman a tall tale about the aboleth. Vojta overhears some tabaxi discussing bandit attacks and asks them about it. They explain that some of the jungle inhabitants were attacked, even though they didn’t possess anything valuable. The hunter who saw the aftermath of the attack is acting strange and avoiding questions about it. Vojta asks him where the attack took place while using some subtle magic to read his surface thoughts. He answers north-east, but he thinks north-west.

They regroup and quietly discuss their findings. Suvulaan then stumbles into the tavern and greets them enthusiastically. She’s so drunk that she almost falls off the bridge that the tavern is built on. The others introduce her to Cho and they chat about the state of the world since the war declarations.