Oddities Below

and

Justin as the DM

"**Oddities Below**" is the twenty-seventh episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

A new day dawns and weather has returned to normal over Port Creach after a strange winter coldsnap that nobody remembers and that nearly froze everyone but Grin and Torger to death the day prior.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

*"Most of y’all slept twenty four hours straight due to a severe cold snap that swept through the bayou-like region of Port Creach causing people to freeze solid, including the city itself. The only two unaffected by the storm were Grin and Torger who awoke to see the city unnaturally blanketed in ice and snow in the middle of summer.*

*Grin saw patrons of the brothel all frozen solid, and also saw Hopper sleeping nearby also frozen. Torger remaining in the shack with the rest of the party, including Dax and Druck also saw them all to be frozen as well. A commotion drew the pair of you to a street nearby where a few ice mephits were defacing some people who had been frozen solid. The pair of you could hear thunderous footfalls coming from the east in the city and after defeating the mephits you chased after and could see a ley-line infused tear in the sky where the winter storm seemed to be coming from.*

*Torger annihilated the mephits and the pair of you chased followed these large humanoid footprints freezing the ground in their wake, eventually catching up to a fifteen-foot tall humanoid figure made of solid ice with large vents and pores over its body that was expelling these severe blizzard-like conditions, now getting towards -70 degrees fahrenheit. The winds and this creature’s presence were freezing things solid.*

*Torger enlarged himself and chased after the creature which seemed to be avoiding harming any buildings and was making its way towards the eastern wall of the city. Torger began punching the entity, and it seemed to only retaliate when attacked and after nearly killing Torger, it continued its walk towards the city wall, ignoring the shots Grin was firing from their crossbow. It tried speaking while being attacked, but you couldn’t understand what it was saying as it began to climb the wall, and eventually it was brought down by Grin which caused the rift in the sky and all this weather to vanish, including the body of the ice creature, returning the city to its normal seasonal weather and thawing the people of the city who had no recollection of the event, including those of you who weren’t present for our last session.*

*To tend to their wounds and relax after the strange events of the day, Torger and Grin retired to the Salted Goat tavern for drinks. While there they discovered that everyone under the roof couldn’t speak a deliberate lie and for that reason alone the tavern was quite the popular spot for people to learn and share dirty secrets and gossip and sometimes that gossip resulted in violence. There, you met with the owner Falkus Brinestone, a copper dragonborn covered in nautical tattoos and tattoos of crossed off names, who after pouring some drinks explained the nature of the bar and how the “magic” worked. This turned into a game of twenty questions with personal things being revealed and eventually culminated in him being hired to aid you in defeating the Marquis at the masquerade, and with Falkus revealing he knew your party by name and was hired by Kastagar the Architect of Sorrowed Gloom to bring you to him. He explained your offer was far more interesting and mentioned he looked forward to working with you in dealing with the Marquis.*

*He offered a room upstairs to spend the night due to your drunkenness, and under the truth-telling enchantments littered throughout the tavern promised you’d be safe there and he wouldn’t screw you over.*

*You both slept incredibly well due to nearly freezing to death and the state of drunkeness you found yourselves in and we’ll pick up there with two days left until the masquerade, and for some of you, your custom costumes for the masquerade should be ready."*

#### The Episode

Grin and Torger were awoken by the morning sun peeking through the windows of their room at the tavern, the first instance of warmth and sunshine since the group's arrival in Port Creach. They ate breakfast that was left out for them by Falkus and met him downstairs where he offered them a deal. If they would investigate why the Marquis and Kastagar have been seen going into the abandoned orphanage lately, he would consider the contract against the Marquis paid in full.

The pair agreed, but they'd have to talk to the other members of the Fonkey Casuals first to see if they were all in agreement and left to go searching for their friends, knowing they were all last in the alleyway shack. Meanwhile, Hopper woke up in the brothel feeling exhausted due to oversleeping and polished off any remaining substance in their hookah and made their way towards the shack as well. The shack group also began to wake up due to the creeping sunlight and warmth, seeing a note left behind by Druck and Dax mentioning that the pair of them had set off to deal with some personal things and would most likely see the party again at a later date, maybe.

Antyr cast *Sending* to try and deduce where Torger had gone, realizing that out of everyone who had spent the night in the shack, he was missing. Torger didn't exactly explain where he had gone, and the spell seemed wasted. It was around this time that Hopper returned to the shack, and after some discussions, Hopper revealed that they met with a copper dragonborn named Falkus Brinestone at the brothel two nights ago, and that he was interested in having a meeting at the tavern to discuss opportunities. As the group made their way there, they reunited with Grin and Torger and everyone returned to the Salted Goat tavern to meet with Falkus and discuss the arrangement that Torger and Grin had made both last night and this morning.

Upon arrival, Falkus explained that the orphanage in the city had been abruptly closed when the Marquis came into power and deemed condemned and off-limits to the public, yet one of his "rats" saw the Marquis and Kastagar enter the orphanage a few nights prior. He offered that should the party investigate the happenings at the orphanage he would consider the contract against the Marquis paid in full. He mentioned that it would best to do so under the cover of nightfall, and would meet the party outside the orphanage. Grin handed Falkus his Sending Stone while Antyr brought up that one of the sewer tunnels led towards the orphanage and they could take that one to sneak in and hopefully get past the guards without killing any of them.

Falkus mentioned he would "see" them later that night, and the group left the tavern, making their way towards The Strap so those that ordered custom made costumes could pick them up before the masquerade. Upon arrival they were greeted by Marius Quay, the proprietor of the Strap who immediately began fitting and do last minute adjustments to the costumes while they were being worn, which consumed most of the day. The costumes were as follows:

* Antyr; a sort of luminous and elegant ensemble with hexagonal and constellation like motifs.
* Doe; an outfit resembling the basic chest-form of a mimic.
* Grin; an outfit resembling Hansel from the Brother's Grimm fairy tale.
* Hopper; a velvet jacket with a mask sporting leaf and flower motifs with a peacock feather.
* Lionel; an outfit that resembled Antyr.
* Torger; an outfit resembling Gretel from the Brother's Grimm fairy tale.
* Vonkar; an outfit that caused him to resemble a living statue.

Once the fittings were done, the party made their way to the sewers, using the entrance by the tavern and began making their way towards the tunnel that would bring them towards the orphanage. After they moved down this tunnel, they came to a blockage made by wooden logs clearly placed to prevent people from breaking in. However, Antyr made short work of the blockage by casting Atrophy on it, causing some of the wood to rot and collapse and allow everyone to crawl under and enter the tunnel beyond.

The tunnel beyond led to a wooden door, and beyond the wooden door the party could hear the fluttering and buzzing of tiny wings, in addition to a feeling of static energy in the air. Through *Detect Magic*, Hopper could feel an aura of every school of magic residing within the area. Torger cast Pass Without Trace, while Grin peeked through the door and saw numerous, colossal tree roots weaving throughout this stone tunnel and growing out of the roots were colorful crystals that seemed to be a form of solidified sap. Hundreds of sprites were harvesting this sap and flying down the tunnel with the crystals, clearly taking them somewhere.

Realizing that Grin could blend in with the other sprites, Torger ended Pass Without Trace and Grin flew into the tunnel which alerted one of the other sprites who seemed confused where Grin had just come from, asking Grin what designation number he was. Grin said "69" which caused the sprite to narrow his eyes, but return to work. Grin collected one of the crystals and followed after, seeing Umbral Knights patrolling the corridor, and more and more sprites down the length of the tunnel harvesting these crystals. Eventually, Grin and the other sprites arrived in a room where the crystals were being deposited into large pewter basins where they would immediately disappear. Overseeing the operation was an extremely old, bald, emaciated, jaundiced and sallow skinned elf wearing a form concealing brown robe below the neck. This elf seemed displeased with one of the sprites that was working and crushed them.

Grin flew back to tell the others what he had witnessed, and as they were talking a voice called out beyond the door saying "job's done" and silence followed. Passing through the door they saw that the roots and crystals remained, but the sprites were all gone. Grin flew ahead again and saw that the Umbral Knights had all frozen in place, in whatever position they were last in. Flying back into the room with the receptacles, Grin saw all the other sprites were gone causing him to panic and successfully hide from the elderly elf who was doing some last minute things in the room before walking through a solid wall and disappearing from view.

Approaching the wall, Grin touched it and could feel static but his finger passed through. He pushed his head through next and saw a cavernous tunnel, clearly underground with more of those roots winding down the walls of the cavern with more of those crystals growing within them. The elderly elf was walking down the tunnel. He began to fly back towards the party.

Meanwhile, Hopper was placing a hand on one of the roots and cast *Identify*, determining that these tree roots were in-fact the leylines themselves, and were somehow the roots of some large tree, and that these crystals were cathadiuum crystals, and the sap was the weave itself in physical form. Antyr after some urging by Hopper also placed a hand on the root and felt immense power coursing through the root. The pair of them began plucking crystals from the root, and having a conversation while doing so, explaining that these roots were the leylines and theorizing that Torger's belief of the "Great tree" may very much be connected to these roots. Hopper theorized that these trees hold the world together, while Antyr mentioned they believed that the trees and these roots possibly held the planes of existence together.

Lionel brought up that they had all seen one of these "great trees" in a rift in the sky of Port Creach a few days prior, and mentioned Antyr saying they saw a similar sized tree in the Drakeward Desert in a vision and that there may be a connection. As the crystals were collected however, there was a strange pulse noise and when the group decided to leave the tunnel from the way they came, the door collapsed into rose petals and vanished as the wall behind was replaced by gnarled roots.

Deciding the only way out was forward, the group continued down the corridor encountering strange, twisted sights and versions of themselves and eventually, Antyr tossed one of the crystals they collected, shattering it on impact which caused a colossal tidal wave to manifest in the corridor and slam into Hopper while everyone else avoided it. Eventually, during all of this commotion and looking for a way out, a voice spoke to them all from behind and it seemed to be a lost goblin wearing a pointed pink hat. He introduced himself as Odd, and he too was looking for a way out.

With not much choice, the party began to follow Odd down one of the corridors where stone floor had now been replaced by mint-green glass and tall flowers.

#### After the Break

While following Odd down the corridor, he explained that some old elf had been pulling his home into this world, explaining that he had come from the Feywild, and so did the grass and flowers they were currently walking through. As they continued to follow Odd down the corridor, there was another surging noise and before Odd could finish his current sentence he blinked out of existence along with the grass and flowers, returning these tunnels back to their original states. They opened the door they were at and saw an abandoned bedroom filled with bunkbeds, clearly from back when the orphanage was in use, but this was kept in the basement.

The party returned to the door that they tried getting through before, and opened it to see the receptacle room Grin spoke of before. The room radiated all schools of magic, likely to the leylines and Antyr peeked through the wall that Grin mentioned, seeing the same underground cavern and more of the roots twisting through it and easily discerning this was somewhere else entirely and not connected to the orphanage at all. Grin warned the party not to touch the pewter basins and the group decided to leave and return to the tavern and let Falkus know what they found out.

As they raced down the corridor towards the exit, Torger caught a glimpse of one of the frozen Umbral Knights briefly move its head in the direction the group was coming from. He watched as it moved while Grin continued to zoom about, and eventually as the party all began to leave, Torger included, the head went back to looking in a neutral position, all the while Torger quietly threatened it.

Eventually, the party returned to the tavern and met up with Falkus and explained what they had seen. He didn't seem to have any knowledge of what was going on, but thanked them all the same. He poured them all drinks and like the night before, he engaged in a game of twenty questions with the rest of the party. Through the questions, learning that Grin didn't trust Antyr, but seemed alone in that feeling, while Vonkar trusted everyone equally. Lionel asked if people like him, with Antyr being the only one to say they did not. Torger mentioned he didn't trust Hopper, but that couldn't be discerned as truth nor lie as he resisted the effect's of the tavern's truth-telling magic.

Hopper explained that if the group got in the way of him reuniting with his family he wouldn't hesitate to kill each and every one of them. With the truths and questions out of the way, Falkus told them they could spend the night and he'd have breakfast ready for them in the morning. Everyone but Hopper retired to bed. Staying at the bar for a few more moments, Hopper fiddled with the doll house they received from Somnius and left one of the dolls behind on the counter before retiring to his room.

As Antyr prepared to sleep and they entered their chamber, they could see a shadowy figure with a wide smile and wide eyes standing on the bed and nodding before disappearing. This caused Antyr to approach Vonkar's room, knock on the door and ask to spend the night with him, to which he agreed and everyone got some rest.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Lionel
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Returning

* Baba Yaga (voice only)
* Falkus Brinestone
* Marius Quay
* The Timeless Hunger

### New

* Kastagar, Architect of Sorrowed Gloom
* Odd

### Mentioned

* Auntie Gothel
* The Archmaw
* The Creep
* Dax
* Druck
* Genevieve (Hopper's daughter)
* Leek
* Marquis Torgol Marrshade
* Sir Arthur Wordweave