Crossroads & Crosshairs

## Descent into the Underflow

* **The City Group** meets at the Dusty Spoon bar as agreed. Shadow meets Matthias. The party tells Shadow about the orb, Dr. Perry, and other goals they have. They then talks about other goals they have.
	+ Kysona: is along for the ride
	+ Mattias: on a mission to recover an important magical artifact for Dol Arrah
	+ Franz: Talks about patriotism and money then accuses the Tyger claws of being morally equivalent to Arasaka. The party has a discussion of good vs evil between Tyger Claw vs Arasaka
	+ Eli: just wants to go home
* The party descends into the Underflow, an Etherium mining city under the capital. It's run by a dwarven government called the admiralty. Crime is permitted (i.e. they don't do anything about it) as long as the crime lords follow the Admiralty's rules.
	+ As they go down the elevator into the Underflow, Eli starts to get a headache from the Etherium magic. She deduces that she perhaps has magic sensitivity. A tabaxi in the elevator sells Eli a pill, which helps with the headache.
* The group finds Anton at a holographic nightclub. Kysona and Franz go to find Anton while Shadow and Eli have an illusion feast. Anton arrives and leads them to a more secure location. On the way, Anton tells them that Jefaris Reeves is in Underflow right now, though he's not sure why.
	+ There are Tarrin spies in Underflow, likely because Olivia Hawkins (Tarrin governor) is here campaigning for the Chancellorship. They need to be careful to make sure the Tarrin spies don't one up us.
* Anton stops walking, saying something has happened. Franz realizes he's been pick pocketed, and teleports to the one who did it. He tells the thief to give back his stuff, saying "Where I'm from we cut the hands off of pickpockets." Franz notices a band of thieves ready to attack, so he stabs the pickpocket.
* The magic released by Franz's Misty Step sets off Eli's magic sensitivity, and she turns everyone but herself invisible. It wears off soon and the combat situation is defused.
	+ It appears that Eli is experiencing bouts of uncontrollable magic due to losing her connection with Eli the fae.
* Anton brings the party into an abandoned slum area and heads towards an abandoned etherium mining areas. They are a suspicious group, and are likely being followed after the commotion that Eli's burst of uncontrolled magic caused. They decide to split up into two groups:
	+ Anton, Franz, and Kysona will go to Anton's place to pick up the party's reward for killing Damien Rourke.
	+ Shadow, Eli, and Matthias will go with Eli to the nearest apothecary and get someone to help her deal with her magic sensitivity.
* The healer at the apothecary says that Eli has a form of magic resonance. Eli had seen it in some of magical artifacts that Hal acquired; they had magic removed but still magically affected world around them.
	+ Magic Resonance is more common with magical objects, and they've never seen it in a person. Magic energy exists naturally (gaiyu, Dol Arrah’s essence). Magic wielders pull on and channel this natural magic. Eli's current state makes her akin to an uncontrolled sorcerer. Her condition should hopefully wear away with time
	+ Healer recommends that Eli find a mage that deals with sorcerers to get a more expert opinion. In the meantime, they prescribe her anti-magic pills. She can either get the Savant Pharmaceuticals brand or a generic brand that lasts 4 months. Eli goes with the generic.

## Dave Enters an Obviously Haunted House

*"...and she saw such unspeakable horrors that she yearned for the maw of the CrocoSphinx" --local Shepherd on recent repots of spirits in the swamps of Il-Zur*

* Levi offers the **Dragon Tales** group some dinner. Dave asks Levi if he has any bugs, and is disappointed to find out that Levi does not. Dave decides to go into the forest to forage for bugs, and Zhu-Li goes with him. While in the forest, Dave hears voice in his mind saying “you don’t belong in this body”,
* Dave follows the voice to an abandoned house. Zhu-Li is hesitant to go inside, but Dave is insists on investigating it. Dave calls out into the house if anyone is there while Zhu-Li watches from outside of the door.
	+ A cold knife stabs Dave and his mind is filled with voices. One voice rises above the rest tells Dave to go to the attic, and Dave obeys without a second thought. Meanwhile, a fog of necrotic energy appears and attacks Zhu-Li. Zhu-Li takes a lot of damage.
	+ Zhu-Li sets fire to the house and runs towards the attic to get Dave out of here. The necrotic fog gets thicker, as if trying to stop her from going to the attic. Zhu Li takes a lot of necrotic damage from the fog.
* Rest of party realizes that Dave and Zhu Li were gone for a while. They follow Zhu-Li’s tracks to the haunted house. As they approach the house, Verinen hears a cat from the basement. He casts “speak with animals” and hears that cat shout: “help my son”.
	+ Levi and Verinen go to the basement where they see a tabaxi named Whisper pinned on the ground under a golem. They save Whisper and Whisper tells them that the spirit vessel (golem) was left vacant and all sorts of spirits are coming from the swamp to come and claim it.
* Meanwhile, a Cloak of Darkness attacks Neko as soon as he steps inside the house. At the same time, a zombie humanoid appears and strangles Zhu Li, almost killing her. She gets a wild magic surge and is able to Reincarnate should she die. She is downed but Whisper saves her using a spell that is clearly Necromancy. Her lingering injury is **Void-Touched -** You are vulnerable to necrotic damage.
	+ Zhu Li has a vision of a Loxodon tribe in the deserts of her homeland.
* Verinen builds a contraption that somehow manages to get the golem out of the basement and into the house. He also builds a bomb.
* A horde of undead appears and surrounds the house.
* Levi and Verinen find Dave and try to convince him to let Levi touch him in order to figure out what is happening. Dave is clearly agitated, points a knife at them, and scurries away. Verinen tries to pin Dave down but misses. Neko, Levi, and Verinen continue to try to convince Dave but fail. Dave goes onto the ceiling
* Zhuli’s massive hand helds the zombies/skeletons at bay, but it won't hold for long
* Finally someone causes Dave to be frightened, causing him to fall. Levi touches Dave, tries to convince spirit to go into the golem. Instead Dave manages to banish the spirit, devastating Whisper.
* Humble Downpour appears and destroys the undead army. She also tries to destroy the Vessel, but Levi casts a spell attempting to cancel it out
	+ Whisper takes a fuckton of damage, Levi takes a bit of damage, but the vessel is saved

## Plan of Action

* Kysona and Franz go with Anton to pick up their reward money. On the way there, they caught in a rockslide in the tunnels.
	+ Try to dig it out but fail because they are WEAK, so they choose to take an alternative route. On this path, they run into some rock monster which their attacks are pretty much powerless against
	+ Anton shoots something at it, causing a rockslide, and they escape
* In the club, the Illusion, magic is rampant. All the "dancers" are illusions and drinks adjust to match what the user requests. Everything seems to be powered by etherium cells.
* Shadow, Mattias, and Eli manage to snag a private room by paying. They then tell the manager guy that they are meeting Anton, so they get the room indefinitely
	+ They decorate it like a Sirex castle, with the food
* Kysona & Franz & Anton arrive, they all go to the secret back room to talk. Shadow nabs two etherium cells, Kysona and Eli notice
* Plan:
	+ Get more info on Jefaris reeves
	+ Go to Vulture/go shopping
	+ Disguise themselves as Half-Orcs and meet White Widow. Use physical disguises to prevent anti-magic issues They will figure out what the favor White Widow would want in exchange for information about Kono Utamara. If that fails/favor is not worth the cost:
		- Kysona & Shadow can sneak in and become White Widow operatives
		- Meet with Admiralty and tell them that White Widow, who works closely with Admiralty, did something that might jeopardize the relationship between Admiralty and Arasaka (essentially try to blackmail).
* Eli gives Franz some of her money to help the party in their endeavors. She also tells him the address of the PO box in the city that she bought so that she can send correspondence to the party should they be in the Nymerian capital.