Expedition 151: The Duallith Job

## Summary

The Compact beats up an elderly mage, beats up some even more elderly armory guardians in Nerull and steal their holiest armaments. In Ovats, they knock out the guard captain, and win the Arsenal in a duel with Cassandra.

## Details

The Compact group, as well as a group of mousefolk, gather and prepare for a series of heists in Duallith. The Compact Group, minus Fi and Bast, Teleport to a mage tower in Nerull that has a Teleport Circle. The Compact arrives using an item from the tower to guide the spell there, and are deposited in a small room. A robed woman carrying some magical thread immediately comes down the stairs, and Ellie decides to try and subdue her. She fails, and the woman tries to cast a spell, and alert the tower. Valorie counterspells, and Bea follows up with Glort, bringing her close to unconsciousness. The thread starts glowing, and Bea becomes possessed with a spirit of a fallen Nerullan. Confidence knocks out the mage and she falls down the stairs and begins bleeding out. Ellie and Ranag tend her wounds as Bea attacks Valorie, who responds with a spell to expel the ghost from Bea's body and flees shortly before returning, at which point Ranag destroys it.

While Valorie sends the Circle information, Ellie and Confidence explore the upper reaches of the tower. They find a botanical area growing large mushrooms from large urns containing skeletal corpses. The barbarians, on the other hand, deal with a man with a crippled leg coming up the stairs and attacking them. Bea heads down the stairs and finds a phalanx of twenty soldiers below, spears pointed at her. They demand to know what she's doing in Theodrina's tower, and she refuses to answer, and a fight breaks out. Bea slowly knocks out the members of the phalanx, who run as their numbers dwindle. Fi brings the rest of the group in, and we all separate out to our targets. The Compact heads to the Nerull Arsenal. Confidence, Fi, and Ellie decide to speak to the guard. Confidence easily gets the group in, although the guard expresses concern with whether the ancient dead of the Arsenal will allow the group to take the weapons. Confidence dismisses the guard, but unfortunately he immediately runs into the other half of the group and raises the alarm, waking the dead in the building before being knocked unconscious.

The undead swarm the party as Acerak awakens and hits everyone except Valorie with Hold Person, only Confidence and Ranag resisting. While Bea and Fi break the effects quickly, Ellie remains stuck under the oppressive presence of Acerak and suffers under an assault by three undead guardians, only being freed when Ranag slew the undead king. After his death, the undead go fleshmad and attempt to cause as much damage as possible. The rest of the undead fall to the Compact, but not before one of them manages to bring Ellie down and rip out her vigor-enhancing item, killing her. The rest of the group is determined to press on, shoving her body in a Bag of Holding along with the weapons. In addition to the Arsenal stock, the group loots Acerak's body, taking his crown.

As Valorie casts the spell, a response from Nerull reaches the Arsenal and attempts to break through the barred door, but only swipe at mist as the gaseous Compact exits through the hole they've made. The group heads to Ovats, intent on following the same plan, though without Ellie. Confidence, Fi, and Bea find a group of soldiers on watch at a tavern near the Arsenal. Confidence approaches and attempts to speak with them. The captain of the Ovats guard, Paschalis joins him. Confidence attempts to bluff past them, saying he is there to inspect the armory. Unfortunately, Paschalis is suspicious due to a premonition from Cassie, and begins taking him to Ajax to get this straightened out. Once they are away from his men, the group jumps Paschalis, who attempts to get away until Fi manages to put him to Sleep. The group searches him and knocks him unconscious, then head back to the Arsenal, where Valorie takes the lead and sneaks in under Greater Invisibility. The doors simply push open, allowing her entrance and revealing a large room with one other person, clad in mechanical armor and a large greatsword. Valorie charms the woman, whose name is Cassandra. Apparently she is concerned the explosives in the armory might go off today, and decided to stand watch. Valorie convinces her to leave and watch from a distance. As she stands up, she takes a small discharge of electricity from her chair, likely an attempt to undo Suggestion, which does nothing. As she leaves, the rest of the group de-mists and Valorie attempts to distract her using Bast, which promptly fails.

Cassandra realizes what's going on, and offers a duel for the weapons in order to avoid a fight. Valorie accepts, and chooses Ranag as her Champion. Ranag promptly takes her apart without much trouble, making Noah said since she could do a lot of cool things. The group loots the room, leaving Cassandra's gear alone, and giving her a message regarding Paschalis's location. The group then heads to Emperiora for the Duchess's Claw, and then Teleports home.