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The Banewarrens, Part 10

Players/Characters Present:
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog5/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr8)  and Elida (KSK5)
Tim Chan - Demetrios Amantes (Wiz5/Hum3)
Michael Burgio - Marcus Asinus (Ftr1/KSK6)
Nora Dunn - Laelia Parvula (Mnk7)

[GM's Note: Nora Dunn, who joined us last session as Nereida's trusty sidekick Elida, now has her own character, the monk Laelia Parvula. Welcome, Nora!]

The Company of the Starborn attended yet another ceremony to raise Basil from the dead (his third!) This time, however, Basil had had enough. After thanking the Company for its efforts, he announced his retirement. Something had been taken out of him, he said, and he felt a deep foreboding that were he to reenter the Banewarrens now, he would never leave it. Also, death makes a man philosophical, and he wished to spend some time with his friend Professor Herminius, learning more about life and death. He would still be around to aid the party in less obvious ways.

[GM's Note: With no one to play Basil, the Company's exuberant warrior (and with the party already at five PCs and an NPC), the big guy decided to retire, at least temporarily, from adventuring.]

Nereida, saddened that she would not have her brother with her in danger, felt that at the Professor's side was a good place for Basil to be. She had been concerned that Ephitas had known of the Professor (well enough to disguise himself as the old man) and wondered when the Pactlords would move against him. So, with it thus agreed, Basil went off to see the Professor and bring him payment for the research into the Quann to which the Company had set him.

It was decided that the Company should pool and sell its loot. After some debate over what to sell and what to keep, Demetrios and Bonzimir set out to sell among the teeming bazaars of Echoriath. It took quite a while, but Demetrios's excellent skills at haggling netted the Company a cool 19,000 traders (and change). With this sum, Nereida bought some healing potionsand Marcus had his spear repaired (after Brother Heth had damaged it in the climactic battle in the tower). Meanwhile, Bonzimir and Demetrios drooled over the expensive pieces available at Marcian's Oddities, a store in the Academy which buys and sells a wide variety of magic items.

Marcus noted a story in the Acta Diurna (the Daily News) about an explosion that occurred in the tower of St. Thessina's Chapel. City Guards and paladins of the Order of the Dawn were guarding the place.

[GM's Note: Brother Tobias had ordered the Probe of Dreams and the Unmaker removed and brought to the Cathedral for study. The fragile Unmaker exploded, destroying the Probe of Dreams and killing two paladins and several workmen.]

That day, they were approached by a young Conorrian woman in the bazaar, who knew that they were the Company of the Starborn and wished to speak with them in private. Introducing herself as Laelia Parvula, she said that she was a traveler from the west. Suspicious after experiences with several imposters and assassins, Demetrios scanned her for magic, noting her cloak, sandals and amulet. Marcus recognized that the amulet, in the shape of a winged lion, signified an order of monks living in the Crusader States and dedicated to the twin gods Artorius and Borlamnos (gods of the Body and Mind, respectively) (Artorius's servant is the celestial lion, Barathor, while Borlamnos's is the celestial raven, Kardev). Laelia could hear their whispered conversations about her because she wore a cloak of whispers, but she said nothing about their suspicions.

The Company and Laelia repaired to the Ghostly Minstrel, where she spoke of being one of the mysterious Starborn (she showed them her silvery, slowly moving tattoos) and said that she wished to learn more about her heritage and wanted to know what the Company of the Starborn could teach her. Also, she told them that she had left the monastery of the Winged Lion when a group of individuals calling themselves the Sky Callers had come looking for her there. Still cagey, the Company told her little about what they had gleaned of the Starborn (which was little enough itself). However, they discussed having Laelia come with them on their current mission (which they only told her was dangerous). Nereida excused herself and went into a back room where she tried to perform a divination to discover more about Laelia, but the spell failed. Likewise, Demetrios tried a read thoughts on Laelia, but had no success and later agreed with Nereida that it must be her Starborn nature which defeated both spells.

The Company set Laelia up with room and board at the Ghostly Minstrel and retired to their own house to discuss this new development. The debate went into the wee hours and it was determined that they could not afford to reject another of the Starborn. They were better keeping her close to them until they learned more about her. THey also questioned Yaeshla about the inhabitants of the Black Manor, particularly about who ruled there. Yaeshla opined that the most powerful were Yuinthu, Kikanuile and Zsavri (a humanoid snake-lady with lots of animal pets).

At some point in all of this, a small uniformed lizard-like creature knocked on their door to deliver a box of gifts from Flavia Brassus and the Inverted Pyramid. These were the items promised weeks before by Flavia for the Company's help in learning what was amiss with the Banewarrens. Several minor magic items were in the package, including cloaks of resistance for Nereida and Elida, goggles of minute seeing for Bonzimir and a ring of counterspells for Demetrios.

The next morning, the Company offered to take Laelia with them, and filled her in on some of the details of their plan to enter the Quann and rescue a part of the Staff of Shards. They did not mention the Banewarrens or their larger missions. 

For the next two days, the Company lived a bit freely, with Nereida visiting neighbors to heal the sick and Demetrios taking Cornelia (the daughter of Olivia, owner of the Ghostly Minstrel) out for a night on the town. They also consulted with Professor Herminius, who informed them that the Quann was a rich source of the rare and valuable ore andrecite, which could be used to empower spells, or if consumed, it could boost a person's abilities randomly and temporarily.

When, on the third day, they approached the Chapel of St. Thessina, they were turned back by paladins of the Order of the Dawn, who sympathized with their point of view, but stood by their orders to let no one pass. Fearing another double-cross, Demetrios cast an invisibility spell on Laelia, who used her sandals of spider climbing to ascend the tower and peer within. There, she saw the burned wreckage of the Unmaker and the Probe of Dreams, guarded over by a pair of paladins. She confirmed that the portal to the Quann was still in place and returned to the ground.

The Company then went to speak to Sister Donna Mara about getting into St. Thessina's. She pressed them again to swear an oath to recover the Sword of Truth. She revealed that an ancient prophecy foretold that the Sword would be recovered from "The Tower of Evil Chained" and that its reappearance would signal a rebirth of power and glory for the Church. Demetrios was unhappy about doing anything but resealing the Banewarrens, and all expressed their reservations about messing with the supposedly cursed Holy Sword. Disappointed, Donna Mara told them that the Church intended to send it's own team into the Banewarrens to recover the Sword of Truth, and that the Great Church now regarded the Sword's recovery as more important than sealing the Banewarrens. Despite the Company's refusal to take an oath, Donna Mara signed a pass allowing them access to the portal in St. Thessina's.

[GM's Note: The Sword of Truth is an ancient holy sword from the Iridian Empire, the fantastically powerful empire that ruled Vatheria before it was brought low by the Wrath of the Gods ages ago. However, in the last age, it was supposedly turned to evil purposes, slaying some of the most powerful arcanists (wizards, sorcerers, etc.) of the day.]

Returning to St. Thessina's the Company stepped through the portal and vanished, reappearing in the Quann. This demi-plane is a stinking morass of swamps and fens, blighted purple fungi and crawling, stinging, biting insects. Every inch of ground is alive with plants and beetles, and the omnipresent lakes and bogs are redolent with decay. Yaeshla (the intelligent knife that is a shard of the staff of shards) indicated the general direction to three sites within the Quann - the Font of the Pact (where new members are inducted into the Pact), the Black Manor (where many Pactlords live and where she believes the second part of the staff of shards to be) and the Tower of Charch-Pahn, the ancient beholder who is the last surviving founder of the Pact.

Slogging along through noisome fens and mires crawling with worms and insects, the Company sighted a gargantuan centipede in the distance and steered clear of the thing. They were ambushed by three giant fish-like humanoids and their two giant crocodile pets. The fish-like giants (Yaeshla later identified them as the Ghaur) attacked from the water, but one of them used a strange compulsion to cause Laelia to want to immerse herself entirely in the water of the fen. Though the Company drove off the Ghaur and their crocodiles, one of the Ghaur managed to surround Laelia with a thick silvery mucous before being killed by Demetrios and Bonzimir. 

Though slimy, Laelia seemed unharmed. However, she seemed only able to breathe through the mucous and to have a fear of leaving the water. Yaeshla told the tale of the Ghaur, and how they must take mates from other races, using their thick mucous and vile rituals to create Ghaur-brides. The intelligent knife opined that Laelia had only a day or so before the transmutation was complete. The Company tried a variety of things to rescue their new companion, from scraping to cure spells, but it was a cure disease spell from Nereida that did the trick. The mucous dried up and quickly flaked off. 

Later, the Company found an enormous wall of green slime, 30 feet tall, hundreds of feet thick and miles long which blocked their path from horizon to horizon. Since Demetrios had memorized no fly spells, he would have to wait until the next day to use them (not that there -was- any day or night in the Quann, only a baleful half-light that filled the starless sky). By questioning Yaeshla, the party learned that most Pactlords flew over the Slime Walls, but that the Pactslaves generally marched around. This the Company did, detouring miles to the north and wading through shallow lakes to at last reach the end of the enormous wall.

On the return trip, the Company encountered the shallow lake wherein stood the Font of the Pact. Keeping well away from the island of the Font, the Company tried to wade across the lake. Marcus (the heavily-armored holy warrior) was in the lead. He was, therefore, the one who discovered the deep pit of sucking mud in the lake bottom and plummeted below the water's surface. After securing a rope around her waist and handing it to Demetrios (who bore little Bonzimir on his shoulders), Laelia dove into the dark waters in search of the vanished knight. Long moments passed and she was only able to discover his magic spear, slowly floating to the surface. Forced to surface for air, she was hasted by Demetrios and aided by Bonzimir who had used detect magic to discover Marcus's approximate location. At last, Laelia dragged Marcus's unconscious form to the surface. Nereida was able to determine that he lived, but he remained unconscious. 

As the party struggled to shore, they spotted a flying humanoid some distance along the shore, and a band of humanoids that traveled under the flier. Haze made any clear identification impossible. There the party rested in the foliage of a weird, fleshy tree until Marcus had regained consciousness. Then the party struggled on to a place where they could spy both the Font of the Pact and the Tower of Charch-Pahn. They continued toward the Black Manor, but were stymied by another immense wall of green slime. Here they rested. Demetrios had time to change his prepared spells and prepared four fly spells. In the morning, Laelia and Marcus received fly spells and ferried the others over the green slime in pairs. 

There, in a long valley surrounded on three sides by green slime, lay the squat, ornate Black Manor.

And here the story paused...

1) What lies within the Black Manor?

2) Will the Company encounter the terrible Charch-Pahn?

3) Where is Li, the shapeshifter? Or Ephitas the naga?

4) To what lengths is the Great Church willing to go to gain the Sword of Truth?

5) Are the Sword of Lies and the Sword of Truth really the same sword?

6) Where is Navanna Vitellius?

7) Where is the Ring of Wishes?

8) Are the Sky-Callers also looking for the Company of the Starborn?

Tune in next time! 

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