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The Banewarrens, Part 13

Theeurth Date: Cleon 28- Daarlem 2, 2806 (Early Summer)
Location: Echoriath (the Imperial capital) and the Banewarrens (Inner Vaults)

Players/Characters Present:
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog6/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr9)  and Elida ( KSK6)
Tim Chan - Demetrios Amantes (Wiz 6/Hum3)
Michael Burgio - Marcus Asinus (Ftr1/ KSK7)
Nora Dunn - Laelia Parvula (Mnk8)

When the doors to the Inner Vault opened, the Company of the Starborn and the paladins of the Order of the Dawn were struck by a horrid wave of evil, leaving them in no doubt about the foul place they had just entered - something altogether different than the previous areas of the Banewarrens.

The Order remained behind, battered and bruised by the pair of huge elementals it had defeated.  The Company moved quickly up the stairs beyond the doorway to reach a landing and a hallway extending into the gloom to north and south.  The landing was once decorated by an exquisite mural of two angels, their foreward-swept wings forming an arch over the Holy Chalice.  However, the mural was marred by handprints that had burned away the paint.

To the north, the Company found a room that had lain long undisturbed.  However, in the sludge at the bottom of an ancient fountain they disturbed something into which the hatred and evil of the Inner Vaults had been leaking for millennia...something that moved.  A Fiendish Black Pudding rose up and grabbed Demetrios, its acidic excreta burning the wizard terribly.  The Company quickly moved in to defend him.  Elida's guisarme clove the pudding in two - each half remaining animate and dangerous.  The pudding's acid also dissolved her guisarme, leaving only a charred pole in her hands.  Spells eventually brought the creature low and the Company headed south back across the landing.  Hearing the combat, the paladins of the Order of the Dawn quickly came to the Company's aid, but the fight was over by the time they arrived.  After treating a few minor wounds, the paladins went back to their rest in the Outer Vaults.

A short time later, Demetrios found a scroll that indicated that this level had once been a prison in the time of Eslathagos Malkith.  While scouting a triangular room to the west, Bonzimir nearly had his rapier ripped from his grasp by an unseen force.  He retreated and the Company experimented, discovering that the effect only worked on magic items.  They tied an everburning torch to a rope and threw it into the room, where it was suddenly surrounded by a shimmering sphere of force that quickly floated into a nearby alcove.  Demetrios and Laelia watched this alcove for a bit, and were surprised to see the sphere and torch suddenly wink out of existence.  Demetrios was able to determine that the pair were teleported away.  Deciding that the alcove was dangerous, the Company returned to the east and explored other rooms. 

In one, they encountered a band of terrible, soul-searing wights dressed in ancient armor that fought with swords and strange spiked chains.  The wights were intelligent, and attempted to flank the Company by sending half their number through unknown passages to come up on the Company's rear.  A grand melee ensued, with Laelia and Marcus holding a doorway in one direction, while Bonzimir and Nereida held one in the other direction, with Demetrios lobbing spells and Nereida turning undead in both directions.  The Company quickly found that -something- off to the east was freeing the undead of their compulsion to flee when turned and was returning them to combat.

It was a long fight before the Company had defeated the wights, and not without cost (Demetrios, Bonzimir and Marcus were each drained by the wights; Laelia was drained twice).  And just as the Company was surveying the battlefield, a new and more terrible enemy came up on from the east. 

Though he appeared alive, the Betrayed had guarded the broken remnants of Danar's chapel for three millennia - he was caught between life and death, pinioned by his own shattered faith in the gods he once adored.  Long ago, he was a priest in the service of Danar.  When that great man was corrupted by The Book of Inverted Darkness, one of his first acts was to torture this priest until his evil and cruelty shattered the man's faith in the very gods he served.  Even death was not a release as he was reborn as The Betrayed, a undead creature constantly surrounded by a halo of broken holy symbols.  The blasphemous words of the Betrayed shook the faith of all the Company, and by turning their faith in on itself, he was able to cause the Company to flee in horror (his Turn Living power).  Bonzimir and Elida ran, finding themselves in a room with locked doors, where they cowered in terror.  Demetrios and proud Marcus soon followed.  Deciding on the better part of valor, Laelia and Nereida also ran, though not compelled to do so.

As the Company waited, it was not long before they heard the sounds of combat.  Laelia and Nereida ventured forth to observe, and saw the paladins of the Order of the Dawn facing off against The Betrayed and two of his wight servants.  By ones and twos, he also forced them to flee in ignominious horror, until only Kalerecent remained.  The two women of the Company joined in the fight and held the line until Bonzimir and Elida, freed from their supernatural terror, were able to rejoin the fight, followed not long later by Demetrios and Marcus.  Again and again, The Betrayed withstood the awe-inspiring pounding delivered by Nereida's Meteorite and Fiery Stone Fall spells, coming through them unscathed.

At this point, The Betrayed fled back into his sanctum, hotly pursued by Kalerecent and the Company.  This was the former shrine where Danar worshiped the gods.  Its altar was sundered in two and wept blood.  The beautiful frescos and mosaics were foully disfigured, and the whole had an evil feel to it.  After a particularly devastating blow from Kalerecent's greatsword, The Betrayed turned into mist and fled south down a wide corridor to a room with a carved marble reliquary sat.  Kalerecent followed and fell afoul of two traps.  The first fired off a field of electricity; the second stunned him for several rounds.  Unknown to all but Demetrios, Marcus followed invisibly and flying (thanks to the Winged Boots acquired in the Quaan) and survived both traps, but then he reached the third trap, which teleported him back to the first...and the electricity dropped him into unsciousness. 

Meanwhile, Nereida, Bonzimir and one of the paladins with some ability at sorcery, kept up a steady barrage, bombarding the reliquary, which at last shattered.  Demetrios used dimension door to take Nereida and Lady Severa (chief of the paladins), bypass the traps and behead the reforming body of The Betrayed.  Bonzimir disarmed the lightning trap, freeing Marcus (visible once Demetrios canceled his invisibility spell).  Using her last spell, Nereida detected two secret doors leading out of The Betrayed's sanctum.

With the Company and the paladins exhausted, beaten and victorious, they agreed to retreat and gather their strength before returning to the Inner Vaults.  Severa urged the Company to seek the aid of the Great Church immediately, before the energy drains of the wights and Betrayed became permanent.  However, the free ride at the Great Church had come to a grinding halt.  Though sympathetic, Sister Donna Mara informed the Company that the Partiarch had directed her to stop giving preferential treatment to the Company unless they swore an oath to recover the Sword of Truth.  So, she had to charge them full price for any healings, including the needed restoration spells.

The Company therefore quickly went to the Grand Market and sold the arms and armor they had looted from the Banewarrens wights and from The Betrayed.  With pockets thus flush, they returned to the Great Cathedral and had their levels restored. 

That evening, the Company was contacted at their home by Flavia Brassus' familiar (a hawk made of red glass).  "My mistress sends you greetings," it said, "and urges you to accept a new ally, who has important information."  Just then, there was a knock at the door.  Outside was one Aulus Hirtius Neverius, a warrior  and self-described "problem solver" in the service of the Inverted Pyramid.  Aulus introduced himself and explained that the Inverted Pyramid wished to ensure than no one was able to recover the Sword of Lies.  He told of the time before the rise of the Empire and the closing of the Banewarrens, when the Sword of Lies corrupted those who possessed it, driving them to seek out and slay hundreds, even thousands of mages.  Aulus was surprised to learn that the Company already knew of the Sword.  They asked him to let them discuss the matter alone, so he returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, and promised to look them up the next day.

Demetrios spent the day browsing Marcian's Oddities, while Bonzimir continued to try to hunt down a suit of magical leather armor tailored to a halfling.  He found one, on sale at the caravanserai outside of the city, a suit found in an ancient temple in the Worldspine Mountains, but could not afford the 13,000 Traders sale price.

Meanwhile, Nereida and  Marcus worked on questions to be asked via a commune spell.  That evening, Nereida cast the spell, and contacted Vacamiel, the Liber Exaltus, the great Celestial servant of Borlamnos.  His answers to her questions were received as a vision by all members of the Company, seen as flowing script writing upon the pages of a great book.

[GM's Note: More about Vacamiel can be read here.

Q.  Are the Sword of Truth and the Sword of Lies the same object?
A. Yes.

Q. Can the curse on the Sword of Lies be broken by the Great Church?
A. Yes.

Q. Are any of the Paladins in the Banewarrens agents of Brother Heth?
A. No.

Q.  Would Borlamnos want us to recover the Sword of Truth?
A.  Yes.

Q.  Is sister Donna Mara a true servant of the Great Church?
A.  Definitely.

Q. Has Flavia Brassus always been honest with us concerning the Banewarrens?
A.  She believes so.

Q. Does Borlamnos approve of the Inverted Pyramid's plans with regard to the Banewarrens?
A. Unclear.

Q.  Would Borlamnos want us to turn the Sword of Truth over to the Great Church?
A.   No.

Q.  Have the Pactlords of Quaan infiltrated the Inverted Pyramid?
A.  No.

The Company took this to mean that some in the Inverted Pyramid had as-yet unrevealed motives, but that Flavia herself was not one of them.  Also, they achieved some peace about the Sword of Truth, thinking that Borlamnos most likely wanted them to recover the ancient relic for his own church (meaning, they hoped, for themselves).

And her the story paused.

1.  Why was Vacamiel not able to say whether Borlamnos approved of the plans of the Inverted Pyramid?

2.  What does Borlamnos want done with the Sword?

3.  How is the Company going to survive the iron golem guarding the Sword of Truth?  (Hint: Not without planning!)

4.  What is it that Flavia Brassus does not know?

5.  Where is the access to the Baneheart?

6.  Where is Navanna Vitellius?

7.  Where are Li and Sarrachk?

8.  Do any other of Danar's old servants still roam the halls of the Inner Vaults?

Tune in next time!

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