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The Banewarrens, Part 14

Theeurth Date: Daarlem 2-5, 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)

Photographs of the session can be found HERE.

Wishing she could scry on the Great Church's delvers, Nereida decided that the house on St. Martius's Street needed a holy water font (a necessary prerequisite for divine scrying) and a small Borlamnian chapel to go with it.  Realizing that this would take a bit of doing, the Company decided to return to the Banewarrens.  After some debate, they agreed to bring Aulus (the Inverted Pyramid's representative) with them.  Aulus revealed some of his unique abilities by  inscribing special runes on both his sword and his shield before setting out.

As they arrived at the abandoned house, they discovered that the it was no longer as secret as it had once been.  The steady growth of their own notoriety, not to mention the appearance of paladins in the neighborhood had been noticed by the residents, who have now begun watching the house and definitely recognized the Company of the Starborn as they approached.  The Company waved and smiled, but answered no questions as they entered the house.  Inside, the paladins of the Order of the Dawn informed them that while no one had entered other than the Church's delvers a few days before, they had heard something down in the basement just an hour before, but were unable to locate anything, even with a wand of detect magic.

The Company wasn't in the Banewarrens long, having just entered the upper level of the Outer Vaults, when suddenly their lights flickered and every door around them slammed shut.  Spooked, they tried to open doors and found them all firmly shut.  Demetrios used detect magic and was overwhelmed by the power of the arcane energies coursing through the Banewarrens.  Studying it carefully, he became convinced that this was a powerful warding ritual, and that it was coming from outside the Banewarrens.  Immediately, the Company concluded that the Inverted Pyramid had sold them out.  Aulus found this hard to believe, but Nereida opined that she no longer completely trusted anyone.  The Company tried several doors, but to no avail.  They were trapped.

The dilemma did not last long enough to present any real difficulty, however.  A few minutes later, the massive effect faded.  Whatever it was, it had failed to permanently seal the Banewarrens.

Concerned, but eager to press on, the Company continued toward the Inner Vaults.  Steeling themselves for the forbiddance area, they moved through, suffering much damage (except for Laelia) and began to heal up in the last room of the Outer Vaults, an area they had begun to refer to as "The Paladin Campsite".  Then, they heard a female scream back by the forbiddance zone.  Rushing back, they saw nothing, but with her cloak of whispers, Laelia distinctly heard footsteps running away.  "It must be Navanna," said Demetrios, and Laelia charged through the forbiddance zone after her.

Now the whole Company charged after her, re-crossing the forbiddance zone and again being badly injured.  Laelia lucked out in the room where they paladins fought the air elementals and caught the fleeing woman by sound, even though she was invisible.  The monk of the leones alae leapt upon the tiny sounds and grappled her target.   Bonzimir joined in the grapple.  However, the invisible woman broke free a moment later.  The woman spoke a word of power and all was quiet.  Moments later, with half the Company on each side of the forbiddance zone, Navanna appeared behind Laelia and drove her longsword into her, yelling "Die!" and then tried to flee.

[GM's Note: Full attack with sneak attack - Laelia came very close to death.]

Now visible, Navanna appeared in her true form - a lithe, muscular woman with jet-black hair and skin, bright yellow teeth and four small yellow horns near her brow.  She bore a weird, undulating sword with tubes that led back to her forearm, and a strangely-crafted bow over her shoulder.  Laelia leapt on her, managing to grapple and then pin her opponent, preventing her from speaking.  The rest of the Company came pouring into the room just as Navanna broke free from Laelia's grasp.  Marcus cut her down with a furious spear onslaught (38 points of damage in one round).  

Nereida checked the bleeding woman for a pulse, and found one, thin and reedy.  She was moments away from death. "Let her die," urged both Bonzimir and Demetrios, and for once, Nereida agreed.  But Marcus, a sworn Knight of the Sacred Keys, was not so sanguine.  He stepped in and stabilized Navanna with a cure light wounds.  "I can accept her death in battle," he said, "but I cannot accept our own complicity in watching a helpless woman die.  We can easily take her back to be judged in the city."

[GM's Note: Not at all a tough call for me, even though Mike wasn't around to play Marcus.  By whatever name, Marcus is a holy warrior, and follows the code of chivalry.  Navanna was clearly a defeated opponent, and not merely a dying monster.]

The Company was divided, but Marcus was insistent.  He left the choice of where to take Navanna to the rest of the Company.  Ignoring the possibility of civil justice, the Company debated whether to deliver her to the Great Church or the tender mercies of the inquisitors of Agaleus, god of Justice and Death.  Fearing that Navanna might be linked to the Quaan and thus have hidden allies in the Great Church, they decided to deliver her to the inquisitors.  However, when they returned to the surface, the paladins of the Order of the Dawn insisted that Navanna be turned over to them - they had orders to bring any unauthorized person found in the Banewarrens straight to the Great Church.  After some debate, the Company agreed to this, but only if they could accompany Navanna to the Great Cathedral and see that Sister Donna Mara was directly informed of Navanna's crimes.

As they approached the Great Cathedral, Aulus excused himself, obviously uncomfortable with traveling to that place.  He told the Company that he would wait for them at the Ghostly Minstrel.  Curious, Bonzimir snuck after him, expertly sticking to the shadows as he tailed the big man.

Back at the Great Cathedral, Donna Mara was summoned, and was horrified by the appearance of this creature that seemed so like the important young woman she knew...Navanna Vitellius.  The Company confirmed that this was the true form of Navanna and told Donna Mara of her list of crimes, including her attacks on them, her harboring of werewolves and her associations with Chaositech (not to mention her obvious demonic heritage).  At last, the reverend sister seemed convinced, and ordered that Navanna be held in something called "the Chamber of Silence", able to see no one but ranking members of the Order of the Dawn, but that she otherwise be treated as befitted her station as a noblewoman.  She promised the Company that the Church would convene and inquest to look into Navanna's crimes.  She also healed them all.

Nereida returned home to identify the materials taken from Navanna, while Demetrios set out to find a stone mason to create a proper font for the new shrine in their house. Meanwhile, Bonzimir had tailed Aulus back to the Ghostly Minstrel and watched him retire to his room.  Bonzimir snuck up and listened at Aulus's door.  Presently, he heard the eldritch warrior speaking to someone.  Though muffled, it was clear that he was tense, and demanding to see someone.  About twenty minutes later, as he loitered outside the door, Bonzimir heard someone coming up the stairs and hid in the shadows at the end of the hall.  He saw Flavia Brassus enter Aulus's room and shut the door.  Again, Bonzimir went and listened.  Although Flavia's voice was too soft to make out, Bonzimir had no problem making out Aulus's side the conversation.  Aulus was angry about the attempt to seal the Banewarrens with him inside it, but Flavia's voice was soothing.  Aulus mentioned that he had not sighted the paladins, and asked whether Flavia had brought him what he needed. 

Soon thereafter, Flavia left, and when Aulus went downstairs to order lunch, Bonzimir snuck into his room to search it.  He only had enough time to detect the magic in Aulus's backpack before the eldritch warrior returned.  Bonzimir scooted under the bed and hid there among the dust bunnies as Aulus ate, drank and fell asleep.  Eventually, the halfling rogue let himself out and returned home, telling the Company what he had seen and heard.

The Company decided to ask Flavia about the attempted sealing and tell her about the capture of Navanna, and so sent word back to the Ghostly Minstrel for her.  Finished with his shopping chores, Demetrios took the night off to spend some moonlit time with Cornelia, serving girl at the Ghostly Minstrel.  He returned later that night, happy and not telling.

In the meantime, Flavia arrived at the house on St. Martius's street and was welcomed in.  She listened with both satisfaction and a certain amount of trepidation when told that Navanna had been captured and turned over to the Great Church.  When asked about Aulus and whom he took orders from, Flavia responded that while Aulus did work for another member of the Inverted Pyramid (whom she declined to name), she trusted both master and warrior as honorable men.  Nereida replied that honorable men might still make bad decisions.  Flavia agreed, saying only "The last time the Sword of Lies was free, it slew hundreds of our own, and caused the deaths of tens of thousands - it cannot be freed again.  All our lives are as nothing compared to that."

Nereida turned the subject to whether the Inverted Pyramid planned any more unexpected help.  Flavia seemed perplexed. "Would you rather we not tried to help?  We are your allies, even if we must remain distant from direct involvement."  Nereida replied that though she had reasons to suspect even her allies, now, Flavia was among those she still trusted.  Flavia said that she planned nothing further, but would be willing to help Demetrios with access to spells, if he needed something special.

Flavia flatly denied knowing anything about the attempted sealing of the Banewarrens, but Nereida sensed that she was uncomfortable with this subject.  Bonzimir asked whether she'd detected the powerful ritual herself, or whether anyone had mentioned it to her, and she denied this also.  Bonzimir knew she was lying, since he'd heard Aulus mention it to her just that afternoon.  The glass-armed wizardess then took her leave and the Company remained depressed - had their one of their best allies been part of the attempt to seal the Banewarrens with them inside?  And was the intention to seal them in, or were they just collateral damage?

The Company decided that the sooner they reached the Sword of Truth and the Sealing Rod, the sooner all this shifting quagmire of alliances would be over.  They agreed to return to the Banewarrens in the morning and to take Aulus with them.  They sent a note to Basil, who remained in the city, to ask Professor Herminius to try to research how the curse on the Sword of Lies might be lifted.

Back in the Banewarrens, after healing up the damage from the forbiddance zone, they re-entered the Inner Vaults.  Examining their maps, they saw many unexplored doors, most of them leading from the Room of Skulls.  However, all the unopened doors in this room proved impossible to open.  Bonzimir theorized that hidden bars held the doors fast to the walls from inside, and that only some remote switch or device could release them.  Since the wights had quickly passed through this room during the fight four days earlier, the switch must be in the room.  After a fruitless search for the theoretical switch, however, the Company gave up and traveled east through the Vaults.

There they found an immense cavern, apparently not carved so much as melted out of a large area of what had once been the Inner Vaults.  Whatever chambers and vaults had once stood here were now gone, and in their place was a huge, smoking pit more than one hundred feet across.  Strange energies writhed and crackled across warped ceiling and played along the tortured walls, while in the hazy distance, passageways and half-intact rooms could be seen beyond.  This was clearly "The Conflagration" that Tirranth the ghost had warned them of. The Company had little time to contemplate the cause of such devastation, however, for rising out of the pit were two large frog-like humanoids with murderous intent in their bulging eyes.  "Slaadi..." breathed Demetrios.  "Creatures of chaos.  Bad news."

Elida blessed the party, but this had another, greater effect. When the spell struck the weird energies gripping the pit, a brilliant flash revealed another world, a place of roiling flame and lava - for an instant, the spell had ripped aside the veils between the worlds, which were paper-thin here. The Company quickly began to fall back, in awe of what they were seeing.  Demetrios shouted for everyone to regroup to the previous hallway to draw the slaadi out of the Conflagration.

A moment later, Nereida let loose with the awesome might of her minor meteorite spell, which pounded the smaller, reddish slaad.  Again, the agonized fabric of the multiverse tore asunder, revealing a distant world filled only with madness, a place incapable of being understood by mortal minds.  And this time, something stepped through the doorway...  A gibbering, quivering beast of mad protoplasmic energies, it set its many eyes on Nereida and charged.

And here the story paused...

1) Will the Company survive the encounter with the creatures of the Conflagration?

2) Will Navanna Vitellius receive justice?

3) Has Flavia Brassus betrayed the Company of the Starborn?

4) Did the Inverted Pyramid try to seal the Banewarrens?  If so, did they intend to do away with the Company?

5) Will Aulus prove to be helpful or a curse?

6) How will the Company procure the Sword of Truth without any adamantine weapons?

7) Where did the secret doors from the chamber of the Betrayed lead?

8) Where do all those other unexplored doors lead?

9) How are the doors in the Chamber of Skulls opened?

10) Where are Kalerecent and the Church Delvers?

11) Where are Li and Saarachk, the Pactlords who supposedly are trying to kill the Company?

And finally....

12) To which base did Demetrios get with Cornelia?  (None of your damned business, that's which one!) 

Tune in next time!

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