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The Eldest Son, Parts 4 & 5

Players/Characters Present:
John Sikking - Basil Amantes (Ftr3)
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog1/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr4)
Chris Wood - Felix Amantes (Psi4)
Peter Drake - Demetrios Amantes (Ftr2/Wiz2)

Deciding that they must have allies, the Amantes traveled to see Appius Macrinus, father of Hestia and husband of Vera. Though they were stymied by unfriendly guards, they were eventually met by the dashing and friendly Pierre Dumonde. On hearing the Amantes story, he immediately offered to aid them in opposing Lucius Vitellius and recovering Hestia. Many long hours later, a plan was formulated. Pierre would "case" the Hopeful Toad to understand its defenses while the Amantes attempted to steal Pertinax's little black book.

With the Harvesttide festival in full swing, the Amantes were able to easily travel to the Hill District. While the other stood watch, Bonzimir entered Pertinax's mansion. After some initially difficult encounters with guard dogs and an alarm, Bonzimir fled the mansion empty-handed. Certain of Pertinax's servants moved immediately to inform the Magister Civites of the attempted break-in (Pertinax was away at a Harvesttide party). Basil and Felix attempted to follow the servants but were picked up by the guard and arrested because of their suspicious presence and fishy story.

Meanwhile, with the guards now on high alert, Bonzimir nonetheless returned for a second attempt. He managed to successfully slip into the mansion, but set off a second alarm on Pertinax's door. He nonetheless persevered, knowing guards were on their way and slipped into the Magister Civites's bedroom. With the guards right outside, Bonzimir quietly ransacked the room, looking for Pertinax's black book, which after much effort he discovered in a hollowed-out holy book. Bonzimir took this, but also took an ancient black magical morningstar which hung on the Magister Civites's wall.

Fearing that Pertinax or his allies might be able to magically trace the morningstar (although apparently having no such concerns for the book...), Bonzimir hid it in the sewers, where he barely survived the attack of an odd, mindless slime creature. In the jail, Felix and Basil heard of Pertinax's fury over the loss of the morningstar, which was apparently an important city artifact known as "The Mace of Marius" (Basil and Felix were released without being charged the next morning). The next morning, the "Daily News" had a large story on the brazen theft of this beloved artifact. Wondering what he'd gotten into, Bonzimir, Demetrios and Nereida consulted with Pierre, and decided to return the Mace of Marius by having Pierre deliver it to Appius Macrinus, who could use his contacts to return the ancient weapon to the city with few questions asked. They also had Pierre discreetly deliver the black book to Vera Macrinus after discovering that her "secret" was a torrid affair with a stableboy. During this time, a...fondness...seemed to be growing between Nereida and Pierre.

The next day, the Amantes and Pierre determined that the best way to defeat Lucius Vitellius was with his death. Unable to discover a way to get him away from his guards, they decided on a complicated plan of attack at the Hopeful Toad. Although the plan itself quickly went astray (destroying the window to Lucius' office merely revealed iron bars preventing entry), other prior planning paid off handsomely. Silence spells prevented shouted warnings, while a dawn raid managed to catch Lucius's men unprepared. Precious time lost battling the men in the tavern allowed one to escape and warn the others. However, this allowed the Amantes and Pierre to fight them in waves, rather than all at once, which certainly made the margin of victory.

The first band encountered in the tavern were unarmored and completely surprised. They were swiftly dispatched. The second wave, which emerged from a back room, had no time to slip on leather armor and drink one potion each. They included archers, a weaponless monk from one of the Alwari Brotherhoods and the fearsome half-orc whom Basil had previously defeated but not killed. This battle raged back and forth, seeing Felix save the party with two masterful uses of his Mind Thrust, even though on the brink of death himself. The fight featured silence spells, bull rushing, disarm attempts, feints, bluffs and even an attempted coup-de-grace (against Felix). It also featured a previously-unknown weapon: pistols. Pierre Dumonde used a pair of large pistols to fight in the tavern.

The second wave was not quite defeated when Lucius himself entered the fray, completely armed and buffed with potions. He was accompanied by Otho Kreen, who summoned a fearsome (but ineffective!) spirit snake to attack Demetrios. Lucius quickly overmatched Basil, who had been badly battered by the nameless but brutal half-orc. He then turned on Demetrios as well. This is when Felix's Mind Thrusts turned the battle (GM's Note: he dished out more than 50 points of damage in two rounds!). Both Lucius and Otho tried to flee the battle when it turned against them. Lucius was surrounded and slain just as he tried to leap out the window. Otho escaped.

Having recovered Hestia, Pierre returned her to the Macrinus estate while the Amantes went to nurse their wounds. They received gifts of cash and a note of credit from Appius and Vera. Discussing Jonas's whereabouts, Pierre suggested that they try the sewers near the Tail-Catcher's Pub, since Jonas had a map of that area, and had heard stories of wealth from the Rat Catchers. If he needed cash and couldn't bring himself to murder Appius Macrinus, perhaps he sought to pilfer some of the wealth of the dead. The party agreed to venture into the sewers under the Maze the next day.

After some time wandering in the noisome tunnels, the party came across the ruin of a bricked-over door. Pierre confirmed that several persons had entered and exited this area recently. The party had found an entrance into the Dwarvenhearth. However, at this point, they were attacked by three Mud Slimes, the same creatures that had attacked Bonzimir earlier. This fight went poorly for the party, as one of the acidic oozes completely engulfed Felix, killing him. The slimes were defeated and Felix's scarred corpse recovered. In addition to the destruction of some minor potions, the acid had also destroyed Felix's prized Crystal Whistle. Pierre was very nearly killed by the mud slimes and was rescued from the brink of death by the ministrations of the lovely Nereida.

The party retreated to the surface, carrying Felix to the Grand Temple and meeting once again with Brother Heth and Sister Donna Mara. Donna Mara agreed to perform the ritual necessary to return Felix to life. Because the Amantes had been so generous with their tithes earlier, she agreed to do this "at cost": 5000 Traders. Much of the family's wealth went into paying for this, including a second gift from Vera Macrinus. Saying that the Great Church only granted such favors to those who served it, Donna Mara warned the family that the Church would be calling upon them at some point in the future. A day later, the complex ritual was accomplished and Felix was returned to life.

Fearing that Jonas's life was at risk, the party immediately returned to the catacombs. During the day of fasting and prayer, Demetrios had taken the time to learn that the area they had seen broken open was once the burial vault of a pair of ancient Conorrian families, the Valens and the Dariens. Both families had long since died out. Entering the vaults, they found a bizarre and sickening series of rooms. A necromancer (whom they later learned to be named Kallus the Cruel, the Tomb-Walker, The Soulless) had disinterred the dead and turned them into horrible mockeries with his insane rituals. Bits of flesh were spread across every room. Ceilings that had been temporarily turned to flesh sagged and appeared to canker. The party had to fight its way past the residents of the tomb whom Kallus had reanimated. They also fought a huge fire-breathing hell-hound which nearly killed them.

A single iron door resisted all their efforts to open, so the party maneuvered around it, fighting several twisted and abandoned experiments in undeath. Eventually, they came upon Kallus's bedroom (or at least, the one he used when in this particular lair). Luckily for them, the master was away. The awful place had tapestries of human skin and a coffin-bath of human blood. Felix developed an odd (and frankly disgusting) fascination with taking the silk sheets from Kallus's coffin-bed. Bonzimir attempted to open Kallus's treasure chest, but failed to disable the trap laden with black lotus poison. It killed him instantly.

[GM's Note: No more save or die traps. I don't like them.]

At this point, the much-battered party was ready to retreat once more, but decided to look just a little further. In the next room they found Jonas Ennius, locked into a cell. He was frantic. He told them that a madman by the name of Lepidus had found him in the sewers after he had survived an attack by Mud Slimes and brought him back to this tomb. Lepidus believed that Jonas was his long-lost son and that some terrifying zombies were his wife and other son. When Lepidus wasn't around the zombies spent their time trying to kill Jonas.

As the party (including Jonas) raced for the surface, -something- began to try to get out of the room behind the locked iron door. As they neared the exit, Kallus's greatest guardian, a monstrosity of flesh and bone unhinged the door and began to come after them. It's own passage shattered its bones and collapsed tunnels, but still the horrible thing came on. As the party ran for all it was worth, Otho Kreen appeared and tried to use a Web spell to keep them in with the Flesh Colossus. Felix summoned ectoplasmic fire to cut a way out and the pursuit was on. The party escaped to the surface. No one was sure what happened to the Colossus.

[GM's Note: At this point, role-playing stopped and I summed up the story's denouement as it was getting late.]

Bonzimir was raised from the dead by the Great Church, this time at full price. The family was forced to sell a great number of magical and masterwork items to purchase this, including Basil's sword Shatterspike.

Jonas Ennius returned to his family estate a changed and somewhat matured man. Over the succeeding years he turned the family fortunes around, making the Ennius name respectable once again.

Decima and Rufus Ennius (who were lovers after all) fled when word reached them that Jonas was alive. They were last seen taking ship for the west.

Flavius Ennius recovered from his mysterious sickness and aided his son in setting the family holdings to rights.

Hestia Macrinus was saved from extreme disgrace by bringing her father the one thing he couldn't get on his own: a connection to the nobility. She dumped Felix like a hot potato and was married to Jonas Ennius a few weeks later.

Boren Backslap almost immediately lost the affections of the beautiful woman he was seeing, but a few months later had a much better match when a female dwarf joined the Rat-Catcher's Guild (much to the uproar of the Rat-Catchers).

Maria Clodia was expelled from the convent of St. Aurelius when it was discovered that she was pregnant. She claimed that the father was none other than Jonas Ennius. Though Jonas did not marry Maria Clodia or acknowledge his daughter as legitimate, he did set up both mother and child in Callistus with a modest annual income.

Magister Civites Pertinax hung himself a week after the theft of his black book. A suicide note found at the scene listed his extreme despondency over his own lack of character as the reason for the suicide.

The Daily News printed a retraction of the earlier story. The Mace of Marius had never been stolen. It had merely been taken into City custody when certain disturbing facts about the Magister Civites came to light. The paper also reported the sharp increase in the number of deaths in the Maze as open warfare between criminal gangs erupted after the death of an obscure crime boss. The Daily News was at great pains to deny any rumors that the deceased had any connections to any noble family in Echoriath.

Pierre Dumonde returned to his work as the famous bounty hunter from Courland. He regretted that he would not have more time to spend with Nereida. Who knows if we'll see him again?

The Amantes and Pierre attended the wedding of Jonas Ennius and Hestia Macrinus with good humor (even Felix) and presented the happy couple with the same gift they had given the Secundus: a framed set of gold coins from the middle years of the Empire. Later, they returned in triumph to the Temple of the Open Eye in Callistus's Tower of the Dawn. The Secundus was highly pleased and praised them all. He gave them their promised reward: a clue towards the meaning and purpose of the strange tattoos they bore. He told them the following story:

Nearly fifteen hundred years before, a terrible war had broken out between the Empire and its eastern neighbor, Shanatar. Called the Summoning War because of the great number of extraplanar entities summoned to bolster the armies, it resulted in the devastation of the border between the two nations, which is still a dangerous wastelands today. Prior to the Summoning War, this previously peaceful border had been the location of one of the greatest of the libraries of Borlamnos, called Anushirvan, or "Bard's Keep". Anushirvan had been specifically designed to be difficult for raiders and even armies to overcome, but it had been betrayed from within.

At some point during the Summoning War, a demon had visited Anushirvan and revealed to one of it's priests a little-known volume in the library's keeping: The Book of Inverted Darkness. This terrible tome has a long and cataclysmic past, having been responsible for the downfall of many good and righteous souls. The priest, named Khossack, had apparently been driven mad with power and evil, for he declared himself to be the true high priest of Borlamnos (who in that time and place was known not as Borlamnos the Opener but as Oghma the Binder) and led a rebellion within Anushirvan. After relaying this information to his Secundus, the actual high priest took measures to stop Khossack. No one knows what those measures were, and because the war was raging, no one went to find out.

It was centuries before the Empire recovered sufficiently for the Church to be concerned with Anushirvan, and by then it had other problems, most notably the anti-arcane pogroms following the Mage Wars. In time, all record of Anushirvan's secret location was lost.

Lost to everyone but the Secundus of Callistus. Why was this important to the Amantes, besides the fascination any Borlamnian would have with the lure of lost lore? Well, among the few fragmentary records of what was in Anushirvan was listed a small book entitled "The Prophecies of the Burning Star." Divinations have revealed that this book contains passages of great importance to the Amantes siblings.

The Secundus did not order the Amantes to undertake an expedition to Anushirvan, but he did reveal its location in the Wastelands. He asked that, if they did go, they recover as many books as possible. Anything else was their own affair.

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