Mattsters of the Mattiverse Session 23

...last episode

• The party continues clearing the cathedral, finding a nasty giganto-wraith and a bunch of other undead nasties.

Cleanup

• The group, fresh from their battle with penitent wraiths, has just a few more rooms to check. They head South, encountering more stained glass, but no enemies.
• They swing back toward the Kitchen, to a room North of the stables they hadn't explored.
• On approach, Edi hears snarling, dog-like sounds.
• Russ approaches a door and tests it, keeping an eye on the area the dog sounds come from. As he tries the door, they begin to howl
  • He fails his Will save, and is panicked for a round. Try and Yoa also fail, for two and three rounds apiece. All three immediately begin to run.
  • The dog-creatures burst from their housing and beset upon Gokar, who plugs the gap remaining between him and Edi. They begin a melee, in which the dog-things are a bit tough to hit due to a displacement effect from their shadowy forms.
  • Nevertheless, Gokar lands solid blows, clawing one to death and biting the other's throat out in a single, massive hit.
  • Russ returns after his one-round jog, using his long armed claws to reach over Gokar's head and assist. Edi is not able to get to Try or Yoa to use remove fear, so he stays back to assist where he can.
  • Reaching the corridor, Try and Yoa split--Yoa South, toward the Nave, and Try West, into the cemetery. Their panicked state pushes them past the 100' eidolon limit, and with the shock of pain, Try comes back into focus, just in time to see forms clawing themselves out of the cemetery ground (they are ghasts!)
  • Try does an about-face and rushes to find the still-running Yoa, who then collects her wits. A horde of ghasts on their heels, they rush back to join the party.

• • Finished with the dogs, the other three make their way back into the kitchen. They hear the pitter-patter of flapping, clawed feet and brace themselves.
  • Thinking to cut off the summoner and her eidolon, a group of ghasts makes its way into the kitchen, encountering the rest of the party.

• • Edi warns the two bruisers not to go anywhere they aren't okay with being on fire. Gokar basically ignores him, and rushes to meet the ghasts head on. Edi shrugs and throws down a wall of fire. Russ goes after the ghast on Edi.

• • Try and Yoa have rejoined the party by now, more ghasts in pursuit. Yoa lays down a square of grease that ultimately has no effect, and struggles to keep out of danger while Russ tries to claw his way down to them. Gokar is assaulted with a rain of twelve (!!) paralyzing blows, but manages to come out still moving. The ghasts take another round of fire damage, and decide to book it out of the kitchen after that.

• • Edi drops the wall and channels a heal. Russ has downed a couple of ghasts and is still trying to get to Try and Yoa, who get in a couple of blows before both succumbing to paralysis from ghast attacks (Yoa also contracts ghoul fever, but the party doesn't know this until much later).
  • The straggling ghasts filter in from the South, thinking the battle won. Edi disabuses them of that notion with a clutch fireball.

• • A few stragglers remain. All but Gokar have been sickened by the ghasts' stench, but the ghasts are weakened and fall within a round.

• The party regroups, then heads to the cemetery, where they notice the skies are clear, where before they had been cloudy (although the constellations are unfamiliar to Edi and Yoa).
• Nearing the end of their strength, they attempt a rest, despite Edi's protests

Sanctification

• As they recover from their sickness, clouds once again filter into the sky. An hour and a half or so pass, and the cloud cover is ominously close to what it once was. The group decides a rest in a pocket dimension is futile, and continues to explore.
• They check a locked door in the Southwest corner. Down the stairs is a single chamber, 50' to a side, undecorated save for a single, large, oval ring in the middle on a dais. It is otherwise featureless, and a few attempts at interaction produce no result. They deduce that this is the not-gate they were sent to secure.
• They check a door North of the dog stables, and find nothing of interest.
• Puzzled, they decide to head back to the Nave, figuring that a logical place for a Church's seat of power. They notice the font from before, bubbling and pulsing again where before it had been relatively silent (after their fight with the blood ooze)
• Russ throws a bomb, which has no effect. He proceeds to the altar while the detect magic capable inspect the fount some more.
• The found reads as overwhelming necromancy and eeeeeeevil, as well as strong conjuration. The altar, on inspection in turn, reads with no such magic.
• On a hunch, Edi decides to "cleanse" the found with a burning hands. The bubbling and pulsing blood boils away and slows to a trickle.
• Gokar produces a couple of flasks of holy water, and with some words, Edi pours them into the fount.
  • Immediately, all the stained glass windows explode, and the cathedral begins to rock and shake violently. Yoa hears the words of the abuser, shouting that it will not disappear alone into the void (the others hear it, but don't understand infernal).
  • The group makes its way to the closest external doors, but find that they do not open--they are not locked, they simply do not appear to actually function as doors.
  • Pelted with debris, they decide to make their way to the not-gate. They reach it and find that it encloses a vertical surface of a milky-white substance, opaque and oily. They all shrug and pass through without a second thought
    • (Yoa enjoys the novel experience, and takes mental notes)
• They emerge exactly where they were, but the violence has stopped. There is a coating of dust on the floor.
• Exiting the basement, they come into the more familiar environs of the cathedral, in its normal (ruined but un-profane) state.
• Edi babbles with excitement, and launches into a litany. The rest of the group rests, doing little more than tending their wounds and keeping Edi from setting anything on fire. They are not disturbed.
• Somewhat recovered, they set back under cover of darkness, onto the now-familiar path back to the Wydmoor Swamp Temple.

Turning in the Quest

• The trip back is uneventful, and they are able to pre-warn Astlen of their arrival to arrange an audience immediately on their return. They immediately set to it.
• The party wastes no time recounting their events, including detailed notes from Edi and Yoa on the iconography. Astlen listens and promises to relay the particulars to their sages, but seems mostly interested in the state of the not-gate.
• When the tale is finished, Astlen seems pleased with their success. She commends the group and tells them to report immediately to Jako. There are many arrangements to make before they can press this advantage, and there is still a wererat presence that they need to pin down and eradicate before they can truly recover the not-gate.
  • Edi, jubilant, proposes another revival. Astlen accepts the opportunity for cheer.
  • Finished with their audience, the group finds Jako, who retrieves four packages from the vault. They are cloaks of resistance +3, with broaches in the abstracted Azure Geese emblem. He notes that the group is considered a part of the group, after all they've done.
• The party begins downtime activities. Russ spends a day with the lizardfolk and alchemizes, Edi prepares his revival and spends some time inscribing scrolls, and Yoa falls into preparing for a task she's wanted to perform for a while (a planar binding).
• After a few days have passed, they are sent for. Present are the Affable Soldier, along with his scribe and fighty-type half-orc companions. They, with Astlen, relay some news and outline the party's next task.
  • Their scrying has failed to find the wererats' location. Since they do not expect the wererat magic capabilities to surpass those of the Geese, they deduce that they must have settled in a location that was previously made with magical methods in mind.
  • The Affable soldier launches into a story:

Your reports of an intact sewer system surprise me, even though it is obvious now that you relate it. And their existence reminded me of something.

The old Sheriff of this city was a man named Edrell Odenthrope. Populist, man of the people. He was killed trying to stop the Silverwalkers from robbing the bank, even has he was unsuccessful.

He and Germain (who died bravely in the Odessan sack), with the Silverwalkers, were helping the city hold out in the siege period. It turns out that the Silverwalkers had ulterior motives, and robbing the bank was one--their betrayal is one of the reasons we have been loathe to hire adventurers, until recently.

So, Edrell was killed by the Silverwalkers during that heist that was the beginning of the end. Before that, though, he was a man of power an influence. Had a wizard sidekick, named Dandrell. We don't know his current whereabouts, but together the two of them had built a stronghold. They were smart men who know how magic worked, and with their resources, it was undoubtedly a place built to be proof against scrying; walls sandwiching a layer of lead and other such tricks.

Odessan moles torched the Warrens of the city, and the stronghold was lost. But, knowing what we do of Edrell, there is every reason to expect he has a dungeonous substructure that is still intact. The fire was so long ago, I hadn't considered it. With multiple floors, and intact rooms, it would be the perfect stronghold for a group of shady dark-dwelling rats, and given our lack of detection, we think this is the most likely location.

Unfortunately, the whole Warrens was leveled back in aught-one, so we have no idea where the remains would be. However, we do know it was in the Warrens, some distance from the walls, so that narrows the field of search. There is almost certain to remain some trap door or other means of surface access, and, more pertinently, a sewer access.

You must find it. Once you do, I don't expect you'll be able to out clever them. Go in, wipe out as many as you can. Take anything you can of value that isn't nailed down, and destroy the rest. You must make it completely unsuitable as a lair for some other ambitious group.

• More conversation ensues, but it's mostly irrelevant details. The party resolves to leave in the morning.
• All preparations in place, Yoa concludes her binding. She summons a hell hound, and convinces it to accompany them on their task ("assist us in driving out the wererats"), in exchange for extravagant amounts of meat. It accepts, willingly, and Helly the hellhound has temporarily joined their squad.
• Eyebrows are raised, but the party doesn't have much context to be surprised by this, or much else. They accept their new comrade and set out.
• The group once again enters the now-familiar sewers, and Russ leads them to the most likely place to begin their search.

Iconography

Ambulatory Rooms

• The stained glass in each of these rooms are various scenes of religious figures being cut down by heavily armed men.

South Chambers

• Russ and Gokar find themselves standing in front of yet another large stained window. It is of a humanoid figure with red, leathery skin and bat wings. A goat's skull sits atop the shoulders that should sport a head. The eye sockets are covered by a black blindfold. The figure is stretched in an X figure, and it is bound by heavy chains that extend out of the field of the glass.
• These windows are mirrored images of one another. The window to the left is nothing but faces. Faces with big bushy beards and bulbous noses stare out at the viewer. The eyes seem to follow you around the room. The window to the right is the exact same image, except the faces are just leering skulls.

Awards

• 800xp to all for 2x shadow dogs
• 1800xp to all for 12x ghasts
• 2000xp to all for resanctifying the Cathedral of Tragidore and escaping the dreadplane
• Cloaks of resistance +3 for everyone!