The Age of Worms / Flood Season pt. 8 / Galen the 23rd, 3592 CE / 7-12-20

The party is locked in battle with Red Sash bandits and tiefling cultists in the basement of the Lucky Monkey. As they begin to overcome their opponents, Nari sees a diplomatic opening and negotiates a truce with the remaining Red Sashes. As the last cultist falls, the Red Sash bandits surrender. Upon interrogation, they reveal that their boss, Tongue-Eater was hired by a woman named Triel, who sported the symbol of the heretical sect of Baal on her breastplate. The bandits tell them that the tieflings worked directly for Triel, and that Tongue-Eater seemed to know her as well, but that she left as soon as Sarcem Delasharn was dead. After they swear to Milton they will spread word of his glorious exploits, he and the other party members allow the Red Sashes to flee as they investigate the basement further. At the end of a hallway they find a Red Sash who appears to have frozen to death, and they note a dramatic drop in temperature. After calling out, they hear a weak voice on the other side of the door, identifying herself as Shensen Tesseril. She warns them that she trapped the door with brown mold to keep out the bandits. Risking the cold, Milton breaks down the door and Marrow goes in to retrieve Shensen, a half-drow who tended the chapel to Ishtalar at the Lucky Monkey. Though Sarcem protected her, she did not know the man personally, and is unable to provide any helpful information on him or the location of the Sacred Wands of Water that he was seeking. Smelling smoke, the party hurries from the basement. Avoiding the doors leading from the kitchen due to Shensen's observation that the bodies dragged out the back may have attracted the jungle's over-sized velociraptors, the party heads to the front only to discover that someone has set a fire with the wooden barricade and bodies of dead Red Sashes and cultists. As Milton and Scrimshander break a window, Lulu remembers the side door and leads the rest of the party to safety. As they regroup in front of the burning inn, Lulu, Scrimshander, and Kade use their magic powers to put out the fire before the party and Shensen head back to Cauldron. As the rains come pouring down, the party passes once more through the gates of Cauldron. Shensen once again thanks the party and says she must leave them for now, but promises to come by Butter Bath in the morning to provide them with a reward for her rescue. The party makes their next stop the Temple of Jeda, in order to inform Jenya Urikas of her mentor's fate. Jenya is distraught at the news of the high priest's gruesome demise, but quickly steels herself in her new role as high priest, and implores the party to continue the search for the Sacred Wands of Water before the rising lake levels lead to disaster. The party agrees, but their immediate concern is finding a cure for Lulu, who may have contracted lycanthropy from Tongue-Eater the wererat. They head first to Vortimax's Elixirs, where the party had previously procured belladonna for their companion Jennie Three-Sheets, but the potion-master informs them that was the last of his stock of the hard-to-procure poison. He says they may have some luck finding wolfsbane at the Treasury of the Sky, a shop for rare items. The proprietor is a retired dwarven Adventurer named Kerwin Aldersun who does business exclusively with adventuring parties. The party notes as they enter the building that the names of many such groups have been carved in dwarven runes on the stores ediface. Kerwin recognizes Nari based on the reputation she has gained previously as one of Tarrus the One-Eye's retainers, but insists their team needs a name. He relents in selling them the wolfsbane, minus his usual Adventurer's discount as long as they have settled on a name by the next time they return. The party retires to the Butter Bath for the night, where Lulu suffers through the poisonous effects of the wolfsbane, but ultimately comes out the other side alive and cured of lycanthropy.