C2 Session 7

They continue sprinting through the city as fast as they can, but the cart is still very far away. Behind them, they can hear the guards scrambling to catch up, and suddenly they hear a bell ring, then another, then two more, then ten more, then fifty more. The city’s alarm has been set off, and there are guards approaching from every angle, and they need to find an escape route quickly. They take a second to plan, and run to a nearby bridge before they become completely surrounded. They can either go left towards the water and risk being seen, or go right and try to get back into the catacombs. They decide to go right towards the catacombs, and as they reach the entrance, they notice an aarakocra guard flying above them, but it doesn’t notice them. They make it into the catacombs safely, and it is very quiet there. Walking down the southern tunnels, they hear a clattering around the corner. Dozens of bells are ringing above them on the surface, and [[Koin]] peeks around the corner to see two long-limbed, grotesque snake-like creatures hunched over. It is feeding on the corpse of a significantly less snake-like yuan ti. They decide to try and sneak past it without it noticing them, but as they are just about to make it past, [[Henry]] lets out a loud cough, which very easily alerts the creature.
  It turns around, takes a second to sniff, then runs around the corner and begins sprinting at them. [[Xodon]] immediately begins running far away and without hesitation, one of the creatures attacks and knocks out Koin. It then tries to attack Koin while he is knocked out, but misses in its rage. The other one jumps at Henry, but he manages to quickly put up a magical shield to block the attack, but a swift second manages to hit him. Henry throws a frost ray at it, and Xodon throws a dagger from a distance and runs towards them. The one that knocked out Koin runs after Xodon, and only lands one attack, but the creature on Henry continues to attack him and lands a few hits that almost knock him out. He throws another frost ray at it, managing to bloody it while running away. Xodon runs towards the bloodied one and hits it, wounding it before running towards the other one. Shortly after, the wounded creature dies, and the second creature tries to finish off Henry, but is interrupted by a surprise attack from Xodon. This gives Henry the chance to run over to an unconscious Koin, stabilizing him so that he doesn’t continue to bleed out. Xodon slashes the creature and bloodies it, but it bites back and injures him. Henry turns around and throws a small frost ray at it, Xodon following up with another slash, wounding it and leaving it to die.
  Henry retrieves a healing potion from Koin’s bag and heals him to consciousness. After getting back on their feet, they continue walking down the south tunnel until reaching what appears to be an entire underground city: a yuan-ti metropolis. They all sneak into the city, and don’t notice anybody around as they silently move their way deeper into the city. Looking around, they notice multiple other tunnels that connect to the city the same as the one they entered from, but these ones are too high up or far away for them to reach. They take a second to consider their options, before deciding their only option is to get to the middle of the city. A faint noise can be heard distantly, and the volume of it grows as they near the city’s center. There are droves of yuan-ti walking around with other people on leashes like pets and slaves that are half yuan-ti and half-human. The group decides to have Henry and Xodon act as slaves and Koin as an exotic trader so they can blend in. Walking through the crowd, they notice that it is some sort of specific gathering, and that the people there are talking in an unknown language. Everyone in the crowd quickly notices them, and begins surrounding them. They try to turn around and leave, but are stopped by a small pack of lizard dogs. The people surrounding them pull out black swords, and everyone realizes that they have been cornered by the black suns.
  “State your business,” one of them says. Koin states that he is just passing through, and the man tries to strike a deal with them to buy Henry and Xodon, but Koin declines his offer. They then throw shackles at all of them, and send a couple of the surrounding slaves to cuff them. One of the men says that they are going to see Tek 
  They are all stripped of their equipment and brought to a room adorned with various treasures. Another yuan-ti with a different body than the others walks up to them. He asks if they are the ones that completed the gladiator pit, which they all confirm. The man walks up to Xodon, grabs his hair and aggressively asks why they are here, and his eyes glow red. Xodon then begins describing every little detail of their adventure thus far, which causes the man to break out in laughter. He lets go of Xodon, walking back and sitting down in a large chair before stating that it is not good that the pit owner has been compromised. He introduces himself as [[Tek]], the treasurer of the [[Black Suns]], and that he will take the ruby off of their hands in exchange for their lives. He then immediately gives them an ultimatum: Break [[Vaz]] the pit-master out of the prison, or be hunted down by the black suns and turned into slaves. He begins stirring a liquid in a copper chalice and tells Henry to smell it. Henry does so, and states that it smells of pure death. Tek says that if you drink it your body will be deformed and broken down, reborn as a snake. If they want to avoid such a cruel fate, they need to bring back Vaz. He tells them that the guards will bring them down to “The Fold” where they will spend the night, and get their gear in the morning so they can go rescue Vaz. They are escorted to another part of the city with cell blocks, where the entire area smells of blood and death. All of them are put into a cell and the guard tells them to consider themselves lucky, as he walks off and leaves them to rest for the night
  In the morning, they all wake up and their left pointer fingers are pulsing. On their fingers are black and green rings. A guard walks up to them and says that if they take those rings off or get knocked unconscious, they will die. He lets them out of the cell and walks them down the block of cells. Another, savage looking guard follows them closely so they don't try to escape. They are brought into a pipe that leads to the outskirts of the city and a guard points to the prison and says that they are to retrieve Vaz and bring him back without running away or falling unconscious or asleep. They expect him back by sundown, which is not a hard deadline to meet. Both guards then leave them to begin making their way to the prison. They all look down at it, and see that there are no walls, just five large cages with tents in front of each one. Behind the cages are medium sized pyramids. All the land within a couple mile radius of the prison is just open field, made that way specifically by [[Einhor]] to prevent yuan-ti from breaking in or out. After planning for an hour or so, they devise a plan. Henry will disguise himself as a prison guard and bring Koin and Xodon as prisoners so they can get into the prison.
  With their plan constructed, they begin the small trek to the prison to go and rescue Vaz.