Session 25 - "Who Sent You?" Report

Jundar 26, 1246

The Fate-Steppers gather around the unconscious tiefling, with Thais kneeling down to look him in his battered, broken face. In the background, the sound of the crowds rushing in to look is audible, and as they get closer the clerics run forward to try to help those who fell in the attack.

The captain of the guard runs up to the party, taking in the scene here. At first, he seems unsure of what to say, but then he pulls himself together and thanks them for capturing this man. He introduces himself as Jhota, and recognizing them as adventurers offers to give them first crack at interrogating the terrorist in thanks for their assistance.

Thais accepts, but as she looks around to the others for some magical assistance to make sure they get the truth out of this guy, Jhota steps forward and creates a zone of truth before stepping back and giving her room to work.

The paladin takes her water skein out of her satchel and uses it to rouse their prisoner.

Their interrogation reveals the following information:

• This was an attempt to wake people up to "the truth"
• What is the truth? That Devak, one of the two founders of Vakwari, murdered his brother and the TRUE founder of Vakwari, Deshal, and created the "peaceful reconciliation" to cover up his fratricide.
• The tiefling's attack here was to spit in the face of the so-called harmony that this town was built on by the traitorous bastard.
• He did not create the spell scroll himself. Instead, it was left to him by "another who has seen past the lie."
• This other person lives in a "tower that is there, but not there," and that he left the scroll for this maniac to find. Oh, and they always met in the southwest area of Vakwari (Deshal, of course) when they talked in the past.

Jhoti asks if the tiefling will show them where he and the other "believer" always met, which he is happy to do.

The Fate-Steppers decide to take a short rest before leaving, and the clerics give them a bit of healing too. They've saved who they can, but unfortunately they were only prepared to save a single person each (diamonds worth 300 gold pieces are hard to stock up on).

After taking a breather, they are shown by the tiefling to a deserted area of the city, behind the jail where an abandoned stockade, iron boxes, a gallows, and a mobile cage-wagon sit - even a small rusted guillotine is set up here. It doesn't seem like anything back here has been touched in years.

Foenix begins to walk around the courtyard, running his hand along the walls. Eventually, he feels some deeper gouges in the wall, and he pauses, looking at where his palm is pressed against the wall. Underneath his hand is a language that he doesn't read, but recognizes as Goblin.

Using some chalk and parchment from his pack, Foenix takes a rubbing of the message before showing it to the others. Jhoti takes it, and casting tongues on himself, is able to read it: "A fitting cravat for a poorly chosen suit."

Jacob immediately figures out the riddle: the gallows. Foenix hops onto the platform and, identifying something off about the rope, pulls down on the noose.

The hole where the trapdoor that the victim would fall through has a void of black and purple stretching beneath it: a portal to somewhere else.

Jhoti identifies it as a portal to a pocket dimension of some variety, and asks if the Fate-Steppers want to explore it. It sounds exactly like the sort of thing an adventurer party would like first crack at, and if he doesn't have to put his guards in harm's way, he's happy to give them leeway.

The party agrees to sweep the pocket dimension the next day, with one of the Vakwari guards watching over the portal overnight. With that, the Fate-Steppers head back to their home.

Both Foenix and Thais take the time to arrange for the house and their wyrmlings to be taken care of. Thais talks with her friend Junai, the gnomish priestess to Syria in Vakwari, and is able to get her to watch the property. Meanwhile, Foenix uses his criminal know-how to hire a woman and her grandson to be his eyes on the house while he's away (paying them one pearl worth 100 gold pieces now and one upon his return).

Jundar 27, 1246

The party stares down into the portal apprehensively. Eventually, Thais jumps through. She is followed by Foenix, then Micaiah, then Jacob, and finally Olena.

The portal almost immediately begins to close once the barbarian's feet hit the checkered floors (red and black squares each 24 inches wide), and the party begin to cautiously look around. There are two doors to the south (wooden) and east (portcullis), and a hallway to the west. Sconces with soft flames flicker along the walls, just far enough apart to allow shadows to fall between each of the sconces.

A statue of a regal king on the northern wall stands, observing the party.

Thais sends out her senses, searching for magic (detect magic), but is blown back by the absolute deluge of magic in this tower in a pocket dimension, and isn't able to get much useful information out of it.

Meanwhile, Foenix is checking around the room, and notices that the arm of the statue has a notch under the arm pit, as if the arm can be pushed down and swivel back and forth. He theorizes this is to reopen the portal, but does not press down on the arm to check.

He then continues down the western hallway, noting a stone door to the right and turning the corner to be met with a long shaft, with no visible floor or ceiling. He cautiously glances down, then up, and fishes a copper out of his pocket. He tosses it out into the shaft, allowing it to fall and listening for it landing. And land it does, but with an odd sound like static and cellophane ripping. Satisfied that it's not a safe way to go, he rejoins the group.

Thais has approached the portcullis, spotting a fountain on the other side. She asks for Foenix to check for traps, and once he gives her the go ahead, she opens the portcullis and steps into the room. The fountain spills with cold, clear water, with a bright sound that fills the quiet halls with pleasant sound. Thais cautiously tastes the water, and determines it to be quite beneficial (allowing one to regain all their hit points, once per long rest).

There are two hallways, one that heads southward and one that continues east. The eastward hall opens into a circular room, painted with a panorama of mountains and a sunset - though none of the party recognize the landmarks.

Foenix continues along the southern hallway, which opens out past the wooden doors in the landing room. Directly in front of him is another wooden door, and to his left the hallway continues to a rotunda. He decides to open the doors, stepping into a cellblock filled with corpses: a freshly deceased human, a dragonborn skeleton, and a half-orc corpse that is half rotted away.

As the rest of the party joins them, Foenix notices the slightest amount of movement from the human: breath. Somehow, he's still alive.

Thais moves immediately. Once Foenix gets the gate open, she's immediately helping by laying her hands upon the human and giving enough healing that he is no longer on death's door (though he is certainly not healthy).

As he begins to speak, a few facts become obvious.

1. He is not from Mercuria. In fact, he does not even speak Common.
2. He is very weak. Not just from wounds and illness, but from long stretches of dehydration and starvation, which a paladin's magic cannot fix.
3. He is a paladin of some sort - exemplified by his plate armor, his holy symbol of an owl carrying the sun in its talons, a stoppered, clay bottle, a silver ring (with a bright symbol), and cloth-of-gold vestments. A shield also leans against the wall.

Thais has a moment of inspiration, and after taking the paladin - who through inflection and hand gestures is able to identify himself as Dharma - to the fountain room and restoring his body, takes him to the viewing room. He recognizes the mountain range, and points out a twin pair of peaks that create a perfect V where the sun has just disappeared behind and calls it "Venebero." When Thais tries to clarify if that is where he is from, Dharma seems to not agree.

Meanwhile, Foenix investigates the rest of the cells. The dragonborn skeleton is clothed in what seems to be monastic robes, and in its pocket is a purse with 780 silver pieces, which Foenix takes.

The second body, leaning up against the bars, is easy enough to search. It has a strange looking javelin lodged underneath its arm, which Foenix takes as well.

Thais helps situate Dharma in the fountain room before joining the rest of the party as the continue down the hallway south towards the rotunda.

If there was once a purpose to this room, it's no longer clear. All furnishings are too destroyed to be able to make out, and the cracked, but elegantly carved stone columns that hold up a massive dome.

The night sky has been painted onto the dome. Olena is able to tell that this was painted to mimic the night sky in early spring. It's also much further north than any of them have ever been, even past the Islands of Atropae).

There are three doors off the rotunda: one next to the hallway that the party came from, one door to the south, and one to the west.

Thais approaches the west door and eases it open. Inside is a large, humming orb on a platform... and three helmed horrors, which turn with startling unison towards the intruders...