Session 0050 - Gunfarr

Roster

List of characters who's player was in attendance

Player characters who's player is attending the game start with 1 Hero Point, and can get more during the session.

Absent

List of characters who's player was absent

Player characters for missing players do not start the session with a hero point, and can not get any more during the session.

Session Log

After convincing Arkaban to switch allegiance to the party, they briefly discuss what to do next.
They decide to check the soldiers from the recent combat to see if any of them survived. They discover two soldiers unconscious and stable. One is a regular soldier and the other is their presumed leader who wears breastplate armor.
The regular soldier is killed, but the other soldier is relieved of his armor and gear and tied up by Hrovard.
Eriana makes sure they are all dead, and goes about the grim task of decapitating each of the soldiers. Rebar drags the two soldiers from outside into the large chamber and they close the doors.
For the next hour the party spend time searching the bodies, Rebar examines all their items for anything that looks like it may be enchanted, and both Alicia and Harbek use their medical skill and magic to patch up those injured in the fight. Eriana was the most injured, but after spending the time here she is doing much better.
Rebar discovers that the surviving soldier wore enchanted breastplate, had an enchanted warhammer and had a potion on his belt that has magic. They recover a number of silver and copper coins off each soldier, along with a large number of crossbow bolts and a steel shield.
After the time spent here, the party decide they should rest up to recover. It is late in the day and they have used up a lot of resources. The one soldier they saved and tied up remains unconscious during this time.
They take the surviving soldier with them and return to the gallery level below. Everyone heads to the room behind the stone door they forced open, choosing that as a suitable site to camp out for the night.
Once in the room they get settled in and wait for their captive to regain consciousness.
While they wait, several party members heard a large thump behind the south stone door they did not try to open, suggesting there is something on the other side.
Rebar uses the time to examine the magic items they took off the surviving soldier. He recognizes a Weapon Potency (+1) rune on the warhammer, an Armor Potency (+1) rune on the armor, and the vial contains a Healing Potion (Lesser).
At this point they get the sense that their Spacious Pouch must be getting near full once the suit of armor, warhammer, shield and ammunition are stuffed into it. 012-Muroni takes out nearly 20 arrows to replace what she has been using to slightly lighten the load.
When the unconscious soldier wakes up the party take to questioning him. Alicia is the most skilled at diplomacy, but she refuses to try to talk to the heretic. Harbek is their next best negotiator, so he offers to question him. They consider trying to intimidate the soldier instead, but none of them are particularly good at intimidation so they stick with the idea of diplomacy.
The soldier is clearly hostile to the party and glares at Arkaban, who clearly stands freely with the party.
He is offered water and leaned up against the wall with some attempt to make him comfortable. Harbek does his best to talk to him with respect and has Alicia, an expert diplomat, help coach him in his efforts.
His attitude changes to merely unfriendly, but he is still reluctant to talk.
Ferdinand then asks if he can spend a moment to talk with their captive, who has given his name as Gunfarr Lok. The others walk away and mill about the room while he talks with Gunfarr. He tells Gunfarr quietly to look at his rapier and see if he recognizes it.
The rapier that Ferdinand shows Gunfarr was the fine weapon taken from Arthemis d’Cannith, but Gunfarr does not recognize it. Ferdinand explains it is a fine weapon that proves he is a member of the Emerald Claw. he goes on to explain that he has infiltrated this adventuring party and is waiting for the right time to double-cross them. They are unaware of his affiliation and treat him as a trusted ally. He says plans have already been made that make anything they learn irrelevant, so he suggests he tells them anything they want to know. He promises Gunfarr will be rewarded and by being honest they won't suspect he is hiding anything and will probably let him go.
The lie seems to work, and Gunfarr becomes much more willing to cough up information to the party.
When Harbek resumes questioning he tells them more. Apparently there were two groups on the next floor where the party fought him. The second one triggered some sort of trap and all died. Another squad went up stairs on the west end of the gallery and found a massive stone door they were having trouble opening it.
Garrow wanted it opened, so they were left to struggle with it. They are probably still there as far as he knows.
He was in charge of the soldiers watching over Arkaban as he studied the runes on the ziggurat. Garrow wanted them studied to help figure out what the runes on the giant stone chair at the top of this structure meant.
Gunfarr confirms that Garrow is their leader. Apparently Rebar stumbled upon the soldiers as they were making preparations to leave. Rather than just kill him, Garrow thought it would be a good idea to bring a student from Morgrave University in case his knowledge and skills came in handy. Garrow then posed as Provost Maisy Beckett to fool Rebar into thinking they were with the University (Garrow had met the Provost in Stormreach and knew they recently arrived there).
The bulk of the remaining soldiery are with Garrow on the top level while he tries to figure out how to activate the chair. Gunfarr knows he as the schemas and the pattern and that this mission is important to unlock the ancient secrets they hold. Garrow is clearly obsessed with it.
He tells the party their original force sent to the ruins consisted of around 50 emerald claw cultists. He estimates they have probably lost about half their members.
Satisfied with the information, Gunfarr mentions that the party should consider joining the emerald claw and that they would be richly rewarded. Alicia does not hide her contempt and disgust at the idea. Gunfarr asks if they will let him go now that he's told them what they want to know.
Ferdinand once again tells the party to give him a moment, as he walks up to Gunfarr, now put at ease thinking the swashbuckler is an ally. Instead of releasing him, Ferdinand draws his rapier and thrusts it into Gunfarr's neck, killing him instantly.
Arkaban makes no objection, and only Harbek raises some concern about this "dirty business", adding that sadly "it couldn't be helped." They all agree that if they let him live he most certainly would have run straight to Garrow and alerted them. As it is, there is a good chance the emerald claw will discover Arkaban missing and the dead soldiers so they may have already lost the element of surprise.
Afterwards the party spend the rest of the night resting, keeping a watch on the small crack in the massive stone door.
During the night they hear several more loud thumps beyond the southern stone door. At one point Rebar and Eriana were leaning on the south wall and actually felt a strong vibration from the thump, suggesting something very heavy making the noise and shaking the wall. Rebar is curious about the door and wants to know if they should open it, but everyone else is reluctant to do so.
Instead, they spend the night here and get an early start the next morning. There were some odd noises outside but nothing disturbs them in the night.
(Note: both Eriana and Ferdinand have acquired enough experience points to advance to 4th level, so both characters are updated to reflect their new abilities.)
In the morning the party pack up and head back up to the same level with the ziggurat. Arkaban suggests they start by going to the room where the soldiers set off a trap. There was a door there that might lead to the cypher (codebreaker) he is looking for.
Arkaban leads the way, up the stairs and through a door to the north the party has not been through.
It leads to a large empty room with an archway joining another chamber to the north. 013-Rebar lights the way with his Everlight Crystal.
There is pale green light on the north end of the room. When they get closer they see a semicircle spray of bodies, body parts, and bits of Emerald Claw tabards surrounds a closed iron door in the northeast corner of this large and otherwise empty chamber. A gangrenous radiance illuminates the bodies, rising like dissipating mist from the mutilated forms.
Arkaban tells them they heard screams but when they got here they saw the soldiers just like this. Garrow decided to leave them and not risk any more troops. He put Arkaban on the task of deciphering the runes, which is what he was working on when the party arrived.
There is a squad of soldiers her - perhaps 10 dead individuals, with no clear sign of what killed them.
Eriana gets within about 20 feet and lies down to try and peer under the iron door, but it has a narrow gap that is too small to see much underneath it. The gap is perhaps big enough to slide a dagger blade under it, but nothing more.
After a brief discussion they realize that Ferdinand is the most skilled among them at checking and disabling traps. He gets out his tools and cautiously heads over to the iron door to make a closer examination...