Our story starts where the case of the Pissed Pirates finishes, with our intrepid adventurers getting ready to follow on the lead Tarena gave us about the cult of the Dead Three. The first challenge left for us that morning was waking up Ehnir, who had celebrated a bit too hard the night before. Eventually he joined the rest of us for breakfast where we started discussing how to proceed. As per Tarena's information several suspected cult members had been spotted at a public bath, the Frolicking Nymph, just north of our location. Arrok and Skadi, braver than they are wise, advocated for some old fashioned direct action, with myself and the ever sensible Ehnir having to advocate for caution. Eventually we persuade our comrades to our point of view and go to scout out the bathhouse as regular guests to find out more information.
As it turns out, the Frolicking Nymph lives up to its name in design. You can't take a step without tripping over a statue or engraving of a dancing nymph, making it an unusually fancy place for this area of Baldur's Gate. Azeban, my dutiful rat companion, was less impressed. He reckon'd he could smell great evil in the bathhouse garden though he was unable to sniff out where the smell was coming from. I made my excuses to my friends, careful to not say too much lest the evil was able to overhear me, and headed outside to start casting detect magic. When I came back to the bathhouse I could immediately smell what Azeban was telling me about, I reckoned it was one of the key components for many illusion spells though my enhanced sense were also unable to spot anywhere specific to investigate. With nothing else to go on I eventually headed inside the baths with everyone else. Ehnir, possibly being overly cautious, decided to sneak his way in. The lack of staff outside the baths had him on edge. Truly what he saw next shocked him to his core, as a half orc was stood the other side of the door towling himself off. Nushr, as he told Ehnir, was clearly very comfortable in his skin.
Ehnir, silver tongued as ever, quickly recovered from his shock and made fast friends with Nushr. Before long Nushr has directed us to two doors where we will be able to find staff, and is back in the bath chatting to Ehnir about being a trader. If I had a silver piece for every occupation Ehnir has claimed I wouldn't need to keep adventuring! All this despite Skadi doing her best to break any cover we have by blurting out why we're there...
We left Ehnir to talk to Nushr as the rest of us headed to one of the staff rooms to see what we can learn from them. The staff room in question turned out to be a massage room, occupied by a very nervous looking Masseuse. I strike up a conversation to see if we can find out who owns the Frolicking Nymph - only to learn an unpleasant surprise. It seems the owner of the establishment is Duke Thalamra Vanthampur - a member of the council of Baldur's gate and someone we had an incentive to keep happy. Her son, Mortlock, did most of the day to day running of the baths. It would be an understatement to say that the staff had some complaints about their erstwhile boss. Not feeling much the wiser Skadi and I went back into the main bath area, while Arrok decided she wanted to have a massage.
Seems the massage did wonders as a very excited Arrok burst out of the massage room sometime later, barely able to contain herself. However we didn't want to raise too much suspicion so Ehnir and I insisted that we enjoy the bathhouse to appear as much as possible as regular clientelle. It wasn't till a long time later, when we'd returned to the Elfsong Tavern, that Arrok was finally able to release what she'd been holding in. It seems her Masseuse let slip that the staff aren't allowed in the Frolicking Nymph between midnight and dawn, which seems like the perfect time to return for our second visit.
Midnight came and went, and we skulked towards the Frolicking Nymph to investigate their after hours party. Azeban was the first in, as I entered a trance to borrow his senses and scout out the bathhouse. Didn't take long for us to confirm the gardens were empty, and so we crawled into the main building. As we entered we immediately spotted 3 intimidating figures. Women, judging from the voices, clad in dark clothes with covered faces. Each of them wielded a savage looking serrated dagger, that screamed danger. I left the trance to update the party on what I'd learned so far, then went back in to continue scouting just as one of them spotted Azeban! We swiftly skulked away before they could attack him, and then planned our next move.
We agreed on a surprise attack to take them out before they could react or raise an alarm, by which I mean Ehnir, Arrok and I agreed while Skadi seemed bemused by the entire concept. We managed to enter the bathhouse without getting spotted and then we were on them - 2 of them fell quickly but the last managed to call for aid before she was silenced. The last of the dagger dames fell as a man comes in from one of the staff rooms wielding a flail with a glowing skull. I'd say it screamed evil but I think just describing it already says that, it seemed that Tarena's information was correct because I can't imagine anyone other than cultists of the Dead Three using such a vile weapon. His attacks were ferocious but in the end he was no match for us. In the aftermath we left 2 of the dagger wielding women and the flail wielder dead, and kept the last of the women tied, unconscious, and hidden in a bush outside so we could interrogate her later. We then investigated the bathhouse for some kind of secret door, and discovered a passageway that lead to the depths below.
Torches lit, we descended below. The first obstacle, at least for ol' Zagrief was the water which nearly came up to my head. While I was choosing between awkwardly waddling and swimming, Skadi revealed that she could control the water leaving me some shallow areas I could walk more freely in. Down a path on the right we discovered a secret passage that led to a bloated body. His back is covered in knife wounds, but otherwise reveals nothing about our quarry. Then as we step into the next room, which houses some kind of grotesque altar, an explosion tears through the cave. Ehnir, Arrok and I just about dive into the water for safety, however Skadi took the full brunt of the explosion and was knocked out. Arrok reveals she has some talent with the medical arts and stabilises Skadi condition. Most of us decide to take a short rest to recover from the explosion, while Ehnir scouts ahead. Past the exploding chamber he found a small room with a door on each of the 3 walls. Each features a detailed carving of a grand, evil and imposing figure. It seems that each represents one of the Dead Three. Down the door to his right he hears some whispering, but decides to return to the stairs we were resting at and inform us of what he found.
With a little bit of vigour returned to us, we decide to try the other passage from the first cavern. We quickly discovered that this led to the other side of one of the doors Ehnir had seen down the other route. Did beg the question somewhat as to why the secret passage exists, as it only seems to connect 2 areas that are already easily connected. We decided to first investigate the source of the whispers Ehnir had heard, this place was plenty dangerous without knowingly leaving enemies behind us. Behind the door was a small dorm, with 3 apparently dead in the middle. The dead don't whisper, and so Skadi quickly ran into the middle of the room as light exploded out of her hitting all of the "corpses" as the rest of us followed up and finished them off. In the room behind we found a sarcophagus, in which we found 3 spell books. I quickly shared my discovery with the party, however Ehnir wouldn't stop scowling at me despite me being forthright and honest. That man has spent too much time conning people that he can't see the truth when its right in front of him I swear!
With one door left to investigate, we continued our exploration of the cult tunnels. We come into small narrow room, with a raised area at the other end. Another grim mockery of a temple. As we enter we interrupt two of the devout as they torture a prisoner of theirs. They seem to think we have some attachment to him, but any enemy of the cult is a friend of ours so I figure its probably not too far from the truth. The deep waters give us some difficulty as we fight off the cultists, but eventually we fell them. Then as we go to free the prisoner Skadi and I got ambushed by 2 animated gauntlets. With us all exhausted from the previous encounters, these brutal bracers took the last of everything we had but by the skin of our teeth we pull through. The prisoner, in a display of half hearted generosity shared one of the two healing potions he finds. I applaud Ehnir's restraint for not flooring the man then and there, but I wish he hadn't. The extra potion would've gone a long way, and my gut tells me we've got a lot more of these damned caverns to explore. We gave the extra healing potion to Skadi who had been even more battered than the rest of us, which was saying something.
To be continued