Previously: Chapter 40: Cleaning the Shrine
To The Depths
As the party finish off the final ghast, Dandelion is once again covered with guts and blood. They look to the right of where they come in and see the obviously unlocked door waiting for them, with water flowing out from behind it. They have come this far, no point in turning back now. As they open the door, they are met with a big room filled with water, and a door leading to the north. They examine the room, but realize it contains nothing of worth, so they press on.
The next door leads to a narrow hallway that is completely submerged by murky water, impossible to see through. The push on through, with Dandelion feeling a grate of sorts on the right wall of the hallway. With a little help from Kal, they manage to open it, and they push through one by one, with Penny holding the grate open, waiting for their return. Inside they find a flooded room, but the water seems to be clearer here, with various debris, but also a locked chest. Fie manages to easily unlock the chest, and inside they find an Adean Stone, as well as 11 gems of various rarities. They return back to the narrow hallway, and venture forth.
The next room is also flooded, and contains a large statue of a naked skeleton with gemstones embedded in its eyes. Dandelion immediately tells Penny not to touch, and they move on to the next door, listening to see if they can hear any dangers. Dandelion can hear a few creatures on the other side.
The Mage
As Dandelion tries to covertly open the door quietly, she can see three shapes on the other side, one undead robed man of some kind, and two more ghasts. They seem to be rummaging through the crates that are in this room. She turns around to quietly convey this using sign language, but is having difficulty, so Fie just attacks him with his eldritch blast, just as the mage turns around to look at the disturbance. He seems to counterspell Penny’s spell, but they manage to quickly take him down, as well as the ghasts, leaving Dandelion once again to remain covered with blood and guts. The mage kept nothing of value other than an ornate ring, and the crates they were rummaging through seemed to contain various religious items and depictions of Mova. They carry on.
Return of an Old Enemy
In the next room, Penny decides to take charge. It is another hallway, but wider. The Water reaches to their chests, and is once again difficult to see through. Fie uses his flying ability to float over it, with Penny stepping out in front, and shoots a few eldritch blasts through the water to see if there is anything there. It doesn’t seem to hit anything, so she decides it’s probably safe enough. As she takes a step too far, she is suddenly attacked by a giant crocodile that was lurking beneath the waters. Penny manages to dodge away from its bite, but it spins around and causes her to be slammed underwater by its tail.
Dandelion steps up to it and tries to calm it down, but it just replies that it “must protect the mistress”. It leaves them no choice, so they try to take it down. The giant crocodile manages to take a bite out of Penny, and does another death roll, the same kind that made Penny lose her foot last time, but luckily, no body parts are ripped off this time. Fie flies up, and manages to take it down, with Dandelion hearing it’s dying words being “I have failed you mistress…” before floating up to the surface, parts of its face missing from Penny inflicting grievous wounds on it.
Further Into the Depths
As they push past the crocodile, they reach the next room, which appear to be almost identical to the first room, but half of it is flooded, with yellow spores growing on the flooded pillars. Dandelion recognizes these as a dangerous fungus that spreads poison in the air if it’s disturbed. They take a quick look around the room, but other than the doorway to the right, there is nothing of value in here. They press on.
Immediately when they open the next door they see a small run down room, with a shrine on the opposite wall. They immediately recognize the symbol as that of Emos, the god of Despair and Delirium. It is made of blackened metal, which doesn’t look natural. Among the debris in the room there is a few wooden planks, which they use to make stakes, before they move on to the next room. As they walk past the shrine, they can hear whispers coming from it. They don’t let it affect them.
In the next hallway, before they go through the next doors, Dandelion figures it’s a good idea to listen to see if she can hear anything. On the other side, she can hear movement, whispers, but it soon stops. When they finally open the door, they are greeted with a mostly empty room, a few broken chairs and tables scattered across it, with a large tapestry depicting Mova dominates the opposite wall. It looks well kept and cared for. As they enter, the look around, and can’t find any source of the whispers, before suddenly two vampires emerge from the ceiling, dropping down and attacking Fie. They take a few bites into him, before the rest of the party comes out of their surprise and fights back. Kal summons her spirit guardians to help, which hurts them a lot. They seem to be using some sort of ancient magic, causing them to hurt themselves to feed the other one, but in turn the one that is fed attacks with even more ferocity than before. They can tell that the fight isn’t going their way, and as one burns away from the spirit guardians, the other one tries to escape, but Penny’s animated object and Kal’s mace manages to stop her dead in her tracks (pun very much intended).
With the vampires dead, Dandelion takes a closer look at the tapestry, moving it aside to look behind it, and finds a strong door, that doesn’t appear to be locked. After checking for traps, she opens it. Inside she finds various artworks and statues, definitely worth something, and a fairly big chest, that seems to be unlocked. Penny uses her mage hand to open it, and inside they find a vast amount of platinum pieces. Taken aback at their luck, they quickly scoop the platinum into their bag of holding, taking a short rest before moving on, fearful of what might face them in the next room.
The Vampire
When they open the next door, they come across a fairly big room, a few tables and chairs are scattered around. On the opposite side, a big hooded statue of a skeleton with the symbol of Mova is towering over the room, with a throne beneath it. On the throne sits a lone figure. A pale, dark haired woman, who looks straight at the party. She tells them not to be shy, and to please come in, all of them. The woman introduces herself as Lucretia, and applauds the party for getting this far, while also lamenting that they have interrupted and disrupted their “holy mission” that have been given to her from Emos. She is genuinely impressed by how moronic a few of the party acts, with also being impressed about how much they know. When asked about why she is terrorizing the city, and why she is just lurking beneath it, she tells the party that she is waiting for something to happen, something that will change the world for the better for “her kind”. But it has not yet come to pass, so here she is. Penny asks her patron what she is talking about, but he is not very forthcoming in his answers, but he thinks he recognizes a part of Lucretia somehow. She offers the party a deal, if they allow her to drink their blood, she will leave the city for good. The party is unwilling to accept this offer, and so she realizes that the negotiations have ceased, and asks the party if they are ready. They reply that they are.
End of Negotiations
Immediately, Lucratia jumps into action, and beelines towards Dandelion, jumping into her body, possessing her. The party doesn’t know exactly what to do, and Penny tries to cast a spell on her, hoping to target the vampire, but it just hurts Dandelion instead. Kal first tries to cast protection from evil and good on Dandelion, and is met with resistance, but manages to cast it on her. Dandelion tries to force Lucretia out, but is unsuccessful. Kal then tries to turn undead, which finally manages to push her out. Penny backs up into a corner, hoping to get away, but Lucretia jumps towards her, attacking her. After taking a bit out of her, drinking her blood, Penny goes unconscious, with Lucretia looking at the rest of the party asking who’s next. Dandelion casts a moon beam, damaging the vampire, and Kal summons a celestial spirit to attack Lucretia, who looks genuinely horrified by this. They can tell that radiant damage doesn’t hurt her more then normal, but it seems to hinder her healing ability.
Knowing how damaging the celestial spirit is to her, she destroys it, before attacking Kal. As she drinks her blood, she looks intrigued by the taste, this is not a mere human. “What are you?” she asks, before Kal blasts her backwards, summoning the celestial once more. Penny, having managed to force herself back into consciousness, polymorphs herself into a dinosaur, as her regular form is too fragile for this battle, and Lucretia seems to see that the party might be too much for her to handle, and looks toward the exit, hoping to make an escape. Before she does that, she takes a bite out of Dandelion, killing her, before trying to run away. But as she turns to leave, Pennosaurus Rex chomps down on her, causing her to be stuck in the mouth of the dinosaur. Kal runs over to Dandelion’s corpse, and resurrects her. She manages to get a glimpse at the dinosaur looming over her, with a vampire sticking out of its mouth, before it rips the vampire apart, causing blood and guts to spew everywhere, before it turns to smoke, disappearing into the wall to the right.
Killing Blow
Fie and Dandelion noticed the hidden door when they first entered the room, and Fie walks over to try to open it, but is unable to find the correct way to do so. Penny walks over, now back in her Infernis form, and casually and confidently flicks a switch. Which turns out to be just a loose rock. Dandelion manages to spot three stones in the wall that are a different shade than the rest, and touches them, causing the door to open. When they enter the extremely narrow hallway, they can see a coffin in the distance, and as they reach it, Lucretia has just reformed her body. They first try to stab her through the chest with the stakes, but it seems to just paralyze her. Penny takes Carlos’ suggestion and rips out the hart, spits on it, before staking it to her head. The vampire smolders to dust, and is dead. In the chest lies a rolled up cloak. It seems to be magical. Fie takes it, and returns to the room with the tapestry, summoning an unseen servant to take it down for him, while he spends some time identifying the items they found. The cloak is a Cloak of the Bat, while the stone is an Adean Stone of Protection. He pockets the stone and cloak, and returns to the others with the tapestry now neatly folded up.
Kal, having taken a potion of spirit to regain some spells, is exhausted by this, and dreads the return journey out of the temple. Penny and Dandelion is carried out by the Celestial Spirit that still remains, with Kal and Fie uses dimension door to quickly get out and back to the surface.
Returning a Lost Heirloom
When they reach the top, Dandelion and Penny comes out after a short while, still carried by the spirit. They ask if the spirit could carry the tapestry to the nearby temple of Mova, which it would happily do. Walking through the city, they get a few looks from people passing by, especially the city guard, but they assure that he’s just there for protection, and everything is fine. When they reach the temple, the spirit fades away, with Kal thanking them for helping them, and that they hope to see them again.
Carlos, the priest, greets them, and is impressed by how fast they were able to dispatch the vampire, as they spoke of it just a few hours ago. He happily takes the tapestry as an offering, telling them to just leave it on the floor and someone will take care of it. Dandelion tells him that she died in there, with him immediately going up to her face, asking her what she saw. She recalls that she saw a green and lush forest, with a veil running through it, but it was just a glimpse, as it happened so quickly. Kal notices that he is quite obviously high on something, but they don’t pay him too much attention, and depart, going back to the castle to give their report to Thervan Avalast. Noticing that the walk is way too long for them to take at their current state, Fie hails a carriage to take them to the castle. On the way there, they overhear a town crier yelling that “disgraced forgeblades member Iarno Albrek is to be executed on the first of next month”.
Debriefing
When they reach the castle gates, the guards just let them pass, looking at them in shock, as they seem literally beaten up. Entering the waiting room, Fie tells a guard that they would like to speak to Thervan, who quickly comes out to meet them. He takes them to his office and lets them sit down, being absolutely taken aback at the speed they have found and dispatched of the vampire. When they go through their experience, Thervan starts writing down everything they’re saying, with several onlookers listening in from the doorway, Ansgar Cain being one of them. He shoos them away when they’re done talking, asking if they found any treasure in the temple, assuring them that he will leave it out of the report, with a wink. He tells them that Bertram gave the last associates they sent out to dispatch a vampire a much larger cut of the treasure they found than he was supposed to, but Thervan thinks they deserved it this time. Dandelion tells Thervan that she died, and Kal resurrected her. He tells the party that they should be careful who they tell that to, as some people see resurrection as an abomination that goes against nature. Raven being one of them. Thervan however is not opposed to it at all, implying that he has already gone through it himself.
With the report finished, and the sun hanging low in the sky, Thervan asks if they would like to join him and his colleagues for dinner, taking them to a grand dining room further in the castle. They are given a full fledged heroes feast, with Bertram, Ansgar and other colleagues joining them. Spending the rest of the night socializing, they eventually head back to the Lucky Duck for some well deserved rest.