Session 36: Cleanup Beshion
Session 36 begins with leveling up to 5.The druid and priest left unopposed, back the way the party game.
Clarence takes a lock of hair from Besh.
Also on the body:
10 platinum, 10 gold, 10 silver.
Deck of playing cards of firmer stock.
On Sly:
+2 shifting returning rapier, can turn into a dagger and be thrown and it'll return to owner's hand
3 potions of invisibility
Besh is a charred, melted, perforated mess, but still enough is left to be recognizable.
Sly is less horrific, but is still charred to hell.
Clarence double triple checks that Ser Dori is okay.
He's totally fine! Perfectly healthy! He flourishes to show off his good health, and his sword snaps at the hilt and lodges itself into a nearby wall.
Sartorii gives him her old rapier.
Clarence searches the room for anything noteworthy. Rolls a nat 20 on perception.
This room has seen its share of brutalities. The stone has been washed to the point that the inside of the cage is worn smooth. Old scorch marks, glassed dust, and so, so much blood between the stones.
The room is slanted as it goes up a good ten feet, the walls sloping inward until they reach the bars.
There's a cabinet on the wall, door half ajar, full of pliers, knives, and other instruments of torture.
Plus, a Wand of Shocking Grasp! The tip is charred and little bloody. Clarence gets the feeling it's been inside somebody. He tries to clean it a little before putting it in the bag of holding.
Onwards!
Clarence puts his shield up before opening the door and steps out.
The first door to the right, immediately there's a cultist at an altar.
The cultist turns around and looks at them. "Hey, what are you doing down here? Where's Besh? He knows I am not to be disturbed!"
Sartorii says, "Oh Besh is super dead."
At the same time, Clarence tries to shut the door. Rolls a 1 on reflex. He grabs the doorknob and accidentally rips it off the door.
Combat starts!
Sartorii stabs the cultist for 9 damage, and again for 11.
The Sprite casts Ignition for 9 damage.
Ser Dori draws his hand-me-down rapier and flanks the cultist, but misses. With Exacting Strike, he takes no penalty to his second attack. 5 more damage!
Cultist dead.
Clarence walks over the cultist's dead body to investigate the altar.
He finds a book with three rituals in it: Infernal Pact, Corpse Communion, and Desecrate.
(Technical difficulties ensue. The load-bearing doorknob broke Foundry.)
Anyway. It's a desecrated altar, a place where the cultists can grow their power.
Next up, they find a storage room!
Three supply chests with rations, allowance money equaling 3 gold, general goods meant to service Asmodeans. This seems to be where the sewer chapel got all their clothes.
As they go, the Sprite is writing down a list of what they find; cultist, desecrated altar, supply room for the sewer cultist.
Next up, a filing room that looks much more legitimate than the one upstairs.
Clarence is on edge since the healer left, so he insists on taking each room extremely carefully.
He walks up to the first shelf, and needs to roll a reflex save. Nat 1. Hero point. 18. He takes 3 fire damage, as does everything on the shelf.
Clarence sits down in the middle of the floor. Well, he tried.
Sartorii steps in to do her bird things. 23 on Perception. She notices the wires running along all the shelves that would trigger alchemist's fire to burn whatever shelf was fucked with.
Rutana whips out her umbrella and casts Ray of Frost at the burning shelf to put the fire out. 9 damage. The fire goes out, and some of the books are saved! She gathers the remaining books and puts them somewhere safe.
Sartorii and the Sprite work together to disarm the top half of the room, they then get a cumulative critical success on the bottom row.
Sartorii pockets the seven bottles of alchemist fire from the bottom row.
Looking through all the books, the party determines this is where Besh tracks all his debts, who he's extorting, and a black folder of names Besh wants dead. The party is listed as 'a potential problem in the future'.
The party pockets documents connecting Besh to the cultists and protection racket, proof of ingratiating himself with the nobility, and proof of corruption amongst the guards.
Just north of the filing room is an oak door with the smell of medicine from within.
Rutana perceptions the door. 16. She hears a mortar hitting pestle.
Clarence opens the door. He walks in and says hi.
A cultist drops his mortar and pestle, spilling a bunch of medicine. He backs to the wall in panic.
It's okay! What's happening? Clarence tries to calm him.
The cultist has white dust all down the front of his shirt.
"You're, uh, you're one of those heroes of greenwall, aren't you?"
Clarence puts a hand on the cultist's shoulder and pushes him to the wall. Hey. He pulls the mask off to see if he recognizes the guy. Man of about 30, 35, curly black hair and olive skin. Not from around here. Sounds Chellish. Where are you from, why are you here?
I mean we're just here to spread the good word of a truly perfect society.
Clarence wants to knock the guy out. Sartorii and Rutana start swinging, 16 total.
Clarence gets a nat 1. He gets Overthinking It; the Cultist gets a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against Clarence's attacks.
The Sprite lobs some fire from the back when it looks like things are going south.
The apothecary's room has a fountain of fresh water, some cabinets of tools and supplies, and three finishes potions on the table. The Sprite gets 30 on Crafting to inspect them.
A bitter-smelling purple paste. Smells like medicine. Six doses of Zerk. It is a combat-enhancement drug used by gladiators and pit fighters.
Three bottles of a moderate quicksilver mutagen. +2 bonus to acrobatics, stealth, thievery, but take damage equal to twice your level and a -2 penalty to fortitude saves.
A kilo package of Qat. Recreational drug akin to cocaine.
So basically it's a drug lab.
The party decides to take the quicksilver, but leave everything else.
The party continues down the hall. At a bend in the hall, time for perception checks.
Rutana spots a divot next to the door, looks like something with a handle to pull.
Sartorii notices a weird wall; some bricks that are utterly perfect, where nothing else is.
The Sprite sees that same wall is warbling, like a heat haze.
It's an illusory wall. You can walk right through it.
Rutana listens at the circular divot. 30 Perception.
She hears conversation between a man and a woman.
"I haven't seen Besh around for a little bit now. You know where the boss is?"
"Yeah, he dropped someone down his gross hole."
"Aw, the doll guy? He seemed sweet!"
"Yeah, everyone he hurts seem sweet. You clean up, I'll get the wine."
Sartorii pulls the handle.
She opens what appears to be the back of an empty wine barrel. There's a dude there!
The Sprite pokes the fake wall. It opens up to a secret tunnel!
Clarence leads the way. At the end of the tunnel is a set of stairs that goes up. Wind can be heard beyond. It seems like an escape hatch.
The party decides to clear out the last of the basement before booking it out the escape tunnel.
The door is locked.
Everyone just looks at Sartorii.
Sartorii rolls 30 on Thievery.
The door opens to a short hall with three doors on each side. It looks like a barracks of some sort.
Sartorii rolls 32 on perception, nat 20. There's some snoring from the southern doors, no light.
Party decides to close the door and not bother them.
Next door is also incredibly locked. 20 on thievery.
Six legs. Long body, almost insectoid in nature, a bent-over head with a light in front. It is hoisted off the floor on hooks. The light is on, and the beast is not moving. There are a lot of items on desks and notes around.
Sartorii rolls 31 on stealth to move around the room and inspect the tables.
One desk contains minor knick-knacks, one being an iron rod with a slot on the bottom. One is just a hilt. A red, nightstick-shaped object with a button on the handle. Sartorii pockets the gun.
She moves on to the next table.
This table is mostly papers, and what appears to be an odd device that looks similar to the red gun thing. The barrel is translucent and filled with green ooze, and there's a needle on the other side. Sartorii takes this gun too.
A thing in the shape of a wand, with a needle on one side and an ampule filled with purple liquid.
Notes describing the beast. A Numerian hunter, a robot found when Besh was on safari. The last one recoverable after they were activated and told to attack an orc village to test what they did. The rest were destroyed, but having a life-debt slave in return was a good consolation. Besh engineered Dunlan's life debt.
Sartorii retreats, and the party books it down the escape tunnel.
The tunnel leads to the stables in the courtyard. There are some horsies!
The party escapes without encountering anything else.