8/3/2014 - The Blood Eating Box

The adventure continues in Falcon's Hollow.  The Blackscour Taint has been healed.  The Paladin has been called off on a crusade of undetermined length, the Barbarian Gwar has left to find someone to work his alligator skin, and the Magus Remy has been called back to see his Wizard Academy leader for personal reasons.  The group meets Trinity, a teenage former lumber consortium thug who lost her brother to the taint.  Being discouraged at the lack of action and empathy by the leadership and appreciative of the group’s efforts, she asks to join them.  The group agrees and she specifically takes a liking to Desna as the group’s healer.

The group travels uneventfully for a few days west to a small village called Dexin where the "employer" lives.  His mansion is monstrous and very ostentatious.  The entire village seems to have sprung up around the mansion in order to tend to it.  An old man answers the door and invites the group in, and begins leading them to the study.  He walks slowly so Ang blows by him and leads the group to the study on his own.

The employer is a regular looking, slightly older man with spectacles and very expensive taste in clothes.  He indicates that his name is Assint and he used to be a Pathfinder, but decided striking out on how own would be much more lucrative (and apparently he was right).  This explains how the Pathfinder guild had some knowledge as to the types of items he would be interested in buying (or not).  He is quite astounded (almost rapturously so) that the group has retrieved the angel statue.  He won't say why, but he does indicate that the group absolutely must now get a second statue (of a demon) that complements the first.

The statue is currently in the possession of the wizard Rhalabhast of Many Eyes.  Rhalabhast is willing is willing to part with the statue, but not for money.  The employer asks the group to travel to Rhalabhast and get the statue from him, indicating that Rhalabast being a wizard, he’ll most likely want some bizarre task performed.  The group agrees, and also reminds him that he needs to pay up for the angel statue.  He seems miffed that Ang has not taken care of this already and pays the group.  Emrys at this point realizes that Ang is the employer’s son, but based on Ang’s plain equipment and overall demeanor, Ang has clearly not been coddled.  Whether this is due to a fall-out or just good parenting is unclear.

 The group travels a week north through an oddly uninhabited wooded area (no travelers on the road even) to a small unassuming cottage where Rhalabhast of Many Eyes lives.  Rhalabhast opens the door, and is almost what you would call a quintessential wizard.  (Robes with stars, pointy hat, long beard, etc.)  In addition, the cottage is clearly much larger on the inside than the outside, and is completely full of “wizard stuff” (books, scrolls, retorts, strange objects of questionable use, etc.)  

What is most unusual are his spectacles.  Similar to the ocular device in National Treasure, but with dozens more mobile lenses of multiple colors that he continually flips in different combinations as he stares at the group.  He continues to flip them even as he invites the group in and speaks to them.  The group asks about the glasses; Rhalabhast gives a wizardish answer (i.e. not helpful), but after inspecting the group closely through his lenses indicates that Florence might understand some day.

Rhalabhast explains that his rival Nekros the Grotesque has something he wants called Yarafad’s Box, and he wants the group to get it for him.  He has it on very good authority that Nekros is far away for an extended period of time, so the group will not have to deal with him directly, but instead they need to break into his inner sanctum where he keeps the Box.  

There is catch of course.  There is something in the box (he won’t say what, “for their own protection”), so not only must they not open the box, but they must feed the box “blood of a lawful being” each day to keep the “item” contained.  (His description can be translated to roughly 5 HP points/day).  They can tell when the box is getting thirsty as it will start making gurgling noises.  Zambo is quickly identified as the only “lawful being” in the group at the moment, and he is thrilled to work closely with the cleric for the rest of the adventure.

Rhalabhast shows them the Demon statue as proof, and it is very similar to the angel in height and how it’s standing with its arms outstretched.  It’s noticed that the shape of its back very well may complement the back of the angel statue (as in, they might fit together).  Rhalabhast gives them directions to Boulder Cliff (about 3 days journey) where the entrance to Nekros’ lair is, with instructions that “When the dead look to the sky, a way will open”.

The group makes this journey without incident, and arrive at the foot of Boulder Cliff to find 6 dead hunters and a dead bear lying on the ground.  The rotted weapons and armor indicate that the bodies have been there for several decades, but the bodies are oddly preserved.  After the group examines the bodies for loot, Desna suggests that they flip them all onto their backs.  They do so and a boulder rolls away near the cliff face with and entrance into the cliff.

The chamber on the other side of the cliff is an immense circle that is completely dark (dancing lights, anyone?), with a stairway cut into it that spirals into the darkness.  (The room is 550’ across, so no one can ever see the other side until they get to the bottom and there is a light source).  The stairs are fairly large in terms of stepping area (3 people can fit abreast, with about 2 ½ to 3 feet in stepping area and only about an 8 inch drop to the next step), and the group begins their descent.  Although 3 can be fit abreast, they use a 2-wide marching order (to keep anyone from falling) with the fighters in the front.

A few hours in, the group is surprise attacked from behind by a group of 5 tirgefrabs, which are basically almost human-sized hairless cats that attack not only with their claws, but by spewing vomit that can reduce the targets’ strength and constitution. (Had the group looked up when they first entered the cave, they might have seen the ledge above them holding these cats). Luckily for the group, during the surprise attack one of the tirgefrabs begins to choke on its own vomit leaving only 4 to fight.  The 3 tirgefrabs in the front (including the choker) are quickly dealt with and the other 2 turn and run.  A couple of good bow shots prevent them from making it very far.

The group continues descending, and not long after the fight a large chunk of stairway collapses, so the 2-wide marching order is shown to be wise.  At this point, Florence receives a telepathic message that her presence is required elsewhere and she heads back up to the surface.

There are no more incidents in the 2-day descent (the group traveled a little over 30 miles in total), but while camping twice the group is bombarded by a disembodied voice that says things like “Who invades my domain?” over and over, laughs hysterically, or emulates children screaming.  Luckily, they’re all able to get good sleep and not be impacted.  Zambo joyfully notes that the box at this point will require 5 days of feeding.

When they reach the bottom, they see that it is actually a lake of an odd colored liquid (a few large creatures swimming in it), with an odd glowing bridge covering the lake (the entire 550’ diameter surface. The bridge has large circles cut out of it that almost touch in some places.  At the center of the bridge is a giant mound of guano, although it’s clearly not solid guano as there is a door leading into it.  To get to the mound, the group must traverse the bridge, with a minimum of 3 places where the bridge gets narrow enough to require balancing.

Unfortunately, Zambo, Arthur, and Emrys are not so good at balancing.

They all fall into the water (which is slightly acidic) and are attacked by 3 colossal leaches.  Ang and Trinity drop in ropes while the others attempt range attacks down onto the leaches (once of which manages to latch on to Zambo and begin sucking).

Also unfortunately, Desna and Ang are not so good at shooting downward and drop their bows.

Fortunately (for once), Emrys is able to catch both bows while holding on to the rope.  After watching 3 fall in to the water and 2 drop their weapons, the teenage thug remarks that it’s amazing that any of us are alive at all.  The leaches are eventually defeated and the fallen climb up ropes, with someone tying a rope to Arthur to get him out.

The group manages to reach the guano pile with a few more incidents of poor balancing (including the wise-ass thug), which are fairly trivial now that the leaches are dead.  The door into the guano pile is locked, but easily picked by Trinity and the group enters the inner sanctum.

Inside is a large room in the shape of a star with a large pentagram etched into the floor.  In the center of the pentagram is a raised dias with Yarafad’s box on it.  The box itself is white, around 3’ high and 3’ in diameter, and has a metal bowl attached to the top with little metal tubes running out in all directions and running down the sides, with several little inputs into the side of the box.

The room itself has 16 additional closet doors around the room, with metal pipes leading out of each room into a contraption on the ceiling, which culminates at a large tube in the center of the ceiling that points directly into the bowl on the box.  Blood is slowly dripping into the bowl from the device, and there is a wheezing coming from one of the closets.

In the closet the group finds a chained up man in cleric garb with little pipes sticking out of his neck, thighs, and wrists.  With his dying breath he looks at the group and exclaims “Bleed for the box, or else it will escape!”  In an odd oversight, the group doesn’t think of collecting the remaining blood from the dead body, even though they thought of collecting Zambo’s blood from the leech that sucked him for a round.

All of the other closets contain completely emaciated chained up dead bodies, still attached to the same little bleeding tubes.  A little more searching and the group finds a secret room that is clearly Nekros’ study, which contains a spell scroll (unclear what it is, as it’s written in a language unknown to the group), 3 vials of processed tirgefrab vomit, a 2’ cylinder of lead, a glass bucket, and a 2 pieces of parchment.  One piece describes the needs of Yarafad’s box as well as plans for the blood-feeding machine, the other piece describes advice for binding a quasit named “Elzemon” into service.  It mentions that the quasit becomes visible if exposed to lead and that it is immune to Will effects unless its name is spoken.

The group takes the box out of the guano building and makes its way relatively ok back across the bridge (a few more falls, but the box is ok).  As they approach the stairway back up, a swarm of fangsights attack from the roof of the guano building (these are pink grape-fruit size globs that are randomly covered in eyes and fanged mouths that appear to be collected from multiple creatures.)  The swarm is driven away successfully and the ascent begins.

There are no attacks during the ascent, but the first night Desna (on watch) hears a boulder rolling down the stairs and wakes the group.  A boulder never appears.  The second night, Trinity (on watch) hears a voice “from the goddess Desna” trying to convince her to open the box, but she does not succumb.

Upon exiting the cave, the group comes across a group of 8 squat humanoids carrying a limp body that attacks them after a disembodies voice urges them to “Gorge on their flesh!”.  5 of the humanoids are entangled by a spell (cast by Emrys) and the other 3 are dropped quickly.  The entangled ones are then picked off.

On a ledge of the cliff, a small quasit appears (demon with ram horns and wings), thanks them (for what, they’re not sure), and offers them the dropped body as compensation.  He then disappears while flying away.

The man is paralyzed, but this effect eventually wears off.  He explains he is Valbris, a cleric of Choranus, a group that has been getting picked off lately by an unknown entity (understood now to be used as Box food).  He is astounded that they have Yarafad’s Box, and explains that this box is somehow an opposing force to his diety and must be brought to his temple/village immediately for destruction.  He is persuasive enough that a long discussion ensues, at which point the group decides to travel to the temple and discuss it with the elders.  Most realize that to not deliver the box to Rhalabast would be a bad idea as it would be betraying both Rhalabast and Ang’s father, but they decide to hear them out.

They travel the few days to the village, and all but Ang, Trinity, and Zambo wait outside in hiding while those 3 go in to discuss.  Ultimately the head cleric of Choranus is unable to convince them to give them the box, and he indicates that they probably have made new enemies that they have not heard the end of.

The group returns Valbris to his village and makes its way back to Rhalabast’s cottage where the door is open and the demon statue is sitting on the table.  They do not want to simply leave the box (which they have been dutifully feeding, although they gave that task to Valbris while he was travelling with the group), so they stay and wait, and eventually he returns, thanks them for the box, and gives them the statue.

The group returns to Ang’s father and gives him the statue.  He is once again astounded – visibly shaken even to have both pieces.  He takes one statue in each hand and slowly brings them together, the backs of the 2 statues perfectly complementing each other.  Just as they touch, there is a bright flash and…

To Be Continued...