Session 51
Reed Underbough’s prospects had only improved since coming back to the City of Greyhawk. Blodgett, head of the New Thieves Guild, had only seen his approval of Reed rise as Reed ambitiously continued to oversee construction of his tower-based inn. “You really remind me of myself,” Blodgett said one day. “We may be the little guys, but we’re tough, and we can grab this city by the horns and throw it to the ground and…well, let’s not belabor a poor metaphor, shall we? What I’m trying to say is…I want you to be my right hand man. The public face of the guild, as it were. We’ll have to upgrade your income, though…what say the guild moves you up a social class?” To which Reed immediately agreed. The new role seemed to come with no new responsibilities…so far.
Reed did approach Haruspex Niv about trying to find out where his errant henchman Peter had gotten off to, and what mischief he might be causing. While Haruspex agreed that sounded important, he was not prepared to leave his studies to explore it himself, but gave Reed his blessings to kill Peter.
Percy has easily adjusted from the comforts of his inn to the comforts of the church-provided bishop’s house. Although he shares it with another bishop, the design of the building is like a duplex, so Percy has as much privacy as he wishes. But the new digs have done little to keep him safe - less than a month after that attempted break-in at the inn, Percy survived an assassination attempt, where someone shot him with a crossbow bolt, from a concealed location at long range, while he was out for a stroll. It was a light wound, and so far an annoying inconvenience.
Six weeks ago, Niall Brightflame was attacked by brazen thieves on a city street in broad daylight, lightly injured, but they got away with all the money he was carrying -- 10% of his accumulated wealth. Niall gave chase, but they lost him in the nearby market. Since then, Niall was lying low, hoping to catch the thieves who did this to him, but when that failed he approached the Company of the White Oak about working with them again.
The three of them met up at Reed’s place to discuss what to do about these issues. Of everything on their plate, attempting to assassinate a bishop -- and the Company’s only still-active cleric -- seemed the most serious pressing issue. Percy was even prepared to make use of Reed’s questionable contacts to find more information, and put up 150 gold to fund an investigation.
Days later, Reed returned with 30 gold unspent and a satisfying lead -- the Iron Workers Guild - their old enemies -- were behind the attacks on Percy, but on commission from someone else. That someone else owned a small manorhouse in the High Quarter of the city, one which, when Reed spied on it, had fighting men routinely coming and going from it. The owner, though, remained unknown.
City of Greyhawk
The issue before the three Companions was, should they now do something about this? Their numbers were low for any major challenge. And where was the profit in taking out these men after Percy? The lost city, on the other hand…there was still the promise of 1,000 gold in return for a finished map. How hard could that be, as long as they avoided that huge bear…?
They decided to go, but needed more help, as too many Companions were occupied elsewhere. Luckily, Old Man Herv had a recommendation. He had recently run into a dwarf named Sprig Thunderbeard who was a veteran figher, looking to become an adventurer. Sprig bragged about his strength and there was precedent for the Company extending full membership to people who displayed great physical strength. Niall also possessed prodigious strength, so the elf agreed to meet this dwarf and throw down with him. The two grappled for a long time and, in the end, Niall had to concede that Sprig was even stronger than he. Full membership was his!
Lastly, Niall used some free time, and his contact with Haruspex Niv, to access the Grand Library of Greyhawk. Here he did some reading up on the lost city. This city, known as the Lost City of the Elders, had once been located at the southern edge of the Domain of Greyhawk, but had vanished -- all of it -- about 60 years ago. It was not the first time the city had vanished; it had a tendency to disappear and reappear in different locations. The Elders were the Ur-Flan, the first humans to live in this region.
Cairn Hills
Reed, Percy, Niall, and Sprig started out, with their henchmen Muelara Wynna, Ambrosio, Arlin Fandagoria, and the hirelings Bella and Everard. Niall was decked out on a brand new warhorse and rode ahead frequently to scout. Although he hills were alive with wild animal fauna, none of it proved dangerous to the Company. And so…
The Waterfall
It was late when they found the waterfall. Did they want to explore the lost city at night? The answer was a resounding no. Watches were set up for the night…
The Lost City of the Elders
This time, before heading into the city, the Company checked out the rows of buildings on the south side of the courtyard. There was little to explore, but at the far end of the rows was a cluster of buildings within the remnants of its own privacy wall - an inn? Sprig deemed the building to look unsafe, so they decided not to investigate it.
Nearby was the eastern gate to the city. The towers here showed battle damage and the gates between them had been long ago wrecked down. But beyond that point…the road just inside was in immaculate condition, as if just laid down!
Muellara cast ESP and they moved from building to building so she could try to sense thoughts from inside. They did not get far - not even to the plaza at the end of the street - when she sensed the thoughts of a sentient mind that was watching them.
Reed leaped up to the roof with his magic boots, but not before a small creature also hobbit-sized started racing across the rooftop away from him. The creature had red eyes, but otherwise appeared to be made of stone, though still wearing regular leather armor over that stone-like skin. It leapt to a second rooftop, then jumped over the back of the building. Reed pursued across the slanted tile roofs, producing rope, and intended to lasso the creature. But he was not fast enough before the creature vanished from view. Approaching the back of the second building, Reed was able to see the sentry was now joining a crowd of similar creatures, all armed, gathered around a collection of tents.
Reed returned to the rest of the Company and told them what he saw. They walked around the small buildings, found the campsite of these small, weird creatures, and approached openly. The Company wanted allies here in this strange city, and thought these small creatures might want allies as well. They did not seem to; they swarmed around and encircled the Company, threatening them with spears. After a short standoff in which the Companions tried every language they knew to communicate with them, Niall had enough and drawing his weapon initiated combat. It did not go well for the little monsters, who were weak enough that both Niall and Arlin could sweep through with their attacks. Soon, two dozen of these monsters were dead.
Looting the tents, there was little in the way of treasure - except for, incongruously, a traveling spellbook. The Company was quick to snatch up this rare prize!
Shortly thereafter, they heard a booming voice coming from the south. Moving around a building and outdoor statue, they spotted an amphitheater surrounded by trees. On the stage of the outdoor auditorium was a giant - literally, a bigger humanoid than the tallest ogre they had ever seen by two full feet. It had black skin and a red beard and it was clearly calling out to them in a booming voice, though they did not understand the language.
The Companions shrugged and left, which was apparently not the reaction the giant was hoping for. Angered, the giant came after them. The Companions moved quickly around a building and then tried to duck into its entrance. Muelara’s ESP detected angry thoughts approaching them, from above. The giant was coming over the roof towards them! Sure enough, the giant appeared at the edge of the roof, but the last of the Companions were inside the building by now. It proved an uninteresting building, gutted and long-since looted, but the giant was either unwilling or unable to follow them in.
Searching the building, they found nothing of interest except for a stone coffer. Everyone was cautious about traps and the coffer was opened at a distance after tying rope around the lid and pulling it from around a corner. It was found to contain…1,000 silver pieces. Being treasure-poor, the Companions decided to take the silver, and maybe the coffer itself would be worth something too. As they were transporting it to the cart, they found out how right they were, for a beautifully intricate mosaic incorporating ornamental stones was hidden on the bottom of the coffer.
After securing the coffer on the cart, and sensing no thoughts outside, the Companions trepidatiously reemerged into the light of day. Indeed, it appeared the giant had given up on them and gone away.
The Companions headed southwest and then west, following this main road as it seemed to wind clockwise through the city. Niall, in particular, cautioned everyone from doing too much exploring and concentrating on just getting the map done. Percy, though, was curious about a statue of a weasel perched atop a box. When he investigated it, the top of the box sprang open, tossing the weasel statue into the air, and it landed hard on Arlin.
But that was not the worst of it, as a hideous, tentacled monster, its body resembling a gigantic centipede, crawled out of the box. As fearsome as it looked, though, it was easily felled by a Sleep spell, and soon its head fell off as well, after some deliberate chopping. Searching the pit concealed under the statue’s base, where the monster had crawled out of, they found a dead body covered in slime. Feeling around the body at a safe distance with 10’ poles, they uncovered a silver ring. Niall used his magic sickle to retrieve the ring without touching the slime. Although the ring looked valuable, the Companions vowed to examine no further statues.
Much further down the road, indeed, in the southwest part of the city now, Muelara detected sentient thoughts again, coming from inside one of the buildings. It seemed like a sizable force was marshaling to come out, and the Companions did not particularly want to deal with more sizable forces. They decided to detour back and go north, up a side road that ran past what looked like a chapel.
As they passed the chapel, they heard what sounded like children crying from inside. This seemed like a trap and everyone was very leery, but they ultimately investigated anyway. All signs of religious iconography had been scraped away from the building long ago and only the shape of the structure suggested what it might have once been. By now Muelara’s ESP spell had expired, so they would have no clues before entering what was waiting for them.
They strode through the front doors anyway. What they found was horrific - human women and children chained to the walls, and eight orcs terrorizing them with cat-o-nine-tails.
Those orcs did not live very long. Luckily they had keys on them!
The women and children were unshackled, but attempts to communicate with them were meeting with failure; the women spoke some strange dialect. Niall tried the Elven Tongue, which had undergone much fewer permutations over the centuries. Success! Two of the women spoke Elven, and now they could relate their story. The City of Gaxmoor had been a peaceful one until, months ago, an army of monsters laid siege to it. The outer city fell quickly, but as far as they knew humanity still held the inner city.
Plans to double back and lead the women and children safely out of the city were kiboshed when they returned to the main road and spotted a sizable force of orcs and ogres assembling in the street to the west. The Company’s spellcasters were low on spells, and the goal was to keep the women and children out of combat. Fleeing east and outrunning the orcs seemed too chancy, so they doubled back again, this time heading north towards the gates to the inner city.
The gates of the inner city had been breached some time ago and were no longer manned by anyone. The inner city seemed deserted. The Company quickly discerned that, if there were any humans left here, they must be barricaded in somewhere. An office building nearby showed evidence of having withstood a siege. The Company approached it and urged the women to call inside.
Men responded! Barriers were cleared and fighting men in familiar armor (the Company had seen men like these in the hills outside the city after their last expedition here) let everyone in. There were some reunions between the men, women, and children, but everyone was happy to see each other even if they were not family. Here, a few of the men also spoke Elven and were able to continue the story. When the gates of the inner city were breached, the imperial soldiers fell back towards the palace, but were cut off and had to hole up here, where they had been holding out for weeks. It was a spacious building, with room to accommodate all of them, as well as the Company’s cart and animals.
Percy had his traveling prayerbook; he could prepare some of his spells again. If they could get through the night and rest, maybe they could push their way out of the city.
The monsters were not ready to let them have that restful night. Six ogres, the same ones they had seen marshaling in the outer city, it seemed, had decided to end the stalemate at this office building that night. What they had not counted on was the Company emerging on an upper balcony and pelting them with blistering missile fire, while distracting the ogres on their flank with a remaining Phantasmal Forces spell of elven archers. It took some time to wear down the ogres, but they did eventually retreat.
Everyone braced for the ogres to come back with reinforcements, but to everyone’s surprise that never happened. The sun rose to a new day.
The Lost City of the Elders
The Inner City
The imperial soldiers were not interested in leaving. They even paid the Companions to lead the women and children to safety. But Niall gave an impassioned speech about how their home was their people, not their city. He convinced all but two to come with them.
The plan today was no different -- push through the city as fast as possible and try to get out. But the inner city was not empty this morning -- nearly four dozen gibbering gnolls stood between them and freedom on the open streets, as the monsters patrolled. The Company had never had trouble defeating gnolls before, but had never met them in such numbers. The soldiers and the Companions were able to push through, but at great loss. Niall was pulled down off his new warhorse and his horse was slain. Bella, everyone’s favorite carter, was slain. The cart and mules were lost, including the stone coffer secured to the cart. Five imperial soldiers, five of the women, and - worse - seven of the children were pulled down by the gnolls’ superior numbers before everyone else was able to pull through to freedom.
