ADVENTURE LOG XXXI
ASSAULT ON DEATHHEAD VAULT
In the deceptively peaceful blue glow of the crescent-shaped cavern, four of the five heroes known as The Flowers of Korvosa were recovering from a series of brutal skirmishes. As Calli and Taylan finished healing the last of the wounds, Byron and Nightingale returned with armfuls of gear worth salvaging from the fallen foes. “Nothing in the holes up there but bedrolls,” Byron confirmed.
They’d just begun discussing the distribution, when they heard a friendly voice call out to them, “Whatcha!”
They turned, momentarily on alert, but quickly relaxed when they saw their missing half-orc waving at them from the other side of the illusionary bridge. Travis pointed at the sign they’d left for him warning him not to try crossing the sixty-foot pit, and shouted, “Little help?”
Byron, still feeling the power of Taylan’s spell, took flight to safely ferry him across. Travis’ eyebrows lifted only a small amount in surprise, and as the pit fighter approached, he held his arms up in the air. Byron turned above him and gripped his arms in a double warrior’s embrace. Their arms flexed with the effort of Byron lifting him off the ground, but their combined strength and discipline made the crossing seem effortless.
Upon their return, Byron immediately kicked his boots off and began lacing into one of the pairs he’d taken from a dead Red Mantis assassin. Calli had just finished getting into another, though with her magic she created a pattern of vined flowers blooming up the sides. Taylan was happy with the boots he already had, and Nightingale possessed the magic to haste himself if needed, so Gale held the spare pair up to Travis, “Saved something nice for you!”
Travis looked around at the strewn bodies of the woman, demon, massive caterpillar-like creature, and the discarded Red Mantis gear that indicated assassins had been there. “Looks like I missed a good time!”
“Don’t worry,” Taylan grinned, “the party’s only just getting started. I’m sure we have a ways to go, yet!”
When Travis heard what the confiscated boots did, he happily joined the others swapping out his own, and Calli tucked the discarded pairs into the group’s Haversac to sell off at a more convenient moment.
They asked what had kept him, but the latecomer just shrugged. “Had a nice chat. All’s good.”
Moving warily around the curve in the crescent-shaped cavern, they were able to more clearly see past the eight stone benches facing a single pulpit, dwarfed against the impressive stone staircase leading up to a double doorway formed by the arched arms of a looming preying mantis. They knew from Guild-master Boule that their task was through those doors. However, a second staircase leading to a pair of less conspicuous stone double doors came into view to the left of the arrangement - only reachable by wading through a thick patch of the eerie blue fungus.
Travis jerked his chin in the direction of the growths. “I hope none of you have been rolling around in that crap. It’s called cytillish, or brain mold, and the derros loved the stuff. Long term direct exposure can cause brain damage. If you’ve got the spores on you, best let Calli do her cleaning trick to get it off again.”
“That’ll be why the sleeping quarters were so elevated in the cave,” Byron observed.
Nightingale chimed in, “I bet it was no trouble at all for that flying woman to get to that door. Would make a decent private room. She’d know if anyone had disrupted her sick garden to mess with anything. I’d like to see what’s being kept in there.”
Everyone agreed, so the two barbarians got to work moving the stone pews to create a raised walkway over the brain-like growths. In handling them, they were able to better appreciate the clever carvings along the legs of the benches. Deceptions of preying mantis’ decapitating enemies, surrounded by leaf work amongst which further mantis were disguised.
They heard nothing on the other side, so between Byron’s crowbar and Nightingale’s acid they broke through the mundane lock. Inside were three large stone vats, each large enough to hold a human, and empty aside from a strange blue residue caked to the inner walls. A cot and a writing desk were added to the center of the room, awkward additions of comfort to what once seemed to have been a strange laboratory. The team spread out to investigate at speed. Byron hunted for secret doors, Calli grabbed the documents off the desk and stuffed them in her bag for Cressida, Nightingale searched the bed, and Travis inspected the vats with alchemical interest. Travis deduced this was where the derros had once brewed their poison that coated their weapons, but it was too old now to be of any use. Calli shared with the others that the documents contained a couple of letters addressed to someone named ‘Cinnibar’, and they wondered if that had been the woman who got away, or the one they killed in the Red Mantis gear. Taylan, who’d been keeping an eye out at the door, asked if there was anything else, and after Nightingale used detect magic to ensure there was nothing they were missing, confirmed they’d picked it clean.
————————————————————
The mantis doors were untrapped and unlocked, so cautiously the group slipped inside. Six stone pillars supported the roof of the T shaped chamber. The walls were decorated with incredibly detailed paintings of immense mantis-like monsters destroying various towns. They were enchanted to constantly evolve, depicting endless scenes of slaughter. The most impressive thing in the room was a towering statue of a four-armed mantis at the far wall.
Travis commented, “This is that bug god those red fucks worship.”
“Achaekek,” Calli nodded, “an assassin god.”
Taylan began searching the wall on the right for the secret door they’d been told to find, but was having no joy until Travis joined him. The half-orc focused for a moment, running green hands behind a painting edge, until he grinned and the wall swung open.
Byron hooked a thumb at the stone doors to the left. “Should we check that out first? Ensure we aren’t leaving anything behind?”
“We need to get to Endrin,” Calli frowned, “there’ll be more fighting ahead, we shouldn’t keep getting distracted.
Nightingale joined Byron, “Endrin wasn’t our only goal, we should have a look.”
“But Endrin was the main goal. And he’s through this passage.” Travis paused, considering, before continuing, “But I understand, you don’t want anything sneaking up on you. But those are double stone doors. They’re either to contain something or keep others out.”
Taylan strolled across to the doors, “It can’t hurt just to take a peek!”
Outvoted, Calli and Travis stayed towards the back as Nightingale and Byron pulled the doors open. It revealed a long corridor with ancient stone sarcophagi along either side. The far end of the hall was too dark to make anything out from where they were.
“That screams trap,” Travis muttered.
“So who wants to go first,” Gale queried.
“We don’t need to go down there!” Calli protested.
Taylan gave her a hopeful smile, “We don’t neeeed to, but there could be something really cool!”
She gave him a stern look, “On the way out, if we still have time and health to do so-”
Byron cut in, “On the way out we’ll be running.”
Nightingale had been peering down the hall, “They’re Shoanti coffins. They’ve got symbols like we got off the pillars.”
Rune cleared her throat, “Miss, if it helps, I’m not detecting any magic or evil from the hall.”
Byron gestured with his head, and Little Focher swooped off down the hall to scout. He returned and reported the end of the hall smelled quite bad, but the sarcophagi were all opened and empty. “It’s really dark at the end, even I couldn’t see anything, so I came back. But weirdly, just for a moment down there, I got really hungry.”
Calli was reminded of the Urgothan temple they’d cleared out under the fake hospital. She couldn’t quite but her finger on it, but thoughts of the plague cult lingered. She shared her concerns with the others. “Let’s not push it any further.”
“Maybe it’s a sort of hunger compulsion, like the one that made you read that wall,” Travis replied to her. “Turning people into ravenous zombies, eating anyone that comes at you.”
“Now I’m thinking we might have to go down there to get rid of whatever it is,” Nightingale placed a hand on the hilt of the rapier at his side.
Before the party had decided, the mystery announced itself. A large creature appeared from out of the darkness. It looked liked an emaciated human with the head of a jackal. His raspy voice hissed out down the hall, “What are you doing here?”
Taylan tilted his head, “Oh! We can talk to it. That makes things easier.”
Travis answered, “What are you doing here?”
The jackal seemed confused, “I live here!”
“Who says?”
“My mistress!”
“Well where is she, then, to collalborate this?!”
The creature repeated Travis’ mistake, “Collalborate? You’re not very well educated, are you?”
“Me? You don’t even know where your mistress is!”
“I don’t care where she is. She told me to stay here. I’m guarding the place.”
“What’re you guarding?” Calli asked casually.
“Where she lives.”
Nightingale joined in, “What’s your mistress’ name?”
“Ahh, you’re not catching me with that one!”
The conversation that followed was a fast-paced back-and-forth in which The Flowers asked questions to try to get information out of the creature, who while happy enough to talk, made it clear he was under a magical restraint preventing him from giving certain information about who he answered to. Neither side got closer to the other, calling out across the ancient stones. Calli was able to ascertain it was a meladaemon, an evil creature with an unnatural aura that made anyone too near very, very hungry. They were only able to get that his mistress was beautiful, and that his name was Vileoth. They asked if he’d be able to leave if his mistress was dead, and he said he would have to check with her manager- Urgotha. Nightingale left to retrieve the woman they’d killed in the previous chamber, wondering what reaction it would elicit. The conversation continued, and Travis accidentally let him know about the secret passage, which the daemon said he’d have to report, and then apologized before blasting the remaining party with horrid wilting.
The spell caught them off-guard, drying out the moisture in their bodies, racking them with pain. Rune vanished, disappearing back to her home plane as she did whenever her damage was too much to deal with. Focker’s familiar Owlet had also taken too much to handle, but it meant he fell lifeless to the stone below. The house drake cried out at his lost friend. The creature’s jackal eyes narrowed, looking over the targets in front of him, and honed in on Taylan’s form as the one closest to death. Vileoth flung his hand out and multiple gleaming darts of magic shot forward and slammed into Taylan. He then ran down the hall towards them at great speed, and sent another blast of bolts at the sorcerer.
Taylan, skin cracked and scorched, felt the strange wave of hunger as the meladaemon got closer, but his ring of sustenance rendered the effect inert. He turned and fled to the far side of the inner chamber and made use of a healing wand.
A short but tricky fight followed. The monster was armed with both magic and infectious claws. The party struggled at first, but managed come together to do enough damage to it that it teleported away. After some panicked healing, and nervously waiting for it to return in ambush, they eventually had to accept yet another foe had escaped. This time, with knowledge of their secret passage. They’d lost the element of surprise and their hidden route. And they’d lost their tiny owl follower.
They wrapped up Owlet’s body in a cloak and gently added the parcel into one of their magical bags to be properly laid to rest when they’d gotten back to the resistance’s base. They gave Focker some words of comfort, and together they traversed the hall to search the living quarters, hoping it had been worth it.
A short set of stairs led up and to the left into a small room containing another stone sarcophagus, more elaborate than the ones in the hall, clearly having been someone of importance to the Shoanti. They recognized some of the symbols they’d seen tattooed on Thousand Bones, and assumed it had been one of their shaman. Out of place in the burial chamber were three large vats of vinegar, giving the air the acrid stench Focher had described.
There was nothing else, and they weren’t sure what the meladaemon had been protecting, until the bard made a noise of sudden understanding. “There’s a strange type of undead,” Calli explained, “that needs to rest in vinegar to exist. I can’t remember exactly, but if that’s what’s happening here, those need to go.” The barbarians got to work while the others stood back, and they dumped the contents away over the floor. There was nothing left to do but return to the hidden passage.
————————————————————
The secret passage exited into a regular corridor. The walls of the ten foot wide hall had been set with polished ivory tiles, each of which bore a circle of softly glowing light. Double doors were across from them, and a single door was further down to their left at the corridor’s end. The path curved away to the right out of sight. Byron listened at the double doors, and heard some faint groans of pain.
Taylan volunteered to investigate inside, as his cloak allowed him to blend as if he was meant to be there.
“Adventuring’s been really great for you!” Calli commented on his newfound bravery.
He beamed, “Oh, I’m having a great time!” before he slipped into the doors, and saw another long corridor. Iron gates lined the right wall, and as he cautiously moved past he saw women inside bearing the marks of torture, much like they had found Gina and the others they’d rescued previously. They didn’t notice him at all, due to his magic cloak. The corridor turned to the left, and he followed it around to see more cells on the right, a single empty cell at the end of the path, and two different sets of double doors to the left. He returned and reported his grim findings.
They discussed the best way to handle the captured women. They couldn’t turn back to escort them to safety before locating Endrin, freeing them risked bringing attention to their intrusion too early. With heavy hearts, they continued exploring. They chose to look first into the single door in the hall where they were, expecting nothing more than storage.
Taylan went in first, alone, to continue his roll as scout. Softly glowing ivory tiles lined the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room, making it seem more clean than the intended use. Four wooden benches faced a low raised platform against the far wall, on which an executioner’s block stood. An intimidating-looking great axe was displayed near it on a sturdy-looking weapon rack. An iron door on the west wall contained a narrow window, the iron slat currently closed. The most concerning thing to Taylan, however, was the emaciated woman stood in the center. She had thorny vines growing from her eyes and fingers that encircled her body in a brutal imitation of a dress, tiny red flowers growing from them flowed like a train behind her. Her very presence made his skin crawl, and he had the feeling a less-experienced adventurer might’ve been overcome with fear at the sight of her.
His cloak gave him no safety as she launched into an attack. She lashed out with her thorny claws, and then her vines raked against his skin. She moved with unnatural speed, the pain was intense as his flesh was shredded, and poison seeped into his veins. His vision faltered briefly, as he felt himself begin to fall unconscious from the severity of the wounds. On his forehead, a kiss-print of the young cleric they’d helped once in a small village flared, and he felt himself pulled back from the cold grip of death - but only just. He knew he’d have a limited window to heal before she or the poison in his blood put him down.
Thinking him downed, she moved past to exit the room and confront the rest of the intruders. Byron, Travis, Focker, and Rune were unable to resist her terrifying aura, and turned to flee in panic. Nightingale was the next closest target, and she struck him with one of her wicked claws.
Taylan, seeing his bigger, stronger friends flee, knew their situation was precarious. He could take the time to heal, but another may fall to her vines in the time it took. He held himself tall, raised two fingers to his forehead, and began the incantation. Raw power gathered visibly, until finally he released it by pointing the fingers directly at the back of the abomination. The beam of white light, so cold it burned, bore into her. The light filled her from inside out, spilling from her mouth and the wounds where her eyes had been, until it disintegrated her completely. He then fell to one knee, clutching at his wounds, but proud of his success.
Calli ran to his side to help heal, Nightingale took one of his health potions and began looting the downed creature, and further down the corridors those fleeing came to their senses. It didn’t take long before Little Focker and Rune returned, abashed.
Thankfully the vined woman had a number of powerful items, including a much needed wand to help cure their injuries.
Byron and Travis found themselves in the in the cage corridor, where the women inside initially shied away from them, but quickly realized they were not of the queen’s contingent. The nearest spoke in a hushed voice, “I recognize you both, you’re with The Flowers, aren’t you?” They could hear the desperate hope in her voice. Word quickly spread that rescue had come, and they lined up gripping the bars, begging for release. After some questioning, they learned the women were menaced by a floating woman’s head trailing organs from it’s neck in the attempt to convert them into more Grey Maidens. They explained they were brought down from within the Longacre building past a cage of guards through the first set of double doors around the corner, and when people were close to breaking they were taken into the second set of double doors to become Maidens, and those who resisted too long were taken to see the Mother of Thorns and never returned.
Byron warned them the way out was dangerous, and they might have to sit tight a bit longer. The duo rejoined the rest of their party and passed on what they’d learned. The description of the floating head triggered the bard’s memory, and Calli explained to the others that it sounded like a penanggalen, a gruesome vampiric creature that needed to soak in vinegar to shrink its organs enough to fit back into its body before daybreak. Suddenly vats in the room the jackal-headed man had been guarding made more sense. They were glad they’d already emptied those.
They revisited the idea of releasing the hostages right away, for if they ran into more of those thorn women or the strange head, they might not live to do it later. All agreed. The group returned to the corridor and began unlocking the cells with the keys Guildmaster Boule had given them. The Flowers gave directions and warned the women about the many dangers - fungus, the fake bridge over deep pit, cloud of poison gas - they would need to avoid on their way out, as the adventurers could not escort them, and where various weapons and armor on fallen foes could be found to arm themselves with on the escape. The women thanked them all for giving them a chance, and rushed off down the secret passage.
Once more left just to themselves, the group cautiously approached to listen at the pairs of double doors across from the iron gates. Behind one were a few shuffling people, and behind the other were many. There was going to be more fighting before it was over. They buffed themselves up, taking time to apply some of the enchanted Shoanti war paint they’d been gifted to their barbarians and their magus. It would make them harder to hit for the next 24 hours. As Calli was applying Byron’s, she remembered the single door within the execution room and reminded the others they hadn’t checked that, yet.
Taylan volunteered to go first again, as he’d been so successful thus far, and they backtracked into the white room. The axe was missing, taken by the escapees. The sorcerer listened at the iron door, but heard nothing. Looking inside revealed a filing room. Two writing desks were pushed up against a wall, and a nearby wooden cabinet held records on everyone who had been executed. They opened one of their bags of holding and dumped the lot of the paperwork inside, knowing Cressida would appreciate the intel.
They returned once more to the caged hall, and had to decide which of the double doors they wanted to enter first, knowing the commotion was likely to bring the other in as reinforcements. Would they rather have the bigger crowd at their front or behind?
Calli suggested they use their scroll of locate creature to know which held Endrin, if any, and go directly to their target. Avoid any extra conflict if possible. She reassured Taylan they’d find another scroll somewhere before heading off to recover his stolen child.
Travis said he would prefer to open every door, even if it meant more fighting, because there could be other hostages to save. She relented to his wisdom, but maintained they should get Endrin out first so as not to lose him in the struggle, and he agreed.
She unrolled the parchment her friend Nif had given her, and read out the words on it. They glowed, and then vanished off the page, and she felt a tugging from within her towards the solitary empty cell at the end of the hall. They got closer, and she looked at them confused as she pointed. “It feels like he should be that way. Perhaps there’s another way down to a different cellar from above?”
“Or there’s a secret door,” Travis answered. He glanced over the wall and shrugged, “but I don’t see anything.”
Byron swapped places with him and ran his fingers along the stone grooves. “There is a door here. You just missed it, mate.” He found a false stone cap that came away to reveal a keyhole, but none of the keys on Boule’s key ring fit.
Nightingale took his turn with the door, angling his blade into the hole and casting acid into it until it had been eaten away enough to be opened with the party’s crowbar.
Crumpled against the corner inside a cramped, dank cell, was an unconscious Marcus Endrin.
They looked at each other in excitement, but Calli held up a hand. “Rune, can you detect any evil from him?”
Her tiny lyrakien focused, then shook her head. “No miss. Nothing evil, or magic, or strange at all about him that I can tell.”
They decided to teleport Endrin back to the resistance immediately. Taylan wouldn’t be able to transport them all together, and only had enough left to go and come back, so he would take only Endrin before returning to help them clear out the rest of the doors. The rest waited quietly in the cramped cell, hoping no Maidens or other evil decided to check on their prisoners before then.
Taylan appeared in the resistance hideout, and called for a cleric. People rushed over to see what the fuss was, and were shocked by what they saw.
“Where did you find him?” one of the bystanders asked.
Taylan, enjoying the roll of hero, confidently explained, “The Death King’s Vault!”
People seemed unsure, and one piped up, “Do you mean the Deathhead Vault?”
“That’s what I said,” he carried on, “We battled through many to find him. We killed assassins, monsters - I - let me tell you a story - I killed the Queen of Thorns! It was quite impressive…”
————————————————————
The Flowers grew anxious waiting for him to return. They feared he’d been off-target in his spell and ended up in the wrong place again. It would mean he couldn’t get back to them at all, and they’d have to carry on without him. Nightingale cast a sending spell and told him to hurry up. Moments later, their missing member reappeared with sandwiches for them all looking very pleased with himself.
“Did you give him to Kroft?” Byron demanded.
“He is safely with the resistance!”
“Cressida. Did she personally take him in?”
“She wasn’t there, but others were!”
“So, no.” Nightingale frowned.
“We can surely trust the people in the safe house,” Calli squeezed Taylan’s arm, “Well done.”
They finalized their pre-fight buffs, made their plan, and readied to go through the doors nearest the end of the corridor, where they had heard the most people. Flinging open the doors, they saw more than they had even expected. The chamber was outfitted with all manner of torture implements: a rack, several cages, a cramped stockade with spiked bars, and smaller tools of torture like thumb screws and iron bonds sitting on shelves. Three pitiful and abused looking women were in a small cage to their left. Upturned carts created makeshift barriers between The Flowers and those within. A caged off area opposite their entrance served as a guard post. Four Grey Maidens were inside, armed with bows, and a single wooden door behind them. Many more Grey Maidens were inside the room itself armed with swords, along with the missing Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm holding a large book, and the Red Mantis armored woman who had escaped from their earlier battle in the crescent cavern, and the jackal-headed man. They were all armed and waiting for The Flowers.
Seeing Zenobia and the woman from earlier together, the Harrow card from Zellara’s reading for Calli came to her mind, and she smiled knowing she had her ghostly mentor’s aid for the battle.
Invisibly, Rune fluttered right into the center of the enemy formation. She was hauling a flask the party had taken from Doctor Davaulus, cumbersome for her form, but she didn’t need to hold on to it long. She wrapped her legs around it to hold it and pried open the lid with her hands. The curse within exploded from the bottle, and washed over everyone within thirty feet. Unfortunately, only two of the Maidens in the guard post and one outside succumbed. Her mission achieved, she rushed back towards the relative safety of her party, shouting to begin.
At her signal, Calli launched into a dirge that would shake those who chose to fight them, and Nightingale unleashed his black tentacles. Inky tendrils wrapped around all the opposing women within, with only the Jackal slipping their grip.
Taylan strode forward and took in a deep breath, channeling his white dragon heritage and exhaling a cone of icy breath into their foes. The biting cold killed many of the Maidens instantly, including the one who had escaped them before.
Byron and Travis rushed in, but had less joy. Travis threw his axe at the Jackal, but missed, and as Byron’s bone claws ripped through the flesh of his knuckles they snagged worse than usual, and he would need a moment before he could properly make a fist.
Still, the fight was well and truly begun, and it was off to a great start. The Flowers, excited by how well the assault on the vault had gone so far, hoped their luck would hold.