H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 12 Notes (Past the Pasternaks)
Players: Flamagio (Reeves) (elf 3) + Vince (human 1) Arthur (Punz) Ronby (Duress) + Unit-757 (robot 1) Stelle (Kimani) + Baguette (elf 1)
Starting Date: Summer 25, 6023
Initial actions and preparation
Ronby informed Flamagio that they had some new technology that the Tower at Sedgemarl might be interested in. Flamagio agreed, but didn't want to deliver it himself. Eclair and Sylvio, Flamagio's Companion and hired mercenary respectively, decided that they would walk the bots over to the Tower and come back to deliver the money back to Ronby.
[The players didn't want to adventure that way this session, so it was easiest to just send a couple of NPCs to do it instead. Hopefully Eclair doesn't get mugged again on the way to the Tower.]
Flamagio, Arthur and Stelle were all pretty eager to head back into the cave system to further investigate the Cult of Bellerophon they had encountered recently, and Ronby was happy to go along to see what the fuss was about. The party headed out to Quillbury, Arthur stopping in at the Bloody Ditch to meet "Harisko" and buy some poison from the thief-king. Arthur purchased some 10-step poison for 50 coins, declining the offer to buy rat poison or "sleepytime poison."
The party left the city heading west towards Pasternak Farm. They left their mules at the farm for safekeeping and walked out towards the pond and the rocky outcropping. At the pond, they saw that there were fresh dragmarks going further out to the Sea of Grass as well as some new and exciting bloodstains that hadn't been there before. All the PCs lit a lantern (a first!) and headed down the tunnels into the caves.
Into the Caves
Their first setback was at the very first T intersection. Ghouls were waiting around both corners, waiting for anyone coming down the tunnels. They jumped the party and paralyzed Arthur, but they were ultimately killed under the weight of the party's spears. Ronby attempted to entreat their god (Aluminum Goerge) to drive these ghouls away into the depths, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
[I later came to realize that Duress was likely trying to "turn undead." Knave 2e doesn't have a concept of doing that and its a rare action at my table even in systems that do have it, so I didn't understand what they wanted in the moment. I think I'd have ruled more favorably if I did understand, this was just a communication failure on my part.]
The party headed south to start filling in the question marks on their map. They peeked in the door that they'd heard Dwarven mutterings at before and found a ghoul den, complete with cots and a marble idol of Bellerophon. They also saw a doggy door in the wall sized for one of the Cave Dogs they fought last excursion down here, a fact that made them a bit trepidatious about exploring further. Ronby found some "meat rations" in one of the cots and immediately ate it after their luck with the troll meat last adventure. This meat did not confer any bonus to them, but it did make them feel a bit sick.
The party took a quick look in the neighboring doors and saw two Maneater Vines, similar to the one they had seen last time. They still didn't want to interact with a plant that had a pitcher larger than a human and independently-moving vines, so they moved on towards the north towards where they had met Harold the Thief previously.
Eileen and the Circlebrook Exotic Fishing Club
The party entered the room with the piranhas and the pond and was surprised to find that it was inhabited. They found 4 humans dressed in floppy fishing hats and clutching fly rods claiming to be the "Circlebrook Exotic Fishing Club." The club explained that they used a secret ritual to teleport themselves to "adventurous" fishing holes, and that they would teleport back to Circlebrook when they caught a big enough fish.
Eileen, the apparent leader of the club, explained that they were here looking for a particular mythic piranha named "Big Toothy." She cast her line out in demonstration and quickly got a fish on the line, to everyone's surprise it was Big Toothy himself! The club cheered and exclaimed in glee and took down details about the fish. Eileen eventually released the fish back in the pond and the club teleported out of the dungeon with a fading chant of "Reel Big Fish."
The party collectively tried to figure out what the hell just happened. Eileen had mentioned that anyone could join the club so long as they bought a magic fishing line, a magic fishing hat, and a Reel Big Fish tall tale to share. The party chalked it up as a bizarre mystery to examine later and kept exploring deeper into the dungeon.
Digging Deeper
The party headed back to the old cult campsite they had visited last excursion to see if they could find any clues. The campsite had been cleaned up and cleared out (no more elfskin tents, no more troglodyte prisoners), but a message had been left etched onto the wall in spiky Dwarven runes.
Praise Bellerophon, may you last forever
Operations cleaned up here, locals are wise.
Went back to port, meet us at the spot.
The party investigated further beyond to see if they could get a clue how the cult was travelling through the tunnels. They found themselves facing a strange hunting party of some kind: a band of troglodytes armed with spears following the commands of a haughty elven noble. The elf called the party "surface interlopers" and demanded they pay deference, which started a fight.
Flamagio cast his Concealing Fume spell to create a cloud of smoke to block line of sight while Ronby cast Multiply Stone to create a waist-high barrier in the doorway. Arthur cast Sense Life and tried to fire an arrow tipped with 10-step poison at the elf through the smoke, but missed. The elf sprinted off away from the party as they fought the trogs, breaking the distance limit of the lifesense.
Once the trogs were dispatched, the party hurried after the elf to try and follow him but found themselves stuck at a portcullis in a room full of lush, cultivated surface plants. They harvested some of the plants (6x hawkweed, 3x mandrake, 5x moonwort) and attempted to open the portcullis a few times but were ultimately unsuccessful.
[I love Herbalist's Primer for giving me a list of real-world plants and their possible magic effects. Players almost literally never make use of the plants but they will someday (I hope).]
Arthur used the last of his lifesense spell to see that there was another creature south of them through the wall so the party looped around to the south to see what it was. They walked past the piranha pond into the room where they met Harold, finding it now to be filled with newly growing mushrooms (soapbar bolete). They found a secret door by virtue of the fungi not growing along a certain section of wall. The PCs walked through, finding strange traps locking starving ghouls to the floor.
[Similarly, I use Fungi of the Far Realms for mushrooms.]
The party carefully walked past the ghouls, reaching the room that Arthur had seen the other creature before. They cautiously approached and called out in Orcish, surprisingly hearing a response back in the same language. The room was carefully barricaded to prevent easy access from the single entrance. The inhabitant identified themselves as "Adam," claiming to be a human warlock of the dwarven god of vaults and secrets, Domotor. After some paranoid conversing, the party traded 5 of the "meat rations" they had found earlier to Adam in exchange for 3 scrolls of Portcullis to Portobello, a powerful spell Adam had access to through Domotor.
The party let Adam know that he didn't have to live in a dungeon and told him that Quillbury was right there at the surface. Adam took a liking to this idea.
The PCs packed up and headed out, confident that their new knowledge of the cult was sufficient to explain what was going on to the Tower at Sedgemarl.
XP: 235 per share, 470 per PC coins: 89 per share, 178 per PC
