Infernal Pact

H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 6 Notes (Duergar Territory)

In Attendance:

Starting Date: Summer 11, 6023

Arthur, Gundur and Zavos joined Flamagio and Vincent at the Underworld Observatory after Flamagio informed Zavos that he had a potential lead on some duergar that could break his curse.

The party ate a meal in the Observatory, Flamagio and Vincent explaining what the place was and what had happened to the 3 newcomers. Once finished, the party prepared to leave through the book-lined tunnel in the library. Flamagio lit his lantern and Arthur cast Liquid Light on his bottle of water to turn it into a lantern.

The party headed downwards to reach the "STREET ENTRANCE" they had found before, passing the anti-elf graffiti written in Dwarven they had seen last time. They pressed onwards at Flamagio's insistence, finding themselves at an indoor hedge maze covered in the webs of giant spiders. The maze itself looked to be easy and more like a theme park attraction than anything else, but the party could hear a burbling water noise from within and wanted to see what it was.

The PCs carefully crept through the hedge, worried about attracting the attention of whatever giant spider made webs that big. They eventually made it to the center to find that the burbling noise was an overflowing fountain with slightly glowing water. Flamagio, Zavos and Arthur all drank from the fountain, finding that it cured their Wounds and tasted great. Gundur found some dwarven runes inscribed into the base of the fountain and determined them to be control runes -- the fountain could also spout cola, beer, blood, or regular water in addition to healing water. Gundur spent some time cycling the fountain after Arthur secured a bottle full of healing water.

The party left the hedge going north, again walking cautiously to not encounter the spider. They heard dwarven voices up ahead of them through the next door, prompting Arthur to toss his potentially illegally harvested healing water back into the hedge maze and Flamagio and Zavos to hide their ears with their hoods. 8 duergar entered the room, heavily armed (rolled a 10 on reaction check - Share info with the PCs, overall friendly).

The duergar approached, the leader curiously asking Gundur where the rest of his travelling companions (meaning: other dwarves) were. Gundur explained that he was traveling to the nearby duergar outpost on orders of "Commander Zax" and that he was missing his other dwarven companions because the outpost he came from was low on troops. The duergar eventually bought this story and joined the party, leading them further north across a massive makeshift bridge onto a new freestanding tower structure. They passed an imposing gate armed with ballista and down a hole into an enclosed ladder landing. Flamagio, Vincent and Arthur were led away to be held in prisoner holding while the dwarves (and Zavos) continued onwards towards the duergar outpost.

Gundur and Zavos were taken deeper down another ladder onto a massive underground street lit by pale lanterns of ghostly-blue fire. The duergar outpost they had come to visit was inside the ruins of an old dwarven imperial bank, the duergar had fortified it and turned it into a stronghold.

After getting directions from some of the duergar inside, they headed deeper towards the old bank vault. It had been turned into a temple to Domotor, the dwarven God of Vaults. They passed by several pentagrams carved into the floors, a few of which held devils in thrall. Gundur followed the directions he'd been given all the way into the very depths of the vault, where he saw 2 duergar high priests binding a Terror Devil in a pentagram surrounded by bars of gold. One of the priests agreed to break Zavos's curse after hearing Gundur's story about a "Commander Zax" wanting the cursed ring after his "foolhardy new slave" stole it. The priest removed the cursed ring from Zavos, causing the diminutive elf to immediately regain the lost 4' of height he had lost while wearing the ring. The priest smiled and beckoned forth duergar guards, stating that there was no "Commander Zax" and that the two intruders were to be imprisoned at once.

Meanwhile, back at the other duergar prison cells, Flamagio, Vincent and Arthur were trying to figure out how to make their own escape. Their friends had been gone a half hour at this point and they figured that they were never coming back. The other prisoners in the cell with them (3 emaciated humans and a gaunt elf) were also beginning to make them nervous, especially the elf who was loudly crying about how he recognized Flamagio as another elf.

Aside: I consider metagaming to be totally OK at my table, with the rationale that it's impossible for me as a referee to accurately judge the difference between what a player would know and what a character would know in the moment. While Flamagio and Arthur the characters wouldn't know their friends were captured, I figure despair and the feel of chains on their wrists would cause the characters to eventually try to break out on their own, metagaming or not. The fact that Reeves and Punz chose to act now at this point when their characters had only been imprisoned for thirty minutes was just a time saver in my mind.

Arthur chose this moment to stage a fight to get the guard into their cell. He faked a swing at the elf prisoner, then sucker punched Flamagio. The two began rough housing until the guard opened the cell door, tossing a flash bang into the room. Arthur dove onto the flash bang but wasn't able to sufficiently block the blast as it blinded Flamagio and himself.

Vincent shoved the guard out of the way and ran for their gear in the room outside, grabbing Flamagio's Chaos Tome as he did so. He cast Inscrutable Water Mouth, a spell that caused the target to immediately begin drowning as water poured forth from their mouth and filled their lungs. The duergar burbled in anger and terror and tried to stab Vincent with his knife, getting in a couple of good stabs. Vincent grabbed his trusty shovel from the table and smashed it over the duergar's head, destroying the shovel and killing the duergar instantly (mechanically: Knave 2e allows you to destroy a weapon as you deal damage with it to deal double damage. This is in addition to the weapon breaking if you roll a 1 on an attack roll). Vincent quickly grabbed a chair and shoved it under the door, just in case the duergar outside had heard the commotion.

Flamagio, Vincent and Arthur only knew that they were under the bridge complex they had come in on. Arthur cast Sense Life from his Tome of Light and confirmed that there were 3 duergar outside their room and a bunch of moss growing on some surface 40' above them. Flamagio had a spell that could let them escape through the rock itself, but they didn't know where it would leave them nor exactly how it would work.

Back at the duergar bank stronghold, Gundur and Zavos had been taken into the old loan offices and chained to separate desks. As soon as the guards left their cells, both began searching the desks, hoping that something was still left over. Zavos found some incredibly old vodka and some glass shards, and Gundur found an old pen nib, a pair of scissors, and an ink bottle. Gundur tried to picklock his manacles with the pen nib and the scissors, failing miserably.

After a lot more ideas back and forth about how to slip their bonds, Gundur eventually called out to the guard, offering to bribe him 900 coins to free them. There was quite a bit of haggling back and forth, but the guard did agree to let them back out onto the street (mechanically: an 11 on the reaction roll for the guard, the PCs were just surface nobodies that probably wouldn't be missed, and 900 coins is a lot of money). The guard freed them and took them through the back offices of the bank back to the street and left them there. Gundur and Zavos fled back up the ladder they came down, towards Flamagio, Arthur and Vincent.

After some quick lies to the duergard guards outside and a minor kerfuffle regarding the blocked prison door, the PCs were all gathered once more. Flamagio cast his tunnel spell: Unspeakable Mending Path. This created a self-sealing tunnel through the rock wall, the tunnel beginning to close right after the spell finished casting. The party hurried through, dragging the human and elf prisoners behind them.

The party came out of the tunnel on the edge of the free standing tower below the bridge they had crossed to get here. Arthur and Vincent quickly began climbing the wall with their pitons, getting to the top of the bridge just as the alarms begin to sound. The party fled across the bridge at top speed, hoping to outrun the ballista on the walls. Each of the ballista fired once during their escape. One hit Flamagio, draining all of his HP and dealing him 7 Wounds (causing him to drop quite a few items) and the other killed one of the human prisoners.

The surface dwellers continued running until they reached the end of the bridge, the sounds of duergar shouts quick behind them. They ran through the rooms before the hedge maze, reaching it just as they heard the duergar finish crossing the bridge. Flamagio grabbed Arthur's forgotten bottle of healing water from the hedge and chugged it, healing his Wounds. They ran through the hedge maze, caught sight of a ghoul at the fountain, and chose to keep running past them. They ran through the "STREET ENTRANCE DOORS" and indeed, did not stop running until they had gotten back to the library room at the Underworld Observatory. This is when they finally stopped hearing the duergar behind them, and the party slumped to the ground in exhaustion and relief.

Map that Punz drew during session:

Infernal Pact

#HaY Infinite #Session Recap