Episode 9 "Blood in the Dark"

Session #25: 12/15/2019

 17th of Faluri 2350 of the 5th Age

Recap

 * The session began as the party gathered in Vendrin's guest quarters at the villa of Sea King Ovishah. Vendrin cast Tiny Hut and the group swapped information gathered during their dinner with the oily aarokocra.
 * They resolved that they would wait until everybody in the villa had gone to sleep and then sneak down to the cave warehouses, hoping to discover the dungeons referenced in the papers Vendrin found in Ovishah's desk.
 * The party took 3 hours to rest and then set out, quietly creeping through the abandoned halls. They were approached by a servant but were able to talk their way past him.
 * Traveling down the hill to the docks, they found three major openings. The mouths of the caves opened wide into massive caverns filled to the brim with crates stacked in some ineffable pattern. They crept into the smallest of the caves first and began digging through the boxes, finding mostly normal trade goods; grain, silks, fruits, and the like.
 * After exploring for a time, the guards became alerted to the party's presence. They were able to distract them for some time but the massive Iron Golem aiding the guardsmen was able to spy Lio despite her Dust of Disappearance.
 * The battle was quick and the Good Samaritans won the day, managing to force two of the guardsmen to surrender.
 * Convinced that Ovishah was up to something horrific, the party forced the guardsmen to talk. Thokk crumpled the body of one of them to frighten the other. With the guard's help, the party found a hidden elevator leading down to lower caverns.
 * The party decided to let the guards go with their lives.
 * The party traveled into the lower caverns and found more caves, these carved and tooled into utilitarian rooms. In these stores, the party found cursed objects, weapons, and drugs. Most interestingly, these caverns were better guarded. A strange misshapen monster, a medusa, and a beholder all floated in separate rooms, waiting idly for intruders.
 * Each of the monsters had a small gem on their neck; a glowing ruby set into a copper casing. These seemed to interfere with the monster's cognitive abilities.
 * The party was able to sneak past these monsters and found yet another hidden elevator, this one leading hundreds of feet down into a pitch-black cave system.
 * Thokk scouted out the area firsts and then called for the party to join him.
 * To the left of the elevator, they found a vault door. To the right, a small prison with three doors and strange noises emanating from each of them. And straight down the hall, they found a simple wooden door.
 * The party decided that whatever was behind the vault certainly merited their investigation. Zeevah used Etherealness and flew through the door, finding a massive hoard of gold and a ship waiting in front of a portal showing clear skies and open seas.
 * While Zeevah explored the vault, the rest of the party investigated the prison doors. Behind the first, they saw an armored man peering at them from behind a visored helmet with two eyes of burning red.
 * As Lio moved to investigate the second door, Kandra peered into the third.
 * Behind the third door, Kandra found the still-living but severed head of an ancient red dragon named Rathirizak the Undying. Rathirizak desired death above all else and promised Kandra a gem of unrivaled value in exchange for her aid.
 * Thokk took Kandra aside and warned her that Rathirizak was a legend in his kingdom and may well be responsible for the ruined landscape of his home, having been the site of a massive battle during the Thousand Year War.
 * Kandra decided the promise of the gem was worth it and agreed to the dragon's request, still attempting to show respect to the dangerous creature. Rathirizak opened his mouth and showed Kandra the gem, stuck into the base of his skull at the back of his throat. Kandra climbed into his mouth and yanked it out. The dragon turned to ash around her, whispering his pleasure at the event.
 * Meanwhile, Liosynth was speaking to the creature in the second cell. This being, which Lio confirmed to be a celestial, turned out to be a Couatl named Eku. Eku had traveled to Tik'Covir in search of a mate, but she had been slain by Ovishah before Eku could arrive and he was then captured.
 * Eku confirmed that Ovishah was working with Zarath and believed that Eku knew something about Vecna's enemies.
 * As the party spoke with the prisoners and ignored the Death Knight, Zeevah floated into the massive cavern past the wooden door and discovered, to her absolute horror, that there was a standing army of THOUSANDS of undead.
 * As the party continued their investigation, Vendrin suddenly felt searing pain as a sword was shoved through his chest. He cried out, alerting the party to the attack.
 * Thokk was dismayed to find that his brother, Eartaker, had escaped the ship and followed them down into the caverns.
 * The battle began as Eartaker and Thokk dueled, but there was a caster somewhere aiding the evil orc. This caster was revealed to be a vampire named Zalfan.
 * As the battle occured, Zeevah discovered the vampire's coffin in the ship behind the vault door. She returned to physical form and warned the party that there was a vampire around. She then decided she would destroy the vampire's resting place and lit the ship on fire, letting the coffin burn.
 * As the battle carried on, Kandra took to interrogating the vampire as they battled, realizing that Zalfan was the name of a vampire related to Vanthipur, the creature who killed Harkel and who her alternate self had been hunting. She tricked Zalfan into admitting he was not the Tongue of Vanthipur, the only individual who knows where Vanthipur is.
 * As the battle wore on, Ovishah joined the fray, attempting to aid his evil companions in killing the meddlesome heroes, but quickly found himself on the losing side of the battle. As Vendrin used his Fire Elemental to burn him, he saw that Ovishah's feathers and skin were sloughing off, revealing a skeletal appearance beneath, confirming that he was indeed a servant of undeath.
 * Though Zalfan was able to severely injure Lio, drinking much of her blood, he was losing and decided to flee, but after discovering that Zeevah had burned his resting place, he fled up the elevator shaft and into the night.
 * Thokk killed his brother, flattening his skull with Vihar-Agyar, and the party was able to force Ovishah to surrender.
 * Ovishah confirmed that the army behind the door was only one of many positioned strategically throughout the world in preparation for Zarath's assault on the world of the living.
 * The party looted Ovishah's vault, opting not to disarm the bomb trap but using Potions of Gaseous form to float in and back out.
 * The party returned to the surface with Ovishah after using the bomb to collapse the cavern on top of the undead army. They discovered that dawn had come while they were exploring.
 * Ovishah asked what was to become of him and Vendrin killed him there on the dock, in plain view of the dockworkers waking to begin their morning routines.
 * Thokk took his brothers corpse and found Rabbit, the cleric and paid him to raise Eartaker.
 * Meanwhile, Kandra and Zeevah traveled back up into Ovishah's villa and ransacked his office, trying to find any information they could. They discovered that the Tongue of Vanthipur seemed to be Dorethau, the vampire they had let go in Elberneth.
 * Thokk had his brother raised on the ship and immediately BROKE HIS BACK. Paralyzing the evil half-orc so that he could do no more evil. His older brother, Greatforge, however, was furious. Warning Thokk not to tread down a path of extremes, for it would make him no different from Eartaker.
 * Returning to the ship, Liosynth used her Speaking Stone to contact Akir Atharis and inform him of the situation. Akir congratulated her on getting to the heart of the situation and promised to send a team to make sure the undead had been buried well enough.
 * Thinking on his brother's words, Thokk decided to heal Eartaker's back using a Potion of Superior Healing. Eartaker spoke no words to his brother but looked at him with fear for the first time.
 * The group returned to their ship, feeling unsure of the world after such a brutal adventure. They looked toward the future and the journey into Gramt to Thokk's home isle, thinking on the many battles waiting for them there and beyond.