Warrior's Report
Lost in Washington: Part I
Group starts at Fort Eclipse, acquires a boat from Rima to get down to Skullport to gather information about cult group there (which is supporting negative energy rifts). Get dropped off two days out. At one hour out of Skullport, happen upon an outpost where Zyress intimidates guards into not writing a report of their intentions. Also, Rigel’s diplomacy gets some information from them regarding their affiliation to various Pirate Captains (due to Kwarethian’s comments, guards think Rigel is Captain “Moon”). Also found out we should be looking for leads at the Angry Jack bar, which is once noted for the meeting of Captains Blue, Narrow and Stealth.
Once inside the ridiculously wretched and filthy city, we headed for the Angry Jack. We narrowly avoided getting puked on repeatedly. Spoke with Barkeep there and bought him an ale. Once again to Kwarth, the bar think that Rigel is “mr. moon.” Found out there’s a man who would hire us as “mercenary” types. We wait to meet him until sundown. We send the Halflings down first from the upstairs Inn area, then the dwarf and Kwarethian. Then, when Zyress comes down the stairs into view, the man in question bolts for the door in fear. At this time also, an orc grabbed Ozzy and slammed him into the bar, demanding his money. Kwarethian joined the grapple, trying to break up the situation. Zyress lets Rigel, who is further up the stairs, that our information man had bolted. She waits there and lets Rigel follow the man. Ozzy escaped the pin and cowered behind Kwarethian, claiming ignorance on the owed money. Rigel makes it down the stairs and Leo joins Ozzy behind the orc. The orc punches Kwarethian in the chest and starts screaming in orcish that Ozzy had stolen his hit job from his previous visit to the city. Kwarethian says, “Ozzy not one eye!!!” and doesn’t understand the orcish. To quell the issues, Kwarethian offers the orc a drink, who agrees. Zyress goes ethereal and exits the wall from the stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of the running man. She also sends Ashe, her owl, to follow him high above the city. Rigel gets outside and doesn’t see the man; therefore, he sends his psi crystal one way and he runs the other direction. Kwarethian’s discussion about evil One Eyes and good pointy ears results in an infuriated orc, who proceeds to start a huge fight (there being roughly 12 orcs in the bar). The Halflings quickly escape outside and explain to Zyress and Rigel that there is a huge fight ensuing inside. Ashe sees the man running into a warehouse several blocks away. Meanwhile, Kwarethian and Krieger are ejected from the bar into the street. We all give chase towards the warehouse. We lose exactly where he went, but split up to cover both exits. We bash in each entrance which sets off various traps and a loud alarm. The groups were Krieger with Leo and Ozzy, then Kwarethian with Zyress and Rigel. Inside there were lizard men and a single caster in each room (roughly). They were hiding behind crates and using cross bows. Kwarethian eventually dropped from strength drain poison, but after we had mostly cleaned out the room (the Zyress group). In the other room, there were still a few enemies left. Rigel shouted telepathically to retreat and meet behind the Angry Jack, but realized there were too many enemies and Kwarethian would probably die in the escape attempt, so therefore plane shifted Zyress, himself and Kwarethian to Celestia. The other group was not so fortunate. Ozzy fell but was regenerated by Leo at the last second and managed to sleep on a rooftop. Leo managed to escape the town walls that night, followed by Ashe, and Krieger’s night at the Inn was disturbed by orcs who chased him all over town in his skivvies until he ended up in the cesspool off the docks. Next morning found him sick and naked. Finally all were able to get out of town. After many attempts to plane shift back to the continent, Rigel finally landed us on the Halfling Ranger Road. That group walked back to Fort Eclipse, then Arcadius got us another boat down south. Rigel was using his telepathy to communicate with the other half of our group. We all reunited and decided to disguise ourselves before going back into the city. Kwarethian went into town and “purchased” clothing from bums and got two prostitutes to accompany our group through town. We realized we could gain information using Zyress’ ethereal ability regarding the contents of the warehouse. Inside some crates there we learned about dark energy weapons which looked similar to the creatures we had fought previously in the forest. When we decided to buy a shanty adjoining the warehouse, the inhabitants prepared to fight us. Rigel tried to bluff them that we were House Inspectors. They didn’t believe him, so he offered to buy the house for 3 gold. The owner accepted and took off with his gold. There was a knock at the door. (Zyress had just previously left ethereal). One of the prostitutes was requested to check the door; she was spoken to in whispered tones. She said, “Ok… how much…. “ and then left, telling us she’d be back. Then eventually another knock comes to the door and Ozzy tells his prostitute to answer the door. She says, “Who am I?” and he replies, “Belinda, our naughty Maid.” She invites in the boy who proceeds to tell us that for a price, he’ll get us out of here safely for a price. His words are, “I don’t know who you pissed off but you have about ten minutes before the whole city comes down on this place.” So Rigel says, “Why would we need a safe way out? Why should we pay you?” The boy turns to go, and Ozzy says, “Wait! Wait!” Kwarethian says he wants to be safe, so starts pulling out random money from his pockets, handing money to the boy until Ozzy tells him to stop at $200 gold. Rigel says “we’ll give you a hundred now, and hundred later,” but is too late since the money was already handed. The boy pockets the money and says, “Follow me.” In the meantime, Zyress has returned from scoping out the warehouse, where she saw the man who ran from her looking at a crystal ball full of flipping images, two of which are her own and Rurik’s. She rejoins the group by scaling down the wall with a rope. Rigel keeps trying to ask the boy what his name is and why we should trust him. We all are trying to sense his motive, which seems mostly genuine. The party is led to a boat with a one eyed man, and taken out to sea. The old man also seems genuine. He explains how he’s actually one of the Captains who made up the council of the city, Captain Darrow, and that he’s been edged out of power by the cult. He shares our interest in getting them out of the city. The cult is also responsible for killing 9 of the other Council pirates, 3 of which were Blue, Narrow and Stealth. He wants to begin a mutually beneficial treaty of getting rid of the cult members and gaining his own power in Skullport (and also offing the other 2 pirate captains). Rigel communicates with Lord Lucason regarding his capability to make an accord with said Captain. He takes the boat up the coast to his manor house, which is very nice and well kept. Eventually the group agrees with the accord but first the Warriors are ordered to destroy the cult stronghold (a tainted building in the poorest part of town). We traveled to the building, and as we entered the front door, set off a trap which enveloped them all in magical darkness. Battle ensued with negative energy fundamentals, constructs created with negative energy. Nobody could see except for Rigel who used his true seeing to pierce the darkness. Rigel’s psi crystal began directing Kwarethian around the room using the same power. Leo aided the companions with his powers by offering them blind fight abilities. We slowly gained the upper hand but noticed a strange moaning/screaming getting louder and louder from a pit in the center of the room. When almost all the fundamentals were destroyed, a huge shadowy figure emerged from the pit. The screaming became distracting, and many people were re-bolstered with Leo’s powers. After a fearsome battle which included Kwarethian healing the shadowy figure (via the psi crystal’s direction), the party descended into the pit. At this time, the party was joined by Rurik with help from Seamus’ teleport spell. We came upon a room with three doors, and one double door. We bashed in the double door to find an icy hallway with many stalagmites and stalactites. Ozzy used his whip to break down the perilous-looking stalactites, but suddenly an ice elemental appeared and separated his head from his shoulders. After defeating the ice elemental, the party found the negative energy portal guarded by four red-robed cultists. They defeated the cultists and Leo was able to re-order the universe at the portal to its natural order. The other three hallways were little more than living quarters and work rooms for creating the fundamentals. Then the party returned to Capn Darrow and celebrated their brief success with rest and recooperation. Seamus returned with a large new warrior to aid the casue, high five the crew, collect the remains of their fallen friend ozzy and bring Rurik back to man the forge and run the fort. The group instructed the fine capn’ to guard the formerly haunted house, and requested anti-toxin their young back alley escort in the morning back to the warehouse to finish off their current task.
The next morning the party is escorted through the back alleys of skull port, to the warehouse. As we march down the end of the alley, Townspeople scurry in fear. The party buffs themselves and Scout tells Kwarethian to turn off the traps and alarms. Smash bashed down the door, revealing four gnolls in the midst of dice. The party downed four lizard men, three gnolls, and befriended another. Rigel then commanded the befriended gnoll to take us to his leader. The gnoll headed down the hall, taking a left and entering into the dock area. On a ledge above the party were seven lizardmen and two orcs, including one lizard which appeared to be less heavily clad and, as it turned out, a shaman-type lizardman. The other six lizardmen were armed with crossbows and spears. Mountain Smasher, newly nicknamed hammer, climbed up the wall to land infront of and engage a group of five lizard men. Meanwhile, Scout and Kwarethian charged up the ramp to engage the shaman, one lizard, and two orcs. Kreger was ambushed by two rogues on the lower level, but he was able to dispatch them throughout the fight.
The companions were clearly more potent than the mercenaries, and the shaman fled to the upstairs level, and returned followed by the cultist we had spotted earlier in the Angry Jack. With the majority of the lizardmen dead, the companions (minus Kreger, who was at this point still distracted by the three human rogues) converged on the shaman and cultist. The shaman, after being flame struck and wreathed in electricity, was the first to fall. Scout was then facing the cultist toe to toe, and the cultist was turning out to be a formidable opponent. Realizing this, Kwarethian cast a spell upon himself and grew to twice his normal height. Between Kwarethian, Scout and Hammer, the cultist was easily outmatched. Careful not to kill him, under Rigel’s suggestion, they knocked him unconscious and stabilized the bleeding. Rigel then proceeded to use his Psychic powers to begin a mental interrogation on the Cultist.
Interrogation reveals:
He works for an organization that is a bunch of scholars that are attempting to use the rifts for their own means to control countries with fear and terror. There are two more negative energy rifts they have been studying. One is a natural one north of skull port south of the fort in the wild. The other is an unnatural one in necropolis they have created with scholars there. The necropolis scholas are building the fundamentals. There are twelve remaining fundamentals out in the wild. Ten in position around the natural rift, and four in the personal gurad of the cultists. The organization was based here in the wharehouse. The warehouse were to facilitate the trade with necropolis. There are eight more. Four were in the haunted in the house, the four junior ones. Two are helping study the natural one. One is facilitating trade with necropolis, and one is aloof, powerful, and his location is not known. The crystal ball was a device made for terrorist organization in order to keep an eye for known targets, and enemies. Built by a someone from a necropolis. It is a command word and mental picture to add an image or threat. Inform and show underlings who to kill, watch out for. The contact in the necropolis is in skull port right now, a scholar working here, with ties. He is not a member of the terrorist cell. His name is Zerest (Rigel gains a picture but has never met nor seen the man).
After the interrogation we handed the prisoner over to Darrow, who promptly proceeded to conduct a swift trial resulting in a guilty verdict of intentional indirect murder. The rogue promptly walked the plank leading to a bloody, wet, sharky death.
As we do more reconnaissance on the other two captains, we find out that Captain Deckard has a fleet of three ships. He s a traditional smash and grab pirate. Kills everyone on board unless he wants them for his own amusement. Dip the poor sot in the water to “She’s hot and young.” He is ruthless and a hell of a good time at a party.” “His crews are very loyal, and he likes being out on the water, and spends very little time on the water.” The crews time on land blows their money on a good time. Deckard sells his goods to any middle man he can find.
Captain Lexton is as opposite as you can get. He is known for having a private island south, well manned. His ships patrol it very well. He has a fleet of four. He is older and always has one ship pirating at all times. He seldomly will kill the crew. They goal is usually the goods but does not exclude the women. He does not go by cap’n but king, and his first name is a duke.
Darrow is known for being just but ruthless. He has not traded in slaves. He runs the strongest military group in the city. He men are well trained. He is best suited to rule, but will do so with an iron fist. He probably has the biggest, strongest organization. Darrow has killed whole crews for fighting instead of giving up their goods.