Eleventh Adventure:  "Vacation in the Sewer"

When last I wrote, I had been in the process of looking for some big old shack to convert into a safe house.  I found a pretty large one story warehouse that was 30 feet by 60 feet with your typical peaked roof.  It was over in a bad section of town, and reasonably close to one of the city gates.  The place was just a big empty shell with rafters, a set of big doors and one small door.  It would need a lot of work to get into useable shape.  I had Refanij and Kordacc go over my plans and check the building out.  Kordacc said it looked ok, and Refanij came up with plans for the loft area that would be built onto the rafters, in what would ordinarily be considered the attic.  He had plans to put an escape hatch in the roof and Kordacc wanted to have a escape tunnel built into the large chimney I had planned.   

I hired out some masons and carpenters and they went to work converting the old building into something livable.  When its finished it will have a stables, a large common room with kitchen and fireplace, a large laboratory for study of magics, complete with fireplace, 4 small rooms for use as bedrooms or other purposes, and a large loft that opens up over the stables.  The loft area would provide sleeping quarters for those wary of sleeping on the ground level.  Access to the loft would be made by a couple of different ladders. 

In the meantime, while sitting around waiting for the place to get finished, we got hired out  by a local Mage, his name I don't recall, but I remember it being something memorable.  Apparently this old guy was a transmuter, and got his kicks by creating freakish horrors out of regular old everyday horrors.  Well his latest adaptation started out as a troll and got worse.  It apparently had several extra nasty appendages and had escaped from his lab and was running free in the sewers.   The transmuter offered to pay us handsomely to take out his trash for him, so we agreed to do it.  Not everyone seemed interested in running around in a sewer, so it was only myself, Grumble, Mordagin and Kordacc that took the job. 

We met the old bat at his little inner city tower the next morning, and entered the sewers through a hole in his basement floor.  I don't know what the hell this guy was eating, but the place sure smelled like shit.  We soon saw a metal grate that looked like it had had a hole punched in it by a giant.  Our guess was the troll freak.   Kordact led the way, I followed with my bow, behind me came a teeth chattering, torch bearing Mordagin, with Grumble taking up the rear.  My guess was that the dwarf enjoyed watching the mages ass sway from side to side. 

We crawled through a couple of large pipes and walked along a few passageways, when finally we ran into the ass of a really big sewer rat.  It practically filled the passage.  It turned and attacked us, Kardiac laid into it with his axe, while I fired my bow.  Behind it I could see several more of its giant buddies lined up in the passage and fading into darkness.  I decided that we didn't need to become rat food, so I webbed up the passageway, from the first rat's ass all the way into darkness.   Kordacc killed it and then turned to me and asked...

"What the hell did you web them all up for, I wanted to kill them."

"We aren't getting paid to kill rats, and if the troll went this way, there wouldn't be a bunch of rats sitting around." I replied.  Grumble agreed with me, and Mordagin's teeth just continued to chatter.

"Besides" I added, "if you really want to kill them, you can come back and do it later, they're not going anywhere for an hour."

We turned back and found an alternate passageway.  Not long after we heard a bloodcurdling scream.  Easing around the next bend, we caught site of what appeared to be a human limb flying past the entrance to a small room.  This looked like the place.  We popped our heads around a corner and saw a large troll attacking a strange looking man.  I'd never seen one with no arms before, the man that is, the troll had the usual assortment.  Kordac charged the creature's back with his axe, and I let an arrow fly. 

We had caught the beast in mid feast.  He whipped his head around and I blasted him with a color spray.  I guess it stunned him, for Kordacc continued to hew away at the monster without it retaliating.  Then it sprouted all kinds of limbs and stuff and threw a spike into me with a manticore like tail.  Grumble and and Kordacc were both engaging it, when it simply transformed into a pool of water and dropped to the floor.  We looked around nervously, eyes to the floor, I pulled my swords and backed into a corner, Mordagin clutched his torch in fear, his knuckles white as a vampire cheek.   Kordac and Grumpy both cast about looking for the creature to pop up again.   After what seemed like an eternity, but what was probably only a minute or two, it sprang up near the entrance. 

Kardiac immediately attacked, Grumble cast some spell as did Mordagin.  I pulled out a scroll and readied a flaming fists spell.  This time the freak sprouted two displacer beast tentacles and a scorpion's tail.  It slapped away at Kordack and Grumble and I entered the fray with fists a burnin'.  The thing shot out a giant tongue and latched onto Mordagin who was on the other side of the room.  Some phantom dog beast was biting the troll's ass, which I later learned was created from one of Grumble's spells.  We all beat on the troll and Mordagin was able to free himself from the tongue by burning it with the torch.  Soon after it dropped to the floor in a pool of its own ichor.  Deciding that we'd not take chances on it regenerating, I used my flaming hands to burn as much of it as I could while the others dragged it back towards the mages tower. 

We got it back there, and eventually found the senile old fool, who confirmed that we'd in fact killed the correct mutated troll.  He had us drag it out of the sewer and then dissolved its remains in a pool of acid.  He offered us each our 1,000 gp reward.  I asked if he had any magical items he'd rather part with instead, he offered me a magical dagger.  He said it was a plus one dagger, I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and told him..."Old man, I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about."  He just shrugged his shoulders and agreed with me.   I decided that Ref would probably want the thing, so I took it as my reward, and eventually got Reffy to reimburse me for the 1000 gold I'd turned down for it.

We went back to hanging around Rel Mord again and...oh shit, I forgot to mention that I'd figured out that ring riddle.  About a week ago I solved it, it said MOON GATE.   I didn't know much about it, but a couple of local sages were able to inform me that it was supposedly some mystical entrance to some magical land from a long lost fairy tale.  Apparently having to do with the tale of Damascus.  Not being from these parts, I was generally ignorant of the subject.  I learned enough to figure that I somehow held the key to some long lost land of magic that was supposed to reside within the Freat Kingdom, and having nothing better to do while the warehouse was being fixed up, I decided that I'd travel to the Great Kingdom in search of more detailed answers.   Now its a pretty long journey to the Great Kingdom, from Rel Mord, and there are quite a few nasty bastards along the way, so I ordered the rest of the group to act as guards for the journey.  Well all except Bran and his pet half-pork.

We got a bunch of horses and pack animals together, some serious gear that would keep us warm in the winter conditions that existed, and headed out of town.  It was a long cold trek, and we ended up being caught in a blizzard, that forced us to hunker down in our massive tent and wait the storm out.  A couple of days later, we were back on the road.  We ran into some people, but the first sign of trouble came in the form of a large group of orcs. 

We were wandering along minding our own business when we spotted a large group of orcs, 40 or so of them.  They sent out a couple of pigfaced freaks to parley.  I, being the leader of the group, and the only one capable of speaking orcish, went to converse with them.  I was going to offer them a chance to pay us not to kill them, but they beat me to the punch.  The first words out of their leader's mouth was "We paid to kill you, How much you pay us, we don't kill you?"

Fug I thought, then responded, "What?  We sent to kill you!  Who hire you?"

Orcs, "Zach pay us 500 gold, say we get nother 500 we kill you."

Me, "Zach is fugger, he say he pay us to kill you!"

More conversation followed this, but I was able to convince them that Zach was a double crossing dirt bag who had not intention of paying either of us.  We agreed to march to the location where the orcs were to meet Zach to receive payment, in agreement that we'd kill him and split his money.  The rest of the party wasn't too fond of the idea of marching with orcs, but they put up with it, but not without a lot of belly aching, particularly from Kordacc. 

We arrived at the Zach meeting place, but of course he didn't show, so the orcs went of on their marry way, and we proceeded to Jalpa.  Supposedly there was some authority on Damascus residing in Jalpa, going by the name of Cuhltron, who we should look up.   We made it to Jalpa without any further delay and were able to find Cuhltron's home and shop.  Both were empty, and both look like they'd been cleaned by a rabid earth golem.  Fearing that Cuhltron had fallen victim to the devious Zach, we collected most of his books relating to Damascus, and found a place to stay.

I purchased a few underground eyes and ears and put the lookout for both Zach and Cuhltron.  Meanwhile T'Rojan deciphered some of the Damascus material we had grabbed.   I got word that Zach was involved with some thieves guild named the Dark Sharks.   Visions of the Black Deaths danced in my head and myself and Refanij located their lair.  While staking out the Dark Shark lair, a burned out building, we spotted something that made our blood turn to ice in our veins.  Both Ref and I lost our ability to breath for a moment, and asked the gods what evil had we done to deserve such a fate, for walking down the street were Bran, Turok and Bran's two dogs.  We went running for the inn to warn the others, but they must have spotted us and tracked us with the dogs. 

We got to the Inn out of breath and before we could shout out a warning, we saw our arch nemesis coming up the porch.  Ref and I ran up the stairs and jumped out a back window, but the rest of our group had been caught by surprise and were even now being assaulted by Bran's tales of woe.  Knowing that we couldn't leave our friends alone to such a cruel fate, we grudgingly returned to the inn.

The priest of honduras and his dinosaur killing sidekick had apparently tracked Zach to this location.  Now having nothing better to do, we decided that we'd go into the thieve's guild and see if we couldn't flush Zach out and finish the crazy bastard off, or at least find out why the hell he had made our deaths his life mission. 

To make a long story short, we entered the burned out building and found a hidden stair case to an underground compound and ended up in an all out battle with the guild guards.   It was long and bloody, but I felt elated, for at one point both Turok and Bran lay on the floor, appearing to have been killed.  Battle raged on around them, and all of the spellcasters had exhausted their spells and I had to cast a wall of water to protect us from a group of archers.  We finished off all nearby enemies, and then grabbed up our fallen comrades, for I'm afraid to report, both Bran and Turok were both still alive.  

I went ahead to clear the exit, as Mordagin had reported that the door had been closed behind us.  Suspecting an ambush, I climbed up the stairs to the burned out building, and was immediately beset by about four thieves.  I yelled some profanities at them, in hopes of alerting the rest of the party behind me, and shot out the door.  Only one followed me, but the warning had worked, and the rest of the group were not caught by surprise.  They were able to defeat the remaining thieves and escape with the wounded.  I ended up in a foot race through the streets of Jalpa trying to chase down the one thief that had followed me out of the building.  I eventually got tired of chasing him and gave up, he had the speed of the gods on his side.

We went back to the inn, where Fessick had been hanging out, and quickly moved to a new location, in fear of a counter attack.  At this point, Refanij decided that he had no interest in attacking a thieves guild, nor in seeking the Moon Gate and wanted to distance himself from Bran, so he decided to head back to Rel Mord, Fessick longed to return to his homelands, all the way back in the County of Ulek, so he went as well.  T'rojan, after seeing so much bloodshed also decided that he'd had about as much adventuring as he could take, and decided he'd go back home to the loving embrace of his daddy.  I set out to escort my friend Refanij for a days journey out of the city, as the pull of the Moon Gate kept me from heading back for Rel Mord just yet.  Refanij promised to check in on the Warehouse and make sure it was being finished properly before heading back up to the Flinty Hills to see if his people needed assistance with the local Drow problem.

I returned to the city and soon got word that Cuhltron was back and was actively soliciting mercenaries for some journey.