Session 12: The Sewers of Horizon's Aerie

General Summary

I. The Dojo at Dawn

The Claw arrives at Jackstraw's dojo to find a grisly scene: blood spilt across the training floor, damaged gear, an abandoned blade, and no bodies. Jackstraw produces drawings of four missing students — two kobolds, a nezumi, and a tortle — and laments that he has no idea what happened. Nyxek questions him thoroughly and gets incompetence and more questions in return.

The rest of the Claw search the room. It is Tad who cracks the case, employing a method of olfactory forensics that involves producing a personal reference sample on the dojo floor, inhaling deeply over it, and announcing to the room: "Ah ha! See, my shit only smells like my cloaca — but the scent that has invaded this dojo is that of the cloacae of the entire capital. The kidnappers came from the sewers! I can track this shit!"

Tad leads the Claw out of the dojo and toward a nearby living area where a sewer entrance large enough for a dragonoid sits. Fresh tracks confirm recent use. They go down.

II. Light and Dark

Darkness blinds Kal and Vutha immediately. Nyxek solves the problem with an act of lateral thinking: he casts light onto one of Vutha's teeth. Vutha can now illuminate the party by opening his mouth and conceal them by closing it. Tad, preferring the dark for his own reasons, requests they hold the light while he scouts ahead invisibly.

Nyxek and Tad move forward while Vutha and Kal wait in the dark. Tad finds two apparent nezumi posted at a junction who sense him despite his invisibility. "You shouldn't be down here," one says. "It's dangerous." The warning repeats when he presses them. Tad checks carefully for this warned danger and detects hostile shadows lurking nearby. He signals back.

III. The First Fight

Nyxek opens fire with a bolt of guiding light catching the closest nezumi. Tad complains about not being able to finish his investigation, then immediately puts two arrows into the second nezumi and kills him. Something squishes in the dark as an ooze — soon identified as an Adult Oblex — glides toward Nyxek and unleashes a burst of disorienting lights. Nyxek and Kal succumb. Vutha and Tad do not.

Vutha opens his mouth, finally able to see his enemies, and rushes forward. He finishes the remaining nezumi with a bite and a swipe. "It's too bad we're not allowed to just eat these guys." He then bites the head off a shadow and immediately regrets it on a sensory level. Kal is briefly captured by the lights but upon realizing they are not pizza, their grip on his mind slips. A shadow moves to drain the life from Nyxek and misses. Tad kills it before a second Oblex rounds the corner near him and tries another display — Tad absorbs it entirely with his Ioun Stone.

The first Oblex assaults Nyxek. Vutha blocks some of the attack but a pseudopod pushes through, waking Nyxek from his daze, and drains from him his most pleasurable memories of Paragon Prophet. Vutha and Kal destroy it. The last Oblex flees. Tad pursues with bow, Nyxek follows with summoned weapons, Vutha gets in range for a parting spit of acid, and Kal ends it with a feat of sewer parkour.

IV. The Kobold Who Wasn't

Beyond the bodies, one of Jackstraw's missing kobolds appears across a small channel — distressed, calling for help, insisting the Claw come closer. Nyxek invokes the Emperor and compels those nearby to speak only truth. It affects only Vutha, who under questioning confusingly mentions having noticed Paragon Prophet when Nyxek brings her around, and Tad's strange meat-looking librarian. The kobold only repeats that the Claw should come closer.

Nyxek and Tad's suspicions sharpen to a point. They're correct. The kobold is connected by a strange slime tether to a large pool further ahead. A hidden Oblex crouches on the path between them. Tad's arrows fly and slay it. The kobold's voice shifts — something larger bleeding through it now, speaking in a register no kobold possesses: "You defy me. But I know you — how you are to be unshelled. And you, dula-dulas — what you were before you ceased to be."

V. The Cistern

A Gibbering Mouther rounds the corner, closing on Tad, its many mouths producing a chorus of discordant voices. Whatever creature is behind the kobold sends magic through its puppet and dominates Vutha's mind: "Eat the other dragonoids." Vutha looks at Kal and Nyxek like snacks.

Nyxek drops Calm Emotions immediately, returning Vutha's mind to him. Nyxek then sends his summoned weapon into the kobold — it wobbles like a shaken sea salp. Vutha leaps at the Gibbering Mouther and releases a double gout of acid breath. Nyxek wonders privately about Vutha's digestive health.

Kal deploys the Broom of Flying and surfs it upside down over the Mouther, drawing sewer water up to extend the reach of his martial arts. It is super effective. From his elevated vantage point Kal spots the source of everything: a massive red Elder Oblex submerged in a pool to the north, still puppeting the kobold through its slime tether. He alerts the party.

Tad puts a final arrow into the Mouther and fires a second into the Elder Oblex. The Elder Oblex responds with telekinesis — Tad's bow tears out of his hands and disappears into the pool.

The session ends there. The Claw stand at the edge of the pool, disarmed at range, staring into dark water at something very old and very full of other people's memories. It still knows exactly what each of them is worth.

VI. Unresolved & Loose Threads

Unresolved — Session 13 Opens Here

• Elder Oblex is damaged, submerged in the pool to the north, Tad's bow in its telekinetic grip.
• Tad is disarmed at range against an aquatic enemy.
• The kobold simulacrum is still active — the tether to the Elder is known but not yet severed.
• The four missing students have not been found. The Fox shelter scene has not occurred.
• The three memory vessels and the sealed Gammoranth crest vessel have not yet been discovered.
• Turtle Power's shell has not yet been found.

Loose Threads