Session 143: Madness at the Museum Played on the 18th of March 2020!
Cedrych Brightbough; Sidhelien Rogue, lvl 6 (Adam B) Eirena Lightshadow; Rjurik Awnshegh Cleric/Warlock, lvl 6 (Depraved Lunatic) Glenn Sturgis; Rjurik Cleric, lvl 5 (Spynx) Savas Al-Hadar; Khinasi Cleric, lvl 5 (Physh) Bronsun; Anuirean Wizard, lvl 1 (James D) We briefed at the Cohort, as is custom. Ostensibly, we were going to Ber Dairas to help a poor, barely literate woman named Sadira investigate the mysterious death of her husband. The reward was paltry, but I had more pressing business in Binsada, so I decided to tag along. The group that had gathered to answer this pathetic plea for help was surprisingly seasoned, and there was only one greenhorn that required babysitting. Eirena, a Rjurik woman that I had travelled with in the past, had undergone some striking changes since we had last met; part of her face was covered with obsidian scales, and her arm looked like it belonged to a black dragon. It was plain to me that she had been corrupted by the blood of Azrai, and that it was starting to manifest physically. I proposed that should the people of Ber Dairas take issue with the devil-woman, as I suspected they would, that she wait outside the city while we conducted our business. A simple enough compromise, and Eirena herself seemed to understand the need for such action. But her husband, a tight-laced Khinasi cleric named Savas was hearing none of it. Unfortunately for me, Savas was the only one in the group that spoke Basarji, but such a problem is easily rectified with coin. I hired a Basarji translator by the name of Rashida who did her best to help Eirena hide her horrible disfigurement behind some traditional Khinasi silks. On my last mission, at the Temple of the Moon in Drachenward, we had found a strange cat-tailed coin on the body of one of the black-robed cultists. Korak seemed to recognize it, claiming that he had seen them change hands in the company of Elishéva, a tabaxi business woman with a loose set of morals. This was the real reason for my trip to Binsada. I intended to find out more about these cultists; they had been formidable foes. We departed for Ber Dairas, travelling overland to the south. Arriving in the city, we made straight for the Cat’s Cradle, Elishéva’s bar. We made our way into the back room at a fancy hotel, and after Savas exchanged some words in Basarji with the doorman, down some stairs and through a torch-lit tunnel to the bar and fighting pits. Elishéva was sitting at a table, drinking and conversing with a small dragon. Savas did most of the talking. Evidently he too had met this tabaxi woman before. He got straight down to business: Who is Sadira? Where does she live? What happened to her husband? A boring and rote information gathering exchange if ever there were one. Elishéva knew the goings on in her city, and had heard about what happened to Sadira’s husband Kasim. He had been a cleaner at the local museum, and aside from Kasim’s death, there had been other strange occurrences centered around the museum itself. The Museum was well known as a repository for priceless jewels, artifacts, and other treasures, and Elishéva informed us that we could make a lot more money than the paltry sum being offered by Sadira. My interest was piqued, but Savas dragged the conversation back around to the woman and her dead husband. Elishéva’s memory started to get foggy around this point, but the thundering hooves of thirty gold stallions seemed to lift the haze. She told us that Sadira lived in a neighbourhood called el Zagora, and gave us a brief description of her: a tiny woman who dresses in purple silks. With the boring Sadira nonsense out of the way, I inquired about the cat-tailed coin. Unsurprisingly, Elishéva was familiar with it as well. It was a sign of the Scorpion Assassins, an organization of elite female assassins. She made it clear that these women were only acquaintances of hers, not friends, and that they were loyal only to coin. I produced the finely made Scorpion Stiletto from my boot, and the tabaxi’s eyes went wide. When I told her where they had come from, she was surprised that I had tangled with the Scorpions and lived, but added that the blade I was holding had only belonged to a novice. All this time, I had been uneasily eyeing a black-robed woman in the corner of the bar. Her garb looked suspiciously similar to the robes worn by the cultists at the Temple of the Moon. Elishéva noticed this and laughed, implying that she was not above hiring these women herself for personal protection. We departed the Cat’s Cradle and made our way to el Zagora to speak with Sadira. Glenn in all his divine wisdom had brought Biscuits, his unicorn. They made quite a sight as we moved through the crowded streets of Ber Dairas, and before long a large crowd had gathered around the group. I pushed forward on my own, not wishing to be associated with the rest of the party. In the south west part of the city, I spotted a woman matching Sadira’s description, sitting on her front steps. I discreetly made contact with her, telling her the rest of the party was on their way. Then I found myself a perch on the roof of a nearby building where I could more easily survey the incoming crowd. The other Cohort members arrived shortly thereafter, and headed inside to speak with Sadira, leaving a crowd of several hundred merchants, beggars, and street rats outside. Savas’ log would contain more details on what they spoke about inside, but outside the large crowd was making me uneasy. I was glad to be well away from it all. Drawing this much attention to one’s self rarely ended well. Sure enough, as I surveyed the onlookers, I noticed a handful of men trying to conceal daggers in the folds of their black robes. There were five of them, by my count. I suspected that they were common thugs, and saw Glenn and the others as easy marks. After the party finished their business with Sadira, the Cohort members left el Zagora, taking the crowd with them. I stayed behind in my perch, and long after the crowd finally filtered out of the square, these black-robed men remained. Sensing this was about to take a turn for the worse, I tried to quietly get the attention of the party. In the distance, I saw Bronsun’s owl familiar circling overhead and I fired a shot close to it to get their attention. Within a few minutes they had circled back around to Sadira’s place via a side street without the crowd this time. From the roof, I pointed out the men in black robes, and Savas approached them. As he got closer, they took off and we gave chase. Through the crowded streets and alleyways we pursued the robed would-be assassins, eventually catching up to them in a bazar. Unfortunately, there were too many prying eyes to do much about it. Savas gave them a stern warning and they retreated. Bronsun’s familiar followed them all the way back to a well-kept, glass-roofed building in the center of the city. It was only then that it dawned on us: there had been five robed men in the crowd, but only three when we caught up to them in the bazar. We rushed back to Sadira’s home to find our worries confirmed. The door had been broken in and there were clear signs of a struggle. It seemed Sadira had been kidnapped. Aside from me, the entire group were magic users, and none of them had permission to cast spells in the city. If we were to go after the kidnappers now, we’d be fighting at half strength or worse. The sun was setting, and we had no other choice than to wait until the morning to try and get an audience with the Sultana or her court wizard. As we wound our way back towards the Cat’s Cradle, we made a stop at the glass-roofed building we had seen the kidnappers flee into. It was, of course, the Museum of Ber Dairas. I decided to camp out for the night near the museum to gather some intel that may aid us. The others went back to the Cat’s Cradle to sleep. It was approaching noon on the following day when I finally reconnected with the group. They had gone to the palace in the early morning to request leyline access. Instead, they were detained by an overzealous guard. Apparently the ruckus in the bazar from the previous day had raised some eyebrows, and we were now known in the city. My evening had been quiet, and I had no new intel to report. We stopped off at the Cat’s Cradle one last time, letting Elishéva know that we’d be going in at night. She gave us some information about the layout of the museum and arranged to have a museum employee on her payroll leave a ladder for us within the grounds. Particularly, she informed us that the most valuable relics were in the museum’s basement. As the day waned, we returned to the museum to gather some insight of our own. Glenn, Eirena, and Savas paid to go inside as visitors and received a tour of the interior, including the basement. Elishéva’s insight did not disappoint; apparently it was full of relics and ancient texts, though the tour guide warned that they were magically warded. Meanwhile, Bronsun and I patrolled the outside of the museum compound, looking for points of entry. In the dead of night, we made our way over the perimeter fence and up a conveniently placed ladder to the rear balcony. I climbed up to the roof, and from there I could see a more convenient point of entry from an interior courtyard. I told the group to wait in place, and jumped silently down to unlock one of the doors. Inside, there were a handful of guards making slow patrols around the buildings. We entered on the second floor and slowly worked our way down, aided by some magic that Biscuits had cast on the group earlier. In the dark, I could have almost sworn that some of the taxidermied animals were moving, watching us. Eirena appeared to have a fit of some sort and collapsed noisily to the ground. Savas carried her for awhile as she murmured nonsensically. We made our way to the rear of the building, where the stairs to the basement were located. There were a number of locked doors that I bypassed adroitly, but eventually we made it. The basement was a long, wide hallway with small doors on either side and a large vault like door at the end. The one on the left was open and contained a number of rare artifacts behind glass as well as one other item we hadn’t seen earlier: the corpse of a would-be thief. The dessicated husk of someone dressed clumsily as a guard was on the floor, reaching out for a gold and amber amulet. Not wanting to risk the same fate, we left the items, though doing so pained me. I did pat down the body of the thief and found a small, round stone embossed with a star and candle. I kept it in my pocket for safekeeping and immediately felt more comfortable in this strange place. The door to the right was closed, but Glenn informed us that it led to the scriptorium. We headed down the hall to the large doors at its terminus. Savas and I investigate the door, and we can hear chanting on the other side. As I worked, I noticed a small insect on my sleeve with tentacles where it’s mouth should have been. Despite my attempts to shake it off, it crawled up my sleeve and into my nose. The thought made me sick. I could feel it inside my head, probing its tentacles into my brain. With shaking hands, I managed to unlock the door and fall back. Savas and Eirena kicked the door open and went into the room. Inside, there was a group of ten or so humans dressed in robes of black, purple, red, and green. They stood around a circle inscribed on the floor, arms extended and chanting. On the dais at the far side of the room stood a woman dressed all in white. She extended her hand and writhing black tentacles erupted from the floor, seizing and damaging the party. The fight had begun. Actually, to call it a fight would be a bit unfair. Most of the cultists just stood in place, chanting in some long forgotten language while Savas and I cut them down. It was clear they were performing a ritual of some sort, although I could not fathom its purpose at the time. The Woman in White, however, was a formidable adversary on her own. She lashed out at us with magic, and suppressed the spells of my allies. She wasn’t, however, able to suppress my arrows, and many of them found their marks in the hearts and heads of her followers. One of the cultists tried to push Savas into the ritual circle, but found itself falling in his place. He screamed in excruciating agony as his flesh rippled and melted, emerging once again as a writhing mass of eyes, teeth, and tentacles. Just when it seemed like we had the upper hand, the cultists began throwing themselves into the ritual circle. The Woman in White produced a glainne dagger and stabbed herself in the heart. With that, the ritual seemed to be complete. We didn’t know what was coming, but we fled, slamming the vault doors behind us. I left behind a half dozen fine adamantine arrows in the corpses of those cultists, but it was them or my life. The walls and floor began weeping a green ichor that burned to touch. From everywhere, dozens of foul yellow eyes opened where no eyes should be. Determined not to leave empty handed, I made my way to the room where we found the thief. I grabbed two books, one adorned with the star-like symbol of this cult, and an ornate looking longbow from the wall. Savas, the canny bastard, went for the red and gold amulet and an obsidian dagger. The rest fled with haste up the stairs. As we did, banging from the other side of the vault doors. There wasn’t much time; whatever the cultists had summoned would soon be upon us. At the top of the stairs, time seemed to slow. I could see Glenn standing in the door to the office, backlit by brilliant light. The office I was in was filling up with liquid moonlight, and I felt for a moment that I may drown in it. But Glenn’s voice brought me back and through the doorway. It felt as if I was stepping into another world, and when I turned behind me, all I could see were vague shadows moving through the fog. Savas nearly didn’t make it, but Eirena managed to get him through the door. We exited the museum with haste, although somehow it seemed as if no time at all had passed. The guards were almost exactly where we left them, and amidst all the screaming and fighting, I was shocked that they hadn’t heard us. We made our way back to Elishéva’s under the pale moonlight. And this is the most strange part of this whole ordeal. I hesitate to even put it to paper lest I be taken for a madman. Elisheva informed us that the museum had no basement, and that she had in fact asked us to retrieve something from the second floor. This was despite the fact that it was *she* who had told us about the basement to begin with. Further, when I showed her one of the books I had taken for valuation, she claimed it was empty. This was despite the fact that each and every one of us could see writing on the pages. She was keen enough to trade coin for Savas’ dagger, and criminally undervalued its worth, as a fence is wont to do. Luckly, I recognized its true value and managed to negotiate for a better price. The next morning, on our way out of town, we went back to Rashida’s place. What we found there was alarming, although perhaps given the trajectory of this expedition I should have expected it. The doors and windows were nailed shut. Peering inside we could see no light or furniture. In fact, a thick layer of dust blanketed the floors; it was clear that no one had lived here for quite some time. What the devil was I to make of all that?
