Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk), Chuck (Ashe), and Ernest (Kurgash) go to Sin City. Chuck comments, "Well, that was a nicely uplifting movie." Bruce agrees, "And I was so glad to see Frodo dressed up like a cannibalistic Charlie Brown." Ernest offers, "Yep. And I feel like an Indian! I'm so glad that Europeans showed up to teach me to wear bigger loincloths."
Later on, Paul shows up with his friend Lawrence (Pip). Paul announces, "I forgot my pencil! Can someone provide one?" Chris (Thaiphong) offers, "I'll throw one to you!" Paul replies, "I'm not sure I trust that offer. You might have developed the powers of Bullseye over the last week." Billy (Secheck) simply hands over a pencil, then proclaims, "Little plastic ships for everyone! Huzzah!"
Paul, overcome with happiness about the whole pencil incident, asks, "Who wants my biscuit!" Lawrence grabs for it while Ernest makes horrible comments about yeasty goodness.
As the Albers arrives in Sharn harbor a bunch of tiny dragons fly out around the ship looking for fish stirred up by the ship's passing. Old Pete shoos them away from the crow's nest until Thaiphong warns him that he might lose a hand.
Kurgash observes two dragonettes savagely fighting over half of a dead monkey and comments, "Woo. I didn't think you could find anything nastier than regular seagulls."
Thaiphong cautions, "We haven't seen any of them take a crap yet. I bet it smells like napalm."
The characters head up to Sharn proper in an "elevator" that is little more than a platform on a winch. Grenville d'Tharashk clutches the center of the platform. Secheck tries to run back and forth to get the platform swinging until Grenville threatens to have Kurgash throw him off the edge.
The one-time spawn of Krakus recovers and introduces himself as Gerald. He thanks the characters profusely for helping him when nobody else would. He asks to become their hireling. Grenville claps him on the back heartily and tells him, "Congratulations and welcome aboard! Don't worry about the self-mutilation scars, that's not that uncommon in our group. I'll just call you Cutter Gerald. It'll be simpler that way."
Secheck gripes, "So now we're just bypassing the interview process completely and hiring insane people directly?"
Grenville offers Cutter Gerald four silver per day plus food and board. He promises to give him a raise to six if he can learn elocution and etiquette.
The characters make their confused way to the local House Tharashk headquarters. They opt to travel by sky-coach at a fare of 1 sp each. Grenville in particular is grateful to hear that most of the major bridges are enchanted to cast Feather Fall on things falling on or near them. The cab driver also mentions that his cousin sells one-use Feather Fall talismans. Most of the characters instantly agree to pay the 50 gold for one. The vendor cautions that the charms only work for a single round, and must be carefully timed with a DC 10 Wisdom check. Ashe and Kurgash groan in unison, "Oh crap."
The local boss of House Tharashk is a human named Snyder Abbrotaba. He greets the characters and tells them, "Shervok told us you were coming. But he's not very happy with you running off to get the wizard without asking permission."
Kurgash harrumphs, "Yes, well. Fifteen large were calling."
Snyder ignores this and mentions, "I do have some work for you if you're interested. Where are you staying?"
Grenville replies, "No idea. What do you suggest?"
Snyder doesn't even get a chance to respond as each of the characters chime in with their suggestions. Secheck suggests buying another bar. Kurgash suggests that the characters should establish a chain of inns and taverns across the continent, all run by people the characters have rescued from horrible places and fates. Thaiphong gets into the spirit of the thing, imagining the various tavern-masters the characters could hire: "One of them was saved from madness! One of them was rescued from an evil god! And another one actually was that evil god!"
Secheck comments, "Japanese Nunsploitation! I have no idea why I said that."
Thaiphong grumbles, "Wherever we stay, I want my own bag of rice."
Secheck asks him, "Tired of sharing already? By the way, what are you going to eat? I don't see any nutria at all."
Ashe answers, "They have sky-rats. I think we saw them out in the harbor."
The characters find themselves a house to rent and put down 80 gold for the month. They inform Snyder of their address. He sends back their manacles and reminds them that they just walked out of his office an instant after he tried to give them a job. The characters rather shamefacedly remember themselves and head back to Snyder's office to hear the details.
Snyder Abbrotaba waits until all the characters have once again assembled in his office and settled down before telling them, "I have a request from the Lady Varania, one of our more prominent citizens." He explains that she is very mysterious person. Nobody knows if she belongs to a Great House, but she certainly has a lot of money, and she wants to spend some of it on the characters, if they can fulfill her commission. He reassures the characters that House Tharashk will of course be taking their standard 40% cut off the top. He tells them that they will need to go to Lady Varania's residence to learn the details of the contract.
Then Snyder tells the characters that he would like to include a local in their team, a fellow with unique talents and ties to the local government. Thaiphong enthuses, "Oooh. Is he smarter than Kurgash?" Snyder Abbrotaba refuses to answer, cleverly deciding that insulting the orc is not worth the risk.
The new member is a magician named Pip. He appears to be an exceptionally short halfling. He looks over the group. And the group looks over him. They decide that they like what they see enough to let him come along. They head for the sky-coach.
Secheck suddenly realizes that Ashe is sitting next to him in the sky-coach. He sits up with a start and rasps, "Hey, where did we get the guy with the chain?"
Thaiphong offers, "We bought him for a pack of cigarettes."
Kurgash intones, "What happened to Silharath should be a lesson to us all!"
Thaiphong becomes curious, "And how's that?"
Kurgash tells the bugbear, "He was messing with the powers of darkness! He was trifling with the toys of the daelkyr!"
Thaiphong reasons, "Then shouldn't he have been killed by the whip?"
Kurgash's voice starts to become more shrill, "You don't follow the logic! He consorted with darkness, he was consumed by darkness!"
Thaiphong, still feeling logical, asks, "Then what about the folk to are consumed by darkness without consorting with darkness?"
Kurgash dismisses him, "Just bad luck."
Pip claims to be a halfling male right up until he shapechanges himself into a voluptuous young woman. The characters suddenly remember Snyder Abbrotaba telling them that Pip is an accomplished disguise artist. Kurgash muses, "Yes. We had one of them. He got eaten by a sponge."
Thaiphong warns the orc, "When you tell complete strangers about our dead comrades, please say something more impressive than 'he was eaten by a sponge.'"
Kurgash protests, "It was a hell-sponge!"
The Lady Varania lives in the Upper Central district. The characters notice that the district's residents are not at all shy about advertising their wealth. And in many cases, their guards.
The characters' sky-coach lands upon Lady Varania's receiving balcony. Kurgash is very impressed by what he sees. He just can't stop talking: "Hey! She's got her own helipad! And she's got at least two servants! She's got more servants than you, Grenville! What you gonna do about it?"
A functionary shows the characters into her sitting room. The entire room is furnished in green: tiles, tapestries, rugs and cushions.
Secheck examines the décor and pronounces, "She's an elf!"
Kurgash notes, "She looks human to me. Plus all the elves in this world are totally obsessed with death. The socially acceptable elves are obsessed with death and embalming, so they don't smell too bad. We try not to think about the other kind."
Lady Varania is lounging upon a divan. She invites the characters to sit, then tells them, "I have recently learned that there is a special child in the city. He appeared during the recent Conjunction of the moons. Since then, he has been residing in the Rattlestone District in Middle Dura, a place inhabited primarily by workers from the Bazaar (For reference, Dura is a district of the city and the 'Middle' designation means that it is not in the uppermost towers, but not in the depths. In contrast, Lady Varania lives in Upper Central.) The stories the Lady Varania has heard indicate that he is something of a miracle-worker: blessings and good fortune follow in his footsteps.
Ashe summarizes, "So we're going to the trailer park to look for the Saint of Wal-Mart employees?"
Lady Varania replies, "Exactly. This neighborhood is underneath High Hold where the dwarfs live, and above Fallen, which is a huge slum full of insane people." It develops that she wants to speak to the child personally. She wants the characters to find him and bring him back. She thinks five thousand gold would be fair.
Grenville instantly agrees, "That sounds very fair."
Secheck whispers to Grenville, "May I congratulate you on your newfound bargaining skills."
The characters depart from Lady Varania's residence. Grenville tells the others that he wants to buy some scrolls. Pip shows the way to the Bazaar and points out some reputable scroll vendors. Grenville swiftly buries himself in the stacks, looking for just the perfect things to round out his collection.
Thaiphong does his best to sell his +1 Longsword and buy a +1 Greatsword. He comes up with a blade that looks like it dates back to goblinoid times, back when bugbears were bugbears. Kurgash looks at it and comments, "Hey, it's an antique!" Thaiphong ignores him and heads off to buy some more Cure Light Wounds potions.
Once Grenville has his shopping out of the way, he proceeds to start asking questions about the sacred child. He spends six gold on trinkets to get merchants to talk. Unfortunately, they mostly say things like, "Look at these fried doo-dads! I think they're made of rat, but they're pretty good." Even with the unpromising start, he manages to learn about a kid living in Rattlestone that people can't stop talking about. The boy just wanders into peoples' houses and talks to them and spreads peace and understanding. Neighbors have abandoned old feuds after a few words from him. Grenville understands immediately, "He must be stopped!"
Grenville is able to narrow the boy's location down to Taberhold, a tower in Rattlestone. The characters head that way. Kurgash warns everyone, "Be careful, we think he's a minion of an evil god."
The characters see a lot of flame and smoke coming out of Taberhold Tower as they approach. They decide to enter the tower anyway. They find lots of people running around with water and bandages. Some seem to have bludgeoning wounds. Kurgash and Thaiphong start grabbing people and asking questions like, "What's happening here? Why the smoke? Why the bludgeoning?"
A wounded middle-aged man tells the characters, "We just got raided by a bunch of big bugs!"
Secheck becomes interested. He asks, "Does this happen often?"
The man replies, "Nope. Used to be a bunch of big ogres from Excoria Tower that would raid us, but they haven't been by for years. This group wasn't them. There was a blue guy who looked like an ogre with the bugs, though. Oh, and they kidnapped the boy."
The characters figure out that the child Arafel was the only local they took. The raiders also escaped with some food and supplies. The characters deduce that the bugs were wearing furs and hides and escaped by climbing out windows and crawling along the outer surface of the tower. Secheck estimates the climb as DC 22, then tells the others, "I could do it easy! How about you guys?"
Kurgash replies, "I'll give it a shot, but I want to tie a rope between us in case I fall."
The characters talk to Garren Wheelsmith and his wife about the child Arafel. They say that they found Arafel naked and babbling in a foreign language out on a bridge. Wheelsmith doesn't know what language it was. Since then, he's been wonderful for the community. Arafel picked up common tongue right quick. The couple is able to provide a simple description of Arafel. It is easy to deduce that he is remarkably charismatic.
The characters hire a sky-coach to follow the trail, which proves to go towards the Excoria Tower. The driver claims that the tower was once quite wealthy, but it has had a lot of bad things living in it for a long time.
Kurgash asks the others, "I don't know about the cops here, but they actually let towers full of monsters just fester around here? Maybe we should be arranging for some bribes for ourselves here."
The tower balcony is only ten feet wide. Secheck jumps down onto it and opens up the door. He looks up to see two huge insectoid creatures up on the ceiling, twenty feet up. They have long spears. Secheck comments, "This is a time when we really could use our departed group member who knew all about aberrations, because those things don't look natural."
Thaiphong goes in first and promptly sucks up an attack of opportunity. "Ow! That was my breathin' lung!" Kurgash notes that it will be very hard for him to reach the insect-things. Grenville casts Jump on him from a scroll and sends him into the room. The second spider-monster stabs at Kurgash, but hits the flagstones on the floor instead. Secheck decides that he'd prefer to stand at the doorway and takes shots up at the roof. Pip gets into the act by casting Blur on Kurgash.
And then Grenville starts to sing.
Ashe takes a spear strike, then lashes out and pulls a spear away from the first spider-ogre. Thaiphong dodges to the side, yelling, "Holy shit! That spear's coming straight down like a lawn dart!"
Pip decides to do something dramatic. He casts a Scorching Ray at the first spider-ogre. The creature looks a bit crisped, but is obviously not slowing down.
Kurgash leaps up to try and swing at a spider-ogre, but misses. He tries again, with a dramatic leap at the second spider-ogre that ends up doing nothing more than taking out a bit of ornamental molding on the wall.
The first spider-ogre, angered at the loss of its spear, pulls out a club and scuttles down the wall. Ashe misses his attack of opportunity, then sucks up a bone-crushing hit.
Thaiphong yells, "Retreating dodge! Retreating dodge!"
Ashe howls, "Wrong game! Wrong game!" Ashe falls towards Grenville. Grenville heals him, but it isn't enough to bring him back to action. And Pip follows up with two Magic Missiles to push the creature back.
Over on the other side of the room, Kurgash takes another spear hit. He misses, but Secheck manages to land two arrows into the creature. The thing looks badly wounded with two arrows in its vitals. He spits up blook and ichor. Kurgash tries another leaping attack, hitting for fourteen points of damage. Ichor goes everywhere and the creature sags to the ground. And then comes the Cleave! One ichor spray later and the second creature is down.
With the two spider-ogres slain, the characters turn to their natural avocation: looting! Each spider-ogre has two valuable gemstones, plus the long spears.
The characters find that the door out of the chamber is blocked by rubble, but there is a door on the next level up and an unsteady path up across the rubble. Kurgash clambers through. He drops a rope then comments, "Yeah, there's a couple big-ass scorpions up here. Don't worry none, I'll take care of them" He drinks an antitoxin potion and advances upon them. Thaiphong and Ashe quickly follow him before he can get in too deeply over his head, while Grenville sings (as usual).
Thaiphong shoots one scorpion with an arrow. He is quite happy that it doesn't do anything until he hits it. He tells Ashe, "This is my kind of fight!"
The arrow-shot scorpion finally figures out that something is afoot and charges. Sadly, all this accomplishes is to give Kurgash a chance to smash it, and Ashe the opening he needs to throttle it with his chain.
Thaiphong, Kurgash and Ashe follow the exact same plan with the second scorpion. Ashe reflects, "Now this is my kind of plan! None of us die, and we win!"
Kurgash mourns, "Yeah, but they're just scorpions. They don't have any loot."
Thaiphong looks up, his muzzle covered with scorpion gunk, to reply, "Speak for yourselves... Mmmph... These things is good eating!"
Kurgash speculates upon what kind of horrific childhood Thaiphong could have led to persuade him that uncooked giant scorpion was good to eat. He can't think of anything. After all, any civilized creature knows that giant scorpions are meant to be boiled!
Secheck climbs up to another door. He finds a small empty storage room and reports down, "Nothing here, boys!"
Thaiphong tries his luck on a closed door. He breaks it down to find two more spider-ogres having lunch in a smallish room. He shudders at the contents of their steam table. He backs up into the nearby stairwell, yelling, "There's two of them in there!" He waits with his greatsword. Kurgash turns and prepares to charge the instant the door opens. Pip hides behind Kurgash and Ashe.
The door opens. Kurgash charges. The spider-ogre slams him in the head with a great club. Kurgash staggers into the wall. Ashe runs up behind him and does his reach-around attack, inflicting some scratches on the creature's chitin. It chitters at him.
Thaiphong rather petulantly asks Ashe, "How come you only do reach-around attacks with Kurgash?" Thaiphong and Kurgash unload on the creature, doing enough damage to pulverize any ten ordinary cockroaches. The spider-ogre looks in poor shape.
The spider-ogre might need some warranty work, but it's still fighting. It shows both sides of its club to Kurgash's face. The big half-orc howls, "Now he's making me mad!" through a mouthful of broken teeth. He doesn't stay mad for long: Ashe staggers the creature, then Secheck ends it with arrows.
Thaiphong and Kurgash charge on the second one. Grenville yells encouragement: "Kill it! Go for the thorax! Hit it in the spicules!" Chop! Once again, spider-ogre ichor flies.
Then Thaiphong takes a terrible hit. He rather weakly announces, "I'm still standing!"
Secheck replies, "Woaw! Woaw! Waaah!"
Thaiphong is confused, "I don't remember that part of the song..." Then he, Kurgash and Ashe get down to the dirty business of slaughtering the last of the second creature. Thaiphong slashes off its little buggy head. It falls on its back and starts waving it's little buggy legs. Thaiphong samples a bit of it. It tastes like an interesting mix of cricket and ogre. Don't ask him where he's tasted ogre before.
Secheck manages to find two good silver goblets and two broken goblets. The characters find one gem and 400 gold pieces in the spider-ogres' pocketses.
The instant the last spider-ogre falls, Kurgash goes running off to open another door, hoping for more creatures to pulverize. Thaiphong accuses him, "You eat lead, don't you? And big globules of mercury?"
Kurgash pulls open a door and looks into the room beyond. He notices that the floor looks very suspicious. He sits down and allows Grenville to heal him.
Secheck ties himself off and sneaks in. He finds his way to an expensive-looking chamber pot that hasn't been used for 1000 years. He shakes out the dust and takes it away.
Secheck and Thaiphong sneak downstairs. The lower floor layout is very similar to what they have already seen. They start looking through rooms. Secheck moves to the room directly underneath the room with the suspicious floor. He sees that the place has deep gouges in the stone walls. He moves into the room and discovers that the floor is not that stable. He starts moving back, but it's too late: the ceiling collapses on him. Rock dust comes out the door. Thaiphong crawls in and shouts, "Are you okay, little buddy? I'm so sorry! I was expecting something invisible to kill you!"
Secheck, weakly, replies, "I need to use the bathroom."
About this time, a warforged walks into the room. It tells the characters, "My slave name is Lungpuncture. You can call me Doc. Actually, you better call me Doc." It turns out he was trained as a healer for the war, and is able to fix up Secheck good as new. He was kidnapped months ago by a group of spidery ogres. He's been kept captive until just now, when a cave-in freed him. He left his cell to see what happened, and is a touch surprised to have encountered a whole collection of carny folk.
There is still a door on the other side of the room. Kurgash heads over to open it up while Thaiphong digs Secheck out. He is greeted by a disembodied voice that proclaims, "You have disturbed me! Prepare to face the inestimable wrath of Brath the Lesser!" And then the room becomes completely dark. Kurgash sets into a fighting stance and prepares to cleave anything he hears near him.
Grenville asks, "Brath the Lesser! Why is an individual of your obvious quality in such a dismal place?" He hopes to incite Brath, much to Lungpuncture's dismay, but it leaves enough time for Pip to cast Glitterdust into the room and reveal Brath, floating ten feet in the air. He is a glittery human-size thing holding a glittery broadsword, though the characters suspect that the glitter effect has more to do with the spell than with Brath. Brath howls in rage. In response, Kurgash flips out and leaps at him. To no net effect.
Then Thaiphong manages to plant an arrow into Brath. He reflects upon Brath's combat tactics, "First this guy darks out the room, then he becomes all glittery? That doesn't sound real effective."
Secheck theorizes, "Maybe he was going for the stylish disco-ball effect!" He shoots some arrows at Brath, but misses in the darkness. At least, that's how he explains it to the others.
Ashe offers, "Now he's more like a piñata!"
Brath decides to demonstrate that he isn't just a big humanoid disco ball. He hits Kurgash with a Cone of Cold. Kurgash complains, "I hate being cold!"
Thaiphong replies, "I like squirrels!"
Kurgash hits Brath some more. Entrails fly and there is blood everywhere, but Brath is obviously still up.
Lungpuncture moves behind Kurgash and heals him. Grenville starts to sing. And then Pip's two Magic Missiles take Brath down. Just for good measure, Kurgash takes his head off.
The characters crowd around Brath the Lesser's body to see just what they've managed to bag. He looks like a blue ogre, but he's only medium-sized. They decide that he might be a youthful ogre mage. Kurgash comments, "I hope that means that Brath the Greater isn't still around here."
Secheck finds small locked box. After a moment's work, he opens it to find 100 platinum coins.
Loot from Brath includes a magical greatsword and a mithril chain shirt. The sword has a moderate-strength magical aura. Thaiphong puts on the mithril chain shirt and wields the remarkable greatsword.
The characters find Arafel in the privy. He's chained to the floor and has been flogged, but none of the filth and corruption of his surroundings is able to hide his stunning presence. He is truly beautiful. He seems to glow with a faint inner light, and his feet do not touch the impure ground. Thaiphong tells him, "We are here to take you to Lady Varania!"
Grenville offers, "She is a beautiful aristocrat, and she loves green. I think she is not an evil person."
Arafel tells the characters, "There's lots of ogres around."
Grenville, "Don't you worry about them. We can juice 'em as needed."
Arafel points out, "I think they should all be eliminated."
Grenville gets enthusiastic, "Hey, no problem! We were just toning things down for your benefit. Round 'em up, boys!"
Thaiphong asks the boy, "How many ogre insects have you seen?"
Arafel replies, "I think there are around twenty. How can I trust you to come back to kill them?"
Grenville does his best to convince Arafel that if there's one thing the characters are capable of, it's killing large numbers of creepy-crawly monsters. Meanwhile, Kurgash questions why the characters shouldn't just tie the boy up, put a sack over his head, and take him to Lady Varania. Grenville tries to persuade him to calm down.
Secheck unlocks Arafel. The characters decide that they will just leave him in the sky-coach until they notice that he is able to heft a greatsword in one hand. They suddenly fear that he might either kill Cutter Gerald, or convince him to do his bidding rather than the characters'.
Kurgash points out, "Life is cheap among the serpent-folk..."
Thaiphong disagrees, "Life is tasty!"
Kurgash asks the big bugbear, "Can't you stop thinking about food for one moment?"
Thaiphong mourns, "I try, but it's so hard!"
Arafel explains that Brath thought that he could use Arafel's blood and tears to perform a dark ritual to gain immense power. He was able to get the blood, but Arafel gave him no tears. Kurgash asks, "What kind of dark ritual? Did it involve a big rock? If you see something sad, don't go crying 'cause we don't want to fight no gibbering mouther."
While the others talk to Arafel, Secheck and Ashe check out the end room. Rrraugh! They find two more spider-ogres. Secheck shrieks, "Guys! Help!"
Thaiphong replies, "Run away! Be like Brave Sir Robin and run away!" Secheck backs off.
Kurgash holds his attack and chants, "Here, buggy buggy buggy!"
Grenville yells, "Hey, Doc!"
Doc replies, "I just recently got set to 'GOOD'. How are you?"
Grenville casts Glitterdust at the spider-ogres. He blinds them. Unfortunately, they have tremorsense. Grenville says bad words.
Kurgash notices and observes, "Grenville's doing his Donna Sommers move."
Pip points out, "He's just like Dazzler from the X-Men!"
Thaiphong asks, "Why did she get into the X-Men anyway?"
Kurgash replies, "'Cause she was cute." Whack! He figures out that he's using a +1 Keen Greatsword. He is very satisfied at the size of the gouge it can make in a spider-ogre.
Ashe gets distracted and fails to hit the spider-ogre. Kurgash takes the creature out. He tells the half-elf, "Look! Arterial spurting!"
The second spider-ogre steps through the door straight into a near-lethal hit from Thaiphong. Two of its limbs twitch on the floor. Thaiphong grunts and wipes ichor out of his eyes as he pulls the blade out.
Pip staggers the creature with a quick Acid Splash, leaving room for Ashe to knock it down and kill it in one with his chain.
With this latest squad of spider-ogres disposed of, the characters check out their room. The place is decorated with a series of moth-eaten tapestries. A set of bowed shelves stands against one wall. There is a sleeping pallet in one corner, a desk and chair in another. Next to the desk is a lab area with strange alchemical things and little vials of blood.
Grenville checks out the books on the shelves. He finds that they are on a variety of magical topics. Someone was doing some serious research on permanent transmogrification of creatures. For example, how to insect up the local ogres into their current shapes. Some of the books have engraved bookplates claiming that they are property of Brath the Greater, along with some really impressive threats on what might happen to anyone who steals them.
Kurgash picks up Brath the Lesser's head to bring along as a souvenir. Then the characters head downstairs to flush out the remaining spider-ogres.
Thaiphong and Secheck sneak down the stairwell into a big cavernous area with a fire. They spot six spider-ogres sitting around the fire. The two scouts sneak back to inform the others. They insist that some minimal level of tactics is necessary to deal with the spider-ogre threat. The characters develop a simple and reliable plan to use Kurgash as a lure to get the creatures to advance upstairs in ones and twos. Grenville uses scrolls to put Shield and Bear's Endurance on Kurgash to increase the odds that he survives the experience.
Kurgash heads down with Brath the Lesser's head and uses it to incite the spider-ogres. They chase him. He yells, "Come get some!"
The creatures don't seem to so much walk up the stairs as they travel up the stairwell, Alien-style. Thaiphong suggests, "You know, we should be able to find a butcher we can sell these guys to for sausages."
Secheck cautions, "They might go over the legal limit for insect parts."
The first spider-ogre takes several hits until Kurgash smashes it into fragments. Shattered insect bits spray over everyone.
Kurgash proceeds to intimidate the next spider-ogre, successfully. The creature steps into a hail of held actions. Pip flings a vial of alchemist's fire into a wall, singeing Kurgash and setting one of Thaiphong's braids on fire. Then Kurgash, Thaiphong, Ashe and Secheck rain down a hail of attacks on the creature.
Secheck asks, "Can I get a flanking bonus with my bow?"
Thaiphong replies, "Said the weasel..."
The spider-ogre expires.
By the time the third spider-ogre steps into the footprints of his two comrades, the characters are starting to appreciate just how stupid these creatures actually are. Then Kurgash kills the creature in one strike. Thaiphong asks, "How did you kill it?"
Kurgash responds in song, "My spear and magic hel-met!"
Lungpuncture comments, "I'm just going to sit back and watch this then. It's just like whack-a-mole, but with spider-ogres."
The fourth one doesn't last long. Neither does the fifth. Lungpuncture crows out, "I got a critical hit!" Everyone really appreciates this except the spider-ogre, who got cut to fucking ribbons.
Kurgash orders Grenville to continue singing then runs down the stairs again to try and find the others. He calls out, "Here buggy buggy buggy!"
Ashe imagines what this looks like from the perspective of a spider-ogre: "We just saw six bugs run after one orc, and then the orc comes back down. Even these things aren't that stupid. They'd surely notice the river of blood coming down the stairs."
After Kurgash reports that he can't find any spider-ogres anywhere, Lungpuncture tracks them and figures out that they managed to clear the rubble away from a door and then escape down the side of the building. It looks like they've cleared out of the area. Arafel claims to be satisfied.
The characters gather up everything in the lab, plus the books and the giant weapons, then depart in their sky-coach.
The characters decide to go back to their rented quarters to rest before taking Arafel to see Lady Varania. Along the way, they have a debate upon the relative moral qualities found in the group, and whether Arafel can be trusted to not escape.
Thaiphong points out, "Grenville thinks Arafel's honest!"
Kurgash scoffs, "Oh yeah, Grenville's a great judge of character."
Thaiphong shoots back, "And he's been hanging around with you for how long?"
The final decision is to shackle Arafel to his bed. Kurgash is very happy with this, and resolves to stay up all night to give him a good watchin'.
Deep in the night, an angel manifests in Arafel's room, right in front of Kurgash and Lungpuncture. The creature has shining wings, a Mace of Disruption (labeled as such), and a blazing aura to strike fear into the hearts of the unjust.
The angel proclaims, "Arithel, we have found you at last! You must come home. Wait... WHO HAS SHACKLED THIS BOY!" Lungpuncture points at Kurgash, who finds himself getting mashed by the angel's mace. And stunned. Don't forget stunned. With a wave of his hand, the angel causes the shackles to vanish. Both Arafel (Arithel?) and the angel vanish.
Lungpuncture looks over at Kurgash and scoffs, "Good going there, orc-tard!"
Kurgash grouses, "God-damn angels."
Lady Varania gives Grenville five hundred gold in exchange for the story of what happened to Arafel. Kurgash describes the experience of being battered about by an angelic mace. Thaiphong asks, "Did it hurt? Did it feel like pain?"
Kurgash grumbles, "Yeah. I saw a white light."
The loot gathered up from the spider-ogres' lair includes:
The characters spend 20 gold to have an alchemist identify the blood. They go to the best alchemist in town, a scruffy-looking young guy but. He is very interested by the stuff and claims that it is celestial blood, from an astral deva. The characters keep the blood, as you never know when astral deva blood might come in handy.
Each character's share is 628 gold, including a couple of loot items left over from last session. Grenville takes Ashe's spare Mage Armor potion, trading him a Color Spray scroll in exchange. Thaiphong takes the +1 Keen Greatsword, leaving a +1 Greatsword in the kitty. Everyone kicks in money to buy Grenville another Wand of Cure Light Wounds. His share of the cost is 150 gold.
Doc Lungpuncture gains 643 experience points. Ashe, Pip and Secheck (the 3rd level characters) each gain 1993 experience points. Kurgash, Thaiphong and Grenville (the 4th level characters) each gain 1770 experience points.
Ashe makes 4th level and takes a level of Sorcerer. Secheck makes 4th level as well and takes a level of Rogue. He exults, "Eat my sneak attacks! Hah!"