Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- giraine:summary-376 [2025/04/10 14:38] – tim45tenwa
+++ giraine:summary-376 [2025/04/10 14:42] (current) – tim45tenwa
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-<- giraine:summary-375|Artukan's Mansion part 2 ^ giraine:summaries-2025|Summaries 2025 ^ giraine:summary-377| ->
+<- giraine:summary-375|Artukan's Mansion part 2 ^ giraine:summaries-2025|Summaries 2025 ^ giraine:summary-377|Artukan's Warehouse, and King Hippogriff's quest (intro) ->
 ====== Summary 376: Artukan's Mansion part 4 - finale (2025-03-28) ======
 ----
+You rise at dawn and make your way to the Temple of the Great Green Lady, with Shrett invoking his Stalking spell to help you slink from shadow to shadow under the cloudy sky. The air is becoming increasingly cold, reminding you that an infamous Valind snow hurricane is due sometime tomorrow. Even across open areas where no shadows provide cover, you manage to weave your way through the morning crowds without attracting attention from Fraud’s shrivelled leg and Shrett’s withered arm and your blood-caked bodies. Shrett drops his spell as you approach the Temple and you negotiate with the two Babeester Gor axe-maidens, who are of course unsympathetic and skeptical, but with some well-chosen words Fraud and Boamund convince them to get someone to bring you inside. An initiate takes you to a waiting hall, an acolyte checks in, you wait for hours, and at last by midday you’re taken through the big double-doors to Alangellia’s audience chamber, where again you behold her luxuriant beauty.
+She inquires what has happened to you, noting the injuries, and Boamund replies that you fought (and defeated) a “Chaos wizard” who inflicted these curses before you took him down. You dance around the topic with her for a while, with her maintaining a pleasant, smiling, concerned, surprised, inquisitive attitude as you gradually drop some facts about what happened in Artukan’s Mansion, without naming the man or the place. You figure she must already know something, and she says that those “in high positions” within the city already know some things and notice your key role in stopping a major threat who had hidden in plain sight for so many years. You raise the point that the Archon probably already knows a lot about your actions and she knowingly says that of course he does, he holds the “Purple Sceptre of Serpent Sentience”, a Godtime artifact that few men have wielded and which has passed down through Estali/Galanini (and their forebears the Enerali) society throughout Time.
+Anyway, she says that you’ll be helped—she has priestesses who can do the necessary surgery and magic to help Fraud and Shrett recover. But the process is not fast. In normal circumstances, they’d be incapacitated until Sacred Time; some 13 weeks or so away, after Storm Season (you’re about midway through Dark Season). With the ministrations of her Temple’s staff, as long as Fraud and Shrett remain inactive and tended daily, the process can be substantially sped up, but will still take many weeks. She says you have a choice to make: you could just flee Estali City now, and she adds that it could be arranged that you’re hidden in a cart that would take you where you want to go, such as Tiskos city, but you’d be on your own there (and have no certain contacts for healing there). Or you can stay here under the city leaders’ secret protection. She admits that this Temple is not safe for you. It’s not a fortress, and you figure its underground depths might not be secure against unspeakable things if they were determined enough. So you could instead go to a secure central area in the Palace of the Archon, or to the naval base’s island. You choose the last option. You wonder if you should speak to the Archon before going into hiding but suppose that you don’t need to, that a message can be passed on and she says that will be arranged.
+She adds some news that adds to the urgency of your situation, and more. The city is under attack from within over recent days and weeks. Not just the Krarsht assassinations, although some new acts may be those, but deaths of prominent figures including heroes and cult leaders. Some key heroquests have failed under suspicious circumstances. “A Galanini quest to push back winter has failed at a crucial time, leaving us less mobile in our own lands,” she says, and you may have fidgeted but she at least pretends no notice. “We suspect Tinaros lies behind many of these events.” Which might hurt a bit after that prior sentence, but very well. She shows remarkable vulnerability as she gives you this news. She is concerned. The city faces hard times. She says how Estali society is fracturing, and you know what she means. You’ve seen it across your journeys. Most importantly, there is the huge tension between the Galanini rulers and the Ancient Beast Society and its animal peoples. You know that’s a complex problem, because even some high-ranking Estali County people of the Galanini also are ABS members; it’s not just a clear-cut us vs. them situation. You can’t help but feel touched when she shows, without any pretence, her deep-seated concern. The City doesn’t just face this horrendous Chaos conspiracy. It turns on itself.
+She doesn’t flat out say it, but there is again a subtext, that with the City losing some of its own defenders, you have grown more precious to them, having shown your allegiance. And discussion comes to a dramatic moment. She drops, almost casually but with obvious scrutiny, the question “Who do you trust more, me or… Black Eyes?”. Fraud answers that you trust her more, and she might even be surprised. He’s infatuated and that might have forced his answer, but she seems to believe him and she thanks him for the trust, which is reciprocated. You’ve done a lot for the City already, she says. They’d be fools not to value that.
+Oh, and she adds, there has been progress with those Galanini tablets you’d recovered from Ornovar’s tomb. More have been recovered, and more translated and interpreted, and progress continues apace. So far, what is clear is that these tablets relate to a forgotten myth of King Hippogriff. Alangellia says that it is of great value to the people that you found these, and that the foreign Wizard-Sages did not get sole custody, although they might still be a threat in this matter.
+Discussions conclude and Boamund and Bog are hurried across down, with your escorts chosen to make you less conspicuous than you would be if you’d chosen the offered larger armed escort. Fraud and Shrett remain behind to begin their treatment, then they will join you by nightfall when they are ready.
+You settle into an austere stone chamber in the heart of the naval base, probably made for high-profile visitors, and security does seem strong. Guards are stationed outside your room, and soon two unfamiliar faces come to visit. They stand out as obviously important people, and both Galanini warriors in very fine gilded half-plate armour, and they share the same rune adornments of Fire/Sky and Truth. One has the look of a more conventional rider of the wild lands; almost a barbarian; wearing a snow leopard skin as a sort of cape, and bedecked with Beast runes. He introduces himself as Makhaon Quickflash, priest of Galanin. The other is dressed in very nice city-folk fashions and has notable Law rune markings. He says he is Sotiris Vasiliousson, wizard of the Solar Henotheist cult of the Sun Horse. They say that they serve the Archon and the city as defenders, and have been sent to you to aid in any way they can, as well as to protect you. They carry themselves like heroes, earning your immediate respect, although Bog and Makhaon do not get off on good footing when the latter does not speak to Bog. They tell that they are experienced in facing great dangers and will go wherever you go and face them with you as needed.
+But also they can help in other ways. You see you have some time to spare, and Boamund has all of the documents from Artukan’s study, so you turn those over to the two men, both of whom are literate on Safelstran, to peruse the literature and tell what it is about. This takes much of the remaining afternoon.
+There is an old (probably 1st Age) Lhankor Mhy Sage report with information on the Tomes of the Seven Eyes That Opened, which it explains are a collection of stories about heroquests of the 7 Arkats, with details how to conduct them, and how to open paths that surely are closed now—either just lost myths, which these books fully tell of, or known paths that the Arkati closed in order to stop Godlearner thefts/meddling. Sotiris expresses deep-seated caution that these are dangerous tomes. But the report itself is not dangerous, although it is valuable.
+Then there are numerous letters with Pehraln, showing business throughout this year. For the most part these letters are not incriminating, just showing association. Artukan’s writings have a remarkable talent for conveying information while remaining vague about anything that might be objectionable. But there is one theme through the letters: he and Pehraln were/are drawing on Boat Planet energy, with some evidence of them ?manipulating? the Safa lake and Jrimb river cults, to speed their “businesses”. That is definitely ominous.
+There are lots of other letters and other formats of correspondence, with prominent distant and local allies (not shaming, but naming). Most obviously, there are those in Artukan’s own guild of metal and stone working, and many other guilds (the Sailors Guild stands out); some of the military and city guards; various temples (notables: Knowledge; Earth; Galanini/Ehilm); etc.  But there is no evidence of association; even in a mundane capacity; with the Archon, Alangellia, Ancient Beast Society/Hykimi, or other of your allies of note. Characteristically, Artukan is very cautious in these documents. Normally these might just raise a momentary eyebrow. But collectively, given what you’ve uncovered about his plots, they show the depth and breadth of Artukan’s influence.
+Finally, on the Nysalorian riddle on a bronze plaque: Sotiris is made really uncomfortable about this and says it truly is dangerous.
+You trade tales, discuss various recent events, and the two new allies make it clear that they already know a lot about you and events around the City. They raise an issue: time is urgent. Artukan has two obvious remaining centres of his business that are under suspicion (to put it mildly in the first case)—there is the basement of his mansion, of which the two allies already know, and then the Mistress of Doldrums ship and nearby warehouse. Artukan had many other properties but none of these are clear targets. You choose to go to the Mansion and try to finish what you started there.
+The Mansion has been partly cleared out, you notice. Bodies are all gone, but there is plenty of dried blood, and remains of the Jolanti. There are none of the Krarshtkids or other overt signs of Chaos, not at least on the ground floor—you don’t tour the whole mansion.
+The secret door in the storeroom is easy to find now that you know to look in the far left corner. It opens down a dark spiral staircase (note: I should have reminded the NPCs that it was pitch dark down there, and they’d have cast some Light magics, but that’s all fine—and Bog could have, for the most part, steered clear of them, I suppose). You file down, with Bog Darkwalking his way.
+The staircase opens into an ancient hall, about 4m high with vaulted ceilings and unadorned surfaces of brownish stone carved from the surrounding rock, dominated by two rows of five grey stone pillars each of which is expertly crafted to depict a giant, grandiose figure: two that seem to be nobles, a sailor, a farmer, a Galanini soldier, a cloaked wizard, a robed Earth priestess, an Uz, an Elf, and a Mostali. The walls feature bas-reliefs similar to half-pillars. A short hallway opens at the far end. There are four spaces between the pillars where gorgeous metalworks rise from the floor. Each is an odd, abstract thing; around 2m tall; that seems like artwork; made of iron, gold, silver and aluminium. Bog worries that these are horrible machines so he keeps his distance, pressed against the walls.
+Rubble completely blocks the hallway past this hall. With his sword-magic enhancing his strength, Sotiris starts to lift some of the rubble but then all of the rubble rises into a gigantic semi-humanoid rocky form, with magical energy leaking from its core. It asks in Safelstran, “Password?” One of you says, “Urcheth” and it stands still. Boamund reflects on possibilities and says, “So cometh Urcheth.” It then moves aside to allow passage, shifting its form so it is flatted against the wall all along the hallway.
+The hallway leads into a smaller room, which continues as a passage turning to the right. Two walls each feature a 4m tall, 2m wide bas-relief of a divine figure; male and female; both with lower bodies formed as what at first seem to be snakes, facing each other across the chamber, and with vivid, clean frescoes around them of attending axe-women with coiled lower halves of their bodies, too. Quickly it becomes obvious that the snake-bodies are not such, but rather are tentacles, and amidst their luxuriant hair the figures all bear a pair of short, upturned tentacles that have the superficial shape of horns. The figures all have disturbing expressions and eyes that feel like they are watching all onlookers. But there is a resident!
+It is a hideous giant head that constantly shifts in size (from about 5-50), inflating and deflating. She is blue-skinned and monstrous of visage, with great tusks, and then horribly she has giant intestines, a great pink fanged proboscis, and tentacle-like projections hanging from where the neck should be. She floats near the chamber’s centre, and addresses you in Safelstran as you enter: “How dare you come before your New Queen of Estali on your feet! Grovel on the floor like worms!” Even Bog, who doesn’t know the tongue, feels the force of her will, but none of you grovel. Instead, you fight!
+She vibrates her form and the floor moves as if it was liquid or jelly, shaking underneath you. All of you fall down, so she almost has her wish of grovelling. As you rise again she gestures with a tentacle and a moaning, howling black void of Chaos, opening into the very Chaosium, rips open next to her. It vomits out a blob of ooze that seems like a half-digested humanoid form complete with empty eyes and mouth; something like a gorp.
+Bog gradually moves around the edges of the room as you close in. You try some spells against her, including Sotiris’s powerful fire-wracking sorcery, but it all fades ineffectually. Meanwhile, the gorp-things advance and she casts some more powerful magics: she makes a tentacle grow from Boamund’s belly, and much to his horror it acts on its own, helping her defend against him. Makhaon proves his mettle with his Firespear magic as the battle continues: one, two, three, as the void vomits out the blobs, he incinerates them each in one incredible blow, and no more come forth. Boamund is hard-pressed to defend alone against the “New Queen” but Sotiris joins him. Her tough rubbery skin protects her well, and she swiftly regenerates from wounds (8 HP/round!), but you continue the attack. Bog evokes his Seal Wound spell on his maul and appears at last, behind the head-thing, and whallops her, just around the time that Makhaon arrives and delivers a massive punishing fire-wound with his spear. She is faltering, but she also is able to grab weapons with tentacles that she conjures on you (Boamund has difficulty but then breaks free). And Bog has heard something coming from down that hallway around the corner from this room.
+It's the four of you against the New Queen, but Makhaon has fallen under a rending tear from her tusked jaws, and Sotiris too lies bleeding. And the source of noise comes loping in from around the corner: a pallid-skinned humanoid thing with four muscular arms and bedecked with plates of spiky bronze armour, and clutching evil-looking bronze tools of torture. It rushes to Makhaon and tries stabbing at him with its improvised weapons, and this helps him for a while as he evokes a Heal Body miracle. Then it stabs him deeply and he is quite injured. But now the New Queen is severely weakened, Finally, Bog strikes her and rips her open, and the foetid green mist that infuses her vents forth as she jets around the room, wholly deflating as she bounces off of various surfaces, dripping blue-green ichor along the way. Soon she flutters down to the ground, shrunken to a flat form no larger than a small child. Boamund quickly moves to burn her. The rest of you who can, charge the torturer-thing and smash its head in.
+At last, the hall falls silent, and you take deep breaths as you regain your composure from a battle that seemed it could end in tragedy for you at any moment, and from the revelations of this place, that this “New Queen”, whatever her purpose, has been housed underneath the Mansion for who knows how long. Bog hurries down that far hallway and finds a cave that clearly served as a torture chamber, complete with many devices, old dried blood patches and scrawlings on walls of Chaos runes and other atrocities, and then three barred cells, all of which are empty except for bodies/skeletons in varied stages of decay. There is another hallway turning off near this, but this one also dead-ends at dense rubble. And there is a side-passage before that, which ends at a fortified iron door like the ones you saw on the upper floors. Bog and Boamund inspect the rubble while Sotiris and Makhaon help each other get back toward the exit. This rubble doesn’t respond to touch, and you can see no gaps in it. But, paying close attention, Bog and Boamund both hear and feel distant rumblings. There are further collapses happening behind this one. And Bog hears, during one lull, what he is sure is chittering… the creatures of Krarsht have covered their retreat!
+The door is locked (luckily Bog had his Shield spell up still, as opening it without such protection would have triggered a needle that would prick his hand and inject a very deadly venom!). Boamund soon finds the correct key, and opens it. There is a silent, unoccupied ritual chamber, its purpose made clear by the protective circle that dominates its floor, and that circle includes Chaos runes. There is a shelf with a few papers, some other places where there are reagents or ritual devices such as incenses and braziers and such, but nothing else remarkable. The papers are again in Safelstran.
+Bog and Boamund leave and hand the papers over to the two new allies. They are horrified by what they read, which doesn’t take very long since it’s not a huge amount of documents.
+There is an old scroll, surely from a prior Age(s). It is an incantation that reveals a diabolical intent of Artukan, and presumably Pehraln. “We call upon ye, Sky Tyrant, cast your gaze upon us oh Tyram, lend us your lashing Tongue, send its blinding fury to us so that we may crack open the skies of Estali, and your hatred will be fuelled, and the blighted city will rage and burn, and the Sun Horse will lie down dead.”
+But that’s not all. Oh no…
+Artukan has some collected notes that form a disorganised sort of journal/diary. But remarkably here, his writing style is completely different. Fully divulging and explicit, while cluttered in thought and disorganised. Almost insane, surely clutching onto his wits. However, it’s easy to piece together what he was up to. The plan with the New Queen, who was summoned here, was to decapitate Alangellia and use her headless corpse’s demigod power as a vessel to implant this New Queen’s head onto, and then to use that new form to subjugate what Galanini/Estali it could. It seemed that this was enabled by the power of Urcheth, who is a new Chaos god connected to Earth and Fertility—and thus sharing some nature with Ernalda.
+There is a broader revelation: with the rise of the Boat Planet, new ways of crossing the oceans have opened—not just for ships, but for Things. Via many paths, Chaos creatures from Genertela, which tends to have more humanoid-ish-sized and numerous Chaos monsters, and Pamaltela, which tends to have more large, monstrous, not so organised Chaos monsters (the Mother of Monsters being the worst of all!), have been crossing the seas. So now, in secret and sometimes in the open, large Pamaltelan Chaos things, entirely unfamiliar to Genertelans, have come and are coming. And Urcheth is foremost amongst them, for he/she/it is a God; not just a monster. Artukan was one of his priests in the new cult of Urcheth on Genertela, but that cult is still young here and Artukan did not yet have full access to its powers. Artukan writes, with appreciation, of a power centre elsewhere in eastern Ralios. In Karia, near the Kartolin Pass that leads to the terribly infamous blighted land of Dorastor, is a demigod-like shaman called Hezel Darong who leads new armies featuring big Pamaletelan monsters. East Ralios is facing that trouble now. It’s far from Estali, but it's very bad. Especially as it’s adjacent to Dorastor, from which tales have spread of new evils rising that have not been seen since Arkat’s age, or never seen before. Foremost amongst those tales is a name: Ralzakark, King of the Broos…
+What is absent from these documents is mention of how it all relates to Pehraln, Partan island, Tyram, or Tinaros (and its ruler Argin the Terror, “Son of the Devil”). Maybe they share the same agenda, maybe multiple ones, who knows. But nothing here is good news.
+The only good news is that you’ve stopped, at least for some time, a massive and unspeakable plot against Alangellia herself!!!!
+You got +2 party luck pts already for Artukan’s downfall, and with the defeat of the New Queen you would get +2 more, but anyway you’re up to your limit of 3 party luck points now! Yay!
+And you escape the basement with relief, and find your way back to the naval base to recover. Sotiris and Makhaon get priority treatments of Heal Wound spells by Chalana Arroy healers sent to the base to cast them, and Shrett and Fraud have arrived, now convalescing and enjoying the ministrations of a rotating coterie of Ernalda initiates and acolytes, who rub salves and lotions on their amputated, regrowing limb-stumps regularly. Life could be worse. You talk over what has happened, and Fraud has the documents to look over so that he sees the evidence himself.
+You’ve experimented with the fancy bottle that Boamund has, along with the red crystal-bearing ring, and the green bottle of “all-antidote”. All are magic, but your new allies (Sotiris being the one with helpful sorcery) cannot learn much more about them. There is indeed a spiritual essence inside the bottle and ring, but even with Boamund repeating what the faint voice whispers to him from the ring, it is not even known what language is being spoken. An exotic tongue. Maybe an Issaries cultist could magically translate, if the language is not known to anyone else.
+Now, recuperating, and armed with the knowledge that time is short, that the snow-hurricane is coming sometime tomorrow morning, you discuss how you will assault the warehouse and Mistress ship as soon as you’re able. Bog wants to go pray at his ZZ shrine but that timing looks problematic.
+That was exciting! I like how the timing is working out, too—I’d not planned for this tight timetable with the weather, and certainly not with the maiming of Fraud and Shrett.
+----

RPG Campaigns

User Tools

Site Tools

Differences

Page Tools