[Horde] Chapter Three: Session Nineteen
Appearing Characters: Arthak Saurfang, Azgadaan, Caria Felsoul, Halno, Kilnar Goldensword (Illusion), Levia Blackflight, Nyxxa, Sadras
December 19th
The warband continues to explore Kilnar’s mansion. Nyxxa informs the group that Caria had entered the manor as well, and someone had been scrying on Nyxxa herself. Azgadaan asks Nyxxa what kind of disposition Caria has, and Nyxxa asks Levia how she would describe her.
Azgadaan and Nyxxa agree.
Halno sends his crawling claw into the kitchen to take a look at things. It seems there is a single cabinet that lines the right-hand wall in the entry room. In the larger room, there is a well-kept and recently used kitchen. It is stocked with an abundance of cutting-edge and nice-looking kitchenware. There are nice pots and pans and spoons and the like.
Azgadaan looks in the kitchen himself, and he senses some conjuration magic in the cabinet. He informs his fellows, and he then goes to open the cabinet. However, it’s locked, and Azgadaan asks Nyxxa to open it.
Nyxxa goes to try and open the cabinet. She is able to do so, and then steps back, leaving Azgadaan to open the door with the handle of his mace. Inside is a variety of fancy and expensive-looking serve wear.
It seems the cabinet itself is magical. As he looks closer, he notes there are several rows behind the serve wear that indicates much more room than the outside would suggest. It seems like it operates somewhat similarly to a bag of holding.
Azgadaan also pokes his head in the kitchen itself, and he can detect three points of magic. To the far left there appears to be a large steel box built into the counter, and there seems to be four circular designs on top. There is evocation magic inside, and the raised circles are transmutation.
There is also magic just beyond the point he can see.
And amongst the rest of the cooking utensils, there is a cylinder with a thick round shaker, and all down the bottom, there are dozens of pastel-colored squares. There is also a ewer with an abundance of different spigots on it--about four. It seems to be some sort of peculiar tea-brewing device. The magic from both those are conjuration. He isn’t sure what the shaker is, but he thinks the ewer can produce liquid magically.
Azgadaan tries to grab the ewer, and he nabs it.
Further in the room, there is another box--this one is made of stone and radiates conjuration and transmutation magics.
Azgadaan returns to the group and they head into the room with the sigil of a gilded sword with a scroll wrapped around it and a dove above it in it. The magic before them seems to flow under the floor.
Azgadaan detects conjuration magic from the water and from the raised platform with the sigil it is also conjuration. It seems like the platform doesn’t sink into the ground. Azgadaan creeps closer to get a better look, it appears that it is magically trapped, but the nature of the magic is not precisely known. Stepping on the platform will do something, but there is also a switch in it that may produce a clearing.
There is also illusion magic coming from a small section of the stone of the ceiling above the platform. Halno sends his crawling claw to investigate the illusion area, but nothing seems to happen.
Nyxxa and Azgadaan try to deactivate the trap, and Azgadaan is able to guide Nyxxa in with her thieves’ tools. She is able to trigger the glyph that raises the glass bridge across the water.
Nyxxa translates for Arthak, and Arthak nods, and they move ahead.
In the next room, there are a few vents on the ceiling. The skeletons step in first.
There is a soft hissing, and a thin white gas starts to pour into the room. It quickly fogs the room. They smell a phenomenal scent. It’s a mixture of lavender and sweet incense and soapy scents. It seems to be soothing.
Azgadaan goes to poke around, and it continues to smell amazing, and it seems to relax his muscles and he feels really rejuvenated.
In the next room, there is a marble room with a round pool of steaming water inside. There is a small waterfall falling into it from the chamber to the north. The rest of the group waits for the gas to dissipate, and Azgadaan ritual casts detect magic again.
There is also a painting on the far end of pool room, and two large doors head into a room to the north. There are also some levers along the south edge of the room, which Azgadaan goes to investigate. The skeletons fan out around him.
On the levers, Azgadaan sees instructions written in Thalassian. Azgadaan calls for someone to translate, and Halno goes to look.
It seems to be Drain and Fill
One is Right and Left.
And one is Hot and Cool.
Azgadaan pulls the lever down to Drain, and the middle pool starts to drain. Nothing else seems to happen. Halno sends his crawling claw to the room to the east, and he sees a gallery. Azgadaan follows in, and there are easily a dozen or more in the two hallways Azgadaan can see. Some are of locations, and one is a mural painted of Quel’danas as viewed from the shoreline--the beam of the Sunwell shooting into the air.
However, there’s no magic that he can sense.
Azgadaan looks around the room and picks up paintings off the wall as he does so. He finds a reasonably large sized portrait of a magister he assumes is Kilnar. Behind it is a passage with a stairwell that leads down. Azgadaan alerts the group, who had sent Halno’s familiar into the next room. Nyxxa follows in, and there is a central platform in another large pool. There are doors that branch off from the room, with a large antechamber at the far end with stairs and a glass walkway.
However, they double-back to the secret passage that Azgadaan had found. They send skeletons in first, and nothing happens. However, the room is simple. There is a pool on the far end, and there is a table with a number of books. There are a number of metal bars on the wall, as well as towels, soaps, and the like. There is an inkwell and parchment along with notes.
There is what appears to be a mat on the floor next to the water’s edge.
Beyond the water, there are traces of magic. The area seems to be magically protected.
There is powerful abjuration magic coating the entire room. It seems to be cloaked with the private sanctum spell. There is also a faint aura of transmutation magic from the pool, but it’s more of an echo of magic--indicating that there may have been magic cast there somewhat recently.
Meanwhile, Halno is looking at the books on the table. One of them is a historical book that appears to be a history of the elves. It is heavily notated in what is likely Kilnar’s hand. There are also a few letters, and what appears to be a mock-up of several drafts of a last will and testament. None appear to be finished.
Halno scoops all of it up.
Arthak asks to speak with Azgadaan for a moment as he goes on about being careful not to take things from the lady’s private chambers.
Arthak turns to head out of the chamber.
They head out. Nyxxa takes a short rest, and Azgadaan ritual casts detect magic again before entering the large room.
There seems to be abjuration, conjuration, and transmutation magic on the central platform in the large pool. Nyxxa also sees translucent, glyphic magic on the platform. Azgadaan pulls the cold switch to cool the water, and then he uses shape water to create an ice path to the central platform to investigate it.
He asked someone to go and pull the temperature lever all the way down, but the water doesn’t seem to freeze like Azgadaan had thought. He then goes around the room looking for hidden entrances, and he peeks into the obvious entrances as well.
In the first one, he sees a multi-tiered room. It’s well-carpeted. The bottom section has a few chairs and seems comfortable. The section section has chairs and music stands that are facing toward the other chairs, with instruments on some of the chairs and stands. The chamber is lowly lit, and on the top tier, there is a grand stand with sheet music on it, and a small conductor’s wand. Behind it is a grand instrument with pristine white keys--a piano.
There doesn’t seem to be any visible magic.
He asks for people to help him look for secret entrances. Two sections of the stone seem to be slightly off from the rest of the stone wall. Azgadaan presses against one of the sections, as does Arthak, but nothing happens. Azgadaan starts to try and pry the wall open with his mace, but it doesn’t work.
However, Arthak unsheathes Traitor’s Gift (Kaylaan’s old sword) and it cleaves into a section of the stone, chipping it off. He gets the feeling it would take about an hour to get through.
Azgadaan goes to investigate the piano, which has some sheet music on it. He opts to give up, and they head back to the main room. Azgadaan heads to the door across the way, and he sees a stairway that heads up to the second floor and connects to a marble walkway that goes across the room.
Azgadaan continues up the stairs while Nyxxa looks around with Arthak watching her back. Invisible, along the sides of the walkway, are two railings.
They continue to search around the room, and they head to the main doors up north. The stairs and walkway are glass, and beyond the entrance, they can see the water extends much further. There is a fish that swims by under the stairs.
They go into another room, but it seems there was a curious lack of anything living save for that single fish. The pool in this room is covered in glass., and it continues into a long chamber that has a single door. There is another room off the side that has a raised marble dais that exudes conjuration and illusion magic. There are four pools on the sides of it.
Nyxxa also peeks in, and sees nothing invisible.
Azgadaan circles the room, and he senses evocation magic past some of the walls. He also takes a closer look at the dais. However, he isn’t sure if it does anything. He doubles back, and goes across the pool to the other chamber with the single door. Conjuration magic seems to radiate around the door.
They send a skeleton to the door, and it opens the door, but it’s just a flat marble, stone wall. Azgadaan tries to identify the magic, but is unable to, and he goes back to the main room and to the one of the last unexplored rooms. It’s a deep chamber with a mirror, a chamberpot, and a sink.
They go back to the main big doors, and they appear to be locked. Nyxxa tries to unlock the door while Azgadaan runs up the stairs and across the walkway to see the other side. It’s a dining room with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and a wide dining table with beautiful white table cloths. The table is set, and the food is still warm. The food has enchantment magic on it.
There’s no answer, and Azgadaan searches the room, but finds nothing. He and Arthak head back to the main doors, but Nyxxa has been unable to get through. She continues trying, but finally she gets through after about a half hour.
Sadras had sat down on the stairs and was looking at the fish. Azgadaan uses shape water to pull up some of the water to touch it. He tastes it and it tastes salty.
Sadras was going to try and grab a fish, but Arthak stops her. In that moment, they see two smaller fish go by very fast, pursued by a larger fish, that snags one of the smaller ones, and then swims away.
Levia nods.
They push the newly unlocked door open, and reveal a marble and glass room. There is a table on the far end of the room with a white, porcelain pitcher and cups. Sitting in one of the chairs is an elvish woman with creamy blonde hair.
She reaches forward, watching the group and the door, and grabs a cup and sips from it. She smiles.
Azgadaan slowly enters with the others.
As he approaches, he senses illusion magic from everything before them--Kilnar, the table, the tea set, everything.
Kilnar reclines in her chair and taps her chin.
Kilnar laughs.
There is the sound of cracking, and the glass beneath them starts to crack. They start to run, but their feet break through the glass, and it shatters beneath them. They are then spilled into the water beneath.
They can’t see very far in the water, but it is expansive. The group starts swimming for the surface, and Azgadaan’s concentration on detect magic drops. However, the skeletons begin to sink. Halno conjures two ice blocks with shape water, and manages to save two of the skeletons, but the others sink.
They head toward the other room so they can make a plan from there. However, they can’t climb onto the marble to get out. They instead find a side passage in the room that they head toward. They are able to get the door open and it leads to a hall with a stairway that leads down.
Azgadaan checks the other side passage and there is another hallway, but he rejoins the group.
Arthak grabs Azgadaan.
Arthak storms down the stairs, and there is a moment where the yelling echoes. But they start to follow Arthak, and there is a voice from behind them.
Standing just behind them is Caria.
Caria saunters over to Azgadaan and taps a finger on his nose.
He holds a hand out, and Caria taps a finger on her chin.
She takes his hand.
She wraps an arm around Nyxxa.
Caria grins.
Azgadaan uses a scroll of detect magic as they follow Arthak deeper into the manor. However, it seems to be a dead end. They look around, and Azgadaan finds a stone that he can press, which reveals another passage.
The passage beyond is very damp, and Caria greets the others now that she’s here. Arthak makes note. She gives him a big smile.
In the passage beyond, it splits three ways. One directly forward to a pool of water, a long chamber to the right, and stairs to another pool to the left.
Azgadaan checks out the room to the right, and the pool is also magical, as per usual, but there is also a very large shark in it. At the bottom, there seems to be decorations. Like real treasure.
Meanwhile, Nyxxa is chatting with Caria.
She glances in the direction of Azgadaan.
She gestures to the water everywhere.
Azgadaan heads to the passage to the right, and at the far end, there seems to be a massive figure. There are shadows flickering from it in the light of the dim sconces. Nyxxa takes a peek. At the far end is a large, headless statue. It seems similar to the arcane guardians that were seen around the city, but it is much, much larger.
They head to the straight corridor and they look into the pool of water. At the bottom, there seems to be earth. However, there are no other doorways off the room.
It seems that the water likely connects to the same aquarium they fell into. Halno tries to call his skeletons over to him, and after some time, one wades over. It looks damaged.
They drop some rope to help the skeleton up, but as they do, a school of fish come over and look up at them. Nyxxa asks Azgadaan if he has some meat, and he does, and she throws it into the pool. The fish go into a frenzy after it, and Nyxxa’s ear picks up on a vibration in the water.
Suddenly, the piranhas stop completely, and turn to look at the group again.
Suddenly, all the fish disappear. And the passage to the water closes. As the group backs up, the closed passageway opens an eye. A large eye.
When the fish disappeared, she had heard words in the distance.
They head back to the golem passageway and set up a perimeter to take a brief rest. However, they hear something moving beneath them, and the water erupts, a group of water weirds rushing upon them.
