Making their way back out to find a way to the goblin stronghold, they once more passed thru the ruins of Moonhaven. This time Jasper heard a sound coming from an old well. A sound he couldn’t quite identify. It sounded almost like… singing? And the Dark Book in his backpack was almost throbbing along with it. Whatever was down there was in some way linked to the Book – and possibly a way to destroy it. It didn’t look friendly, but Jesper felt they had to climb down and check things out.
Below they found old cave tunnels… infested with large spiders and… other things.
Ettercaps intercepted them a short way into the tunnels, ambushing them regularly as they attempted to explore.
Before long they came upon and old, abandoned shrine, which looked like it had been lived at some point. It appeared to be of Drow design, and notes and ravings scattered about indicated that a mad Drow had been attempting to find a way to become “closer to Lloth”. She had come upon some sort of dark ritual to slowly transform herself into a “greater being”.
Before long Jasper found what she had meant. The central cavern was home to a truly enormous phase spider queen, with eggs, spiderlings, and servants scattered about.
They quickly formed a plan of attack. Karlach drew center stage – her toughness and poison resistance hopefully allowing her to stand up to the Queen long enough for the others to thin out the help. Her job was to keep it occupied.
Shadowheart fought some of the “regular” phase spiders. Merely the size of horses. Nothing at all.
Gale was tasked with taking out the hordes of spiderlings, guarded by another fierce phase spider.
When she was at her angriest, the Queen retreated to her web to spit poison at them from afar… at which point Jasper sprung the trap. A few vials of acid and alchemist’s fire thrown onto her webbing, and the web collapsed in flame – sending the giant monstrosity hurtling down into the dark depths below.
Exploring the nest, they found the source of the “singing” – and what had apparently been calling to the book. A dark gem hidden in a skull – apparently the key to unlocking the evil tome. Jasper didn’t like keeping the two together, but he suspected the key would be a necessary part of the tome’s destruction.
Continuing on down the road from Moonhaven, they saw a burning trading outpost in the distance. Wyll hissed – recognizing the place as he saw it. It was “Waukeen’s Rest”, a crossroads inn and meeting place for merchants manned by Flaming Fists from Baldur’s Gate.
Inside they found signs of recent battle everywhere – including the bodies of Flaming Fists, Drow, and Goblins. Soldiers were attempting unsuccessfully to break down doors to rescue survivors. Luckily, Jasper had brought his very own fire-proof battering ram.
Among those found inside were Counsellor Florrick – a high-ranking staffer from Baldur’s Gate and assistant to Duke Ravengard. She claimed that the attack had been a cover for the Drow to kidnap the Duke! Wyll gave a shocked cry and she turned and recognized him through his changed appearance. Apparently Duke Ravengard.. was Wyll’s own father! They quickly determined that the Duke had likely been kidnapped for ransom/blackmail – and so was unlikely to be immediately harmed. They also had a likely destination. A place called Moonrise Towers – which was unfortunately deep in the Shadowlands. They would have to get past the goblin army to reach the tower – or even Baldur’s Gate.
Jasper looked questioningly at Wyll – there was apparently much he had left out about his own background. But Wyll shook his head. Later. In private.
Exploring further, Jasper found a trapdoor hidden in a warehouse in back… and was confronted with a hidden sorcerer when he went to take a closer look! Some fast talking convinced the man that Jasper was a “customer” rather than allied with the Flaming Fist, and he was allowed to continue.
The trapdoor led to a cellar, and a hidden door in a cabinet there led to… a Zhentarim smuggling base! The leader of the group was a hard woman named Zarys. Jasper was skeptical, but she claimed to have had absolutely nothing to do with the attack above and the kidnapping of the Duke. In fact, they were making arrangements to abandon the operation here as rapidly as possible because after the attack above there would be too much attention to remain hidden. And they didn’t want to be blamed for it. However, there was a complication. One last shipment was supposed to have come in, but never arrived. Its contents were to important to abandon. She wouldn’t tell him what they were, but she said they would pay well to recover the cargo (and the guards if possible, but primarily the cargo). In the interests of avoiding an unnecessary conflict, (and hoping to learn more about the cargo), Jasper agreed to check it out. If something was attacking even Zhentarim caravans then there was a threat to all.
Tracing along the caravan’s expected route, they soon found it. OR what was left of it anyway. The wagons were smashed. The cargo was scattered. But oddly, plenty of value appeared to still be there… And there were no bodies. Traces of blood. Signs of battle. But no bodies.
Tracking signs as well as they could they soon heard yips and howls, and found a large contingent of Gnolls and Hyenas surrounding a cave mouth blocked with a flaming barricade. There was clearly someone inside occasionally taking shots out at the Gnolls, but they were primarily staying in cover as the Gnolls had archers of their own. Gnolls and their tendency to… consume the slain… would certainly explain the lack of bodies. But they would have to attack soon before whoever was holed up in the cave ran out of things to burn to keep the Gnolls at bay.
Karlach leapt happily into the fray, always one to enjoy a good brawl.
At which point they discovered that there was more here than Gnolls and Hyenas’ There was an elite Flind leading the pack. And to Jasper’s surprise he found that the Flind too had an Illithid parasite… And the Flind was nowhere near as aware of what that meant as Jasper. So Jasper used the connection against it, overloading its mind with conflicting impulses.
The remaining caravan guards were overjoyed to see them. They refused to say anything about the cargo the were protecting – and Jasper could understand why given the nature of their employers. They promised to “put in a good word for him with the boss”. But Jasper wasn’t terribly concerned about the good will of Zhentarim smugglers. He was more concerned with what, exactly, they were smuggling… and why. But despite their closed he learned much from what they didn’t say, and what they couldn’t hide. The smuggling operation involved magical weapons and explosives, and the primary buyer was in Baldur’s Gate.
That night Jasper took a moment to reflect upon his companions. He wasn’t sure how much of their behavior was due to their age and how much was due to their cranial intruder. He knew Mind Flayer tadpoles didn’t quite affect Gnomes in the same way they affected other races. But he was seriously beginning to wonder about the sanity of some of them.
Shadowheart was a pretty mixed up girl. She had confessed to him that she was a priest of Shar, dreaming of becoming a Dark Justiciar. But she had some very… odd… ideas about the nature of both Shar and Selune. The brief bits she was able to remember about her childhood and her life in a Sharan monastery led him to believe her origins were not what she thought. But he sensed she needed to figure that out for herself.
She also seemed to consider him the closest friend she had ever had, and at least once so far had made a serious pass at him over wine and private conversation. She was both young enough to be his grand-daughter and twice the size of any woman he had ever courted. He tried to let her down gently. The girl seriously needed to get out more if being nice to her for a week made her consider you her long lost soul mate.
Gale was a nice enough young man, but needed to get out more even more than Shadowheart. He believed he was in love with Mystara herself… and to impress her he had… tried to recover and use scraps of magic from the Fall of Netheril?? The Cataclysm which had killed Mystara’s previous incarnation!?!? Jasper was still trying to make sense of that train of “thought”. And now he was suffering under some sort of “curse” requiring him to periodically drain magic items? The boy had a serious case of all wit no wisdom. Jasper was surprised he could tie his own shoes without catastrophe.
And to top it sssoff Gale took him aside one night to “show him something special”, and then proceeded to try to teach him “real magic”! Jasper was genuinely insulted. He’d been working magic since before Gale’s *grandfather* had been born. And he didn’t need written instructions to do it, unlike Wizards. Any fool could parcel out magic in pre-packaged containers with paint-by-numbers instructions and rote memorization. It took deeper understanding to do it on-the-fly as needed.
After a bit of poking and prodding Jasper had learned that Wyll was Duke Ravengard’s black sheep son. He had tried to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Flaming Fist, but he just wasn’t cut out for army life. He tried his hand at adventuring as the “Blade of Frontiers”, but soon found himself in over his head uncovering what he believed to be a Cult of the Dragon plot to summon Tiamat under Baldur’s Gate! Thinking himself not strong enough to eliminate the threat on his own, he made a deal with Mizora for the necessary power. How and why he already knew how to contact such a being was left unexplained. But Jasper suspected he had been just as unthinking with the details of his devilish “contract” as he had with his life and career. Wyll needed some serious guidance – and perhaps a good old-fashioned slap upside the head to go with it.
Karlach was the only one who seemed to have a decent head on her shoulders. She had been sold to a devil as a young teen, by a man she trusted who had rescued her from the streets. Everything that had happened to her since had been completely beyond her control, and the moment she had an opportunity to change her trajectory – by intentionally getting captured by the Mind Flayer ship as it passed through Hell – she had taken it. She had a good attitude, didn’t spend too much time worrying about what she couldn’t change, and was quick to speak her mind. Jasper considered her the “other adult in the room” despite her young age.
Lae’zel was also young, having never before ventured outside Githyanki space. And she had the fierce devotion to Githyanki ways of one who had never had her beliefs and dedication tested in practice. She was stubborn, she hid her doubt and uncertainty behind zealous pride and prickliness, and she went out of her way to act like a stereotypical exemplar of her race – or at least what she thought that was. He wasn’t quite sure how to break her irrational certainty, and was even less sure who she would turn out to be afterwards. But she was the best lead they had to a people intimately familiar with Illithid infestation and technology. The thought did not give him comfort.
For a while she had been a sparring partner. Until he discovered that the githyanki considered “sparring” to be much like “flirting”. Ah. No. Just No.
As far as Jasper was concerned Astarion was completely untrustworthy. Most at home in the gutter, and would crawl over and chew through anyone and anything to get away from whatever it was he feared. He was clearly a vampire. It was obvious from the moment they met. But Jasper had intended to allowed him to admit to it in his own time. However when Astarion attempted to sneak a “quick bite” in the night, then asked for permission to *suck his blood* after – Jasper put his foot down. He understood the need to stick together, but Astarion could go suck a boar if he was that hungry. And Jasper certainly wasn’t trusting the elf behind him in combat.
Jasper fell asleep that night thanking hard about how best to get his companions through the days to come. Many of them needed serious introspection to reach their potential, but he couldn’t push them too hard too fast as they needed to be effective *now* and not just down the road. He had a lot to consider before they reached the goblin stronghold.
Author’s Notes:
The companions really come across as rather quick to open up and easily manipulated. I know they wanted “responsive to the players engagement”, but I think they should have either leveraged the mind-melds more to force secrets into the open or let it happen more slowly. As it is several of them (Shadowheart, Gale) come across as far too trusting far too quickly.
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