NPCs: Shade, Alkanon
PCs: Serena Greymayre, Gruntrok, Sir Orim Windgrace, Thandral, Armand Darkini and Arya
Later that afternoon, the blind mage makes his way around to each of the group members, and invites them to an elvish dinner party set for later that evening in a nearby forest glade. Orim, who had been talking to the Bahamatish high priest about containing the orb (sure Felines are fine but Trolls…), notes how unusual it is that he is able to unerringly track down every one in a strange town, but he is a mage after all…
Everyone, even the Dwarf and Drow, attends the dinner party. There is dancing, music, light conversation as well as food and drink especially tailored to each guest’s tastes. All in all it turns out to be a remarkably pleasant affair. That is until everything starts to go horribly wrong, of course.
Almost before anyone can react, the itching, displaced sensation Thandral felt earlier hits everyone. However, this time the feeling is MUCH stronger than it had been then. Soon, everyone is rendered unconscious.
When they awaken, the group finds themselves stripped of all their arms, armor, and equipment, but otherwise unhurt (except for Armand, whose bionoid gem has been tampered with). A few (Orim and Thandral) who wear nothing under their armor actually find themselves naked, much to the discomfort of the others. After improvising some slightly ragged loincloths, the group tries to figure out where they are.
Their new environment is a foul smelling prison cell with a glorious torture chamber view. Armand quickly discovers that the legs created by his bionoid gem work fairly well as lock picks, and in a few minutes the cell door swings open. As the party starts to explore the outer chamber, Orim notices movement in one corner and springs for it.
The movement turns out to be a young sea-elf girl (human equivalent to 13 or 14), named Anastasia. She claims that she was kidnapped by Lizardmen several months ago and imprisoned here ever since. The reason she gives for not being locked up is that she was forced to assist her captors with the torture and murder of several other prisoners. She would like to escape, but has been too afraid to try until now. While she would like to help her rescuers, she was never allowed any deeper into their complex than the next room, which is used for storage. However, she does know that it is extremely dangerous to have open flame in this place; apparently the stink of the place is caused by a high methane concentration.
Gruntrok uses his divine powers to discover the general direction of the group’s belongings, but not a specific path, so they are forced to explore their new surroundings. Once past the storage closet, they find themselves in a grid consisting of many large circular rooms, wide corridors and enormous octagonal rooms, all of which have high domed ceilings and at least a few inches of stagnant water covering the floor. The party begins to believe that this place might be an old sewer system.
In one of the enormous chambers, they find a pair of gigantic tentacle creatures hiding under a massive pile of rubbish. One of the monsters is killed quickly, but the other purses the party through several chambers. They finally manage to outdistance the creature and secure a gate between them and it.
They now find themselves in one of the large rooms where Armand finds a secret door. It leads into what is apparently a well maintained, human sized, gentleman’s bedroom. The party makes short work of the room, tearing it apart to find any clue as to where they are and why. Unfortunately, the room holds no answers to those questions, but it does have several chests containing some of the party’s weapons and equipment. Using some cloth scavenged from the bed and water from the washbasin, rudimentary breathing masks are made for those who are weak of stomach.
Several chambers away from the bedroom, the party hears the sound of many small feet scrambling toward them from one of the side passages. Suddenly thousands of terrified sewer rats come spilling into the room and just as quickly go swarming out the rooms opposite side. Investigating what caused the frightened horde the party finds a pack of the lizardmen that Anastasia claims kidnapped and imprisoned her. With little preamble, deadly combat ensues, but the party does manage to capture one lizardman alive. Arya and Thandral start questioning him, but gain little before Orim kills him for spitting venom at Thandral’s eyes.
