With the undead defeated, the party decided to search the area for clues about where they'd come from. Unfortunately the ruined laboratory held nothing of interest. However, there was a small pile of useful items where the necromancer last stood. Soraneus claimed his spellbook and a few hundred gold pieces worth of onyx. Tomoko took the ring of protection +2 and handed her ring of protection +1 off to Sorkil. He also had a scroll of Create Undead at caster level 15. There was some debate about what to do with it because it only creates evil undead, so the party decided to hold on to it for now.
On their way back to camp, the party stopped to inform the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent that the undead menace had been destroyed. Osond thanked them and said that the Radiant Muse wished to speak with them. She helpfully informed them that there was a necromancer on the loose and asked them to destroy him. Soraneus replied, "Don't worry, we took care of him." She was pleased and offered the party a reward: a scroll of
heal with which to cure the half-elf. They thank her and returned to camp.
Nobody in the party could use the scroll directly, so they asked Jask to cast it for them. He obliged, and as the spell completed the light of understanding returned to the woman's eyes. She thanked everyone for saving her, and immediately requested aid on a nebulus fate-of-the-world quest. Tomoko introduced everyone and asked her name. She said her name was Juliver and that she was a Pathfinder from the Grand Lodge of Absalom.
Tomoko asked Juliver how she came to Saventh-Yhi, prompting an infodump about another Pathfinder, Iando Kline, and their plan to ensure that sleeping serpentfolk cities never wake. Soraneus and Tomoko agreed that such a threat must be stopped at all costs. Tomoko warned her about Sorkil's bombs and amount of fur she'd lost to them. Sorkil replied, "Explosions are well known for their life-saving properties." (a running gag)
Soraneus cut the other two off before their argument could get out of hand. "If you're OK with a little friendly fire - literally - we'll follow you."
Before setting out, the party asked Juliver more about what happened to the expedition and how she got to Saventh-Yhi. Her party encountered more serpentfolk than expected in the city beneath this continent, and her companions were all captured or killed. She escaped and fled through the Darklands.
When asked if she knew the way back, she replied "I broke it." Her flight took her through a magical gateway. To ensure the serpentfolk couldn't catch her, she destroyed several important-looking crystals around the edges. Shortly thereafter, she encountered an undead serpentfolk man, and after that her memory became hazy.
Because Juliver couldn't remember where she'd been while
feebleminded the party decided to follow her tracks backward from where the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent found her. Before they left, however, Sorkil asked to take some time to sleep and recover his spells. Between the necromancer's spell and his night-long vigil he was completely exhausted. While he rested, Juliver took the time to re-equip herself. General Havilar gave some magic weapons and armour from the company armory. She also kept Egzimora's dress.
The party set out in the middle of the afternoon. The guards who'd first found Juliver lead us to where they first saw her, and Sorkil quickly picked up her trail. After many twists and turns through the surrounding jungle, they reached a massive, vine-covered double door set into the side of a cliff. One side was wide open, revealing a deep, dark hall within.
As everyone approached the entrance, Soraneus spotted a kech lurking just inside. Unfortunately his
snowball missed, and the kech fled into the darkness.
The party briefly debated correct marching order for the dungeon ahead. The entrance was large enough to accommodate Skelesuchus, but there was no guarantee it could traverse the deeper passages. Soraneus eventually elected to leave it behind as a rear guard. Arms would take point with an everburning torch, while Legs would defend the spellcasters from behind. With the marching order settled, everyone began to enter the dungeon.
The cool flame of the everburning torch showed that the walls and floor were covered in the thick layer of black dust or soot. The twenty-foot-wide hall split into two passages half that size at the edge of the torchlight. The party quickly advanced, kicking up and breathing in some of the soot.
As soon as Arms, Juliver, and Tomoko were through the door, a large statue fell across their path. Half a dozen arrows rained down on them, and Tomoko felt the bitter sting of their poisoned tips. Tomoko turned invisible, but couldn't see her attackers. A second volley soon followed targeting Juliver and Sorkil.
Soraneus shouted, "Everyone get back!" Sorkil lobbed a bomb up at the attacking kech and beat a hasty retreat. Juliver quickly followed. Tomoko whispered "I'm here." as she ran past the wizard. With all his allies clear, he unleashed a mighty
cloudkill on the cave entrance.
The elite kech warriors survived the spell, but it drove them out of hiding and into jaws of the undead below. Soraneus cast
haste. Tomoko and the skeletons quickly cut them down. The few survivors were finished by a second bomb from Sorkil. Everyone looted their bodies, finding a few gold nuggets and some valuable poison.
Soraneus's
cloudkill blocked both of the deeper passages. Neither Juliver nor Tomoko would be able to pass through for the next few minutes. Sorkil and Soraneus decided to scout ahead with the skeletons, turning left at the fork. Tomoko paced anxiously, waiting for their return.
The two spellcasters soon stumbled upon the corpse of a bat-like humanoid covered in arrows. Soraneus identified it as a sabosan. The body had already been stripped of valuables, so they continued on.
The next room appeared to be some kind of apothecary full of aromatic herbs (along with the pervasive black dust). Eight kech were milling about inside. Surprised, they turned to attack. Soraneus dropped four of them into a
hungry pit before they could advance. Sorkil badly burned the others with a fire bomb, and the skeletons took a few bites out of them as well.
The kech couldn't hurt Soraneus's shadow form, but they could hurt Sorkil. They charged past the skeletons to reach the tiefling, lightly wounding him with their teeth. Arms and Legs quickly turned on them, tearing two down with their massive claws. Sorkil's second bomb finished off the other two.
Meanwhile, the four kech in the pit desperately tried to escape. One was smashed to pieces, and two others fell to their deaths from the midway point. A single ketch reached the top of the pit only to fall into the jaws of the skeletal minions.
Soraneus and Sorkil took a minute to loot the kech, finding more poison but less gold. They returned to their companions outside shortly before the
cloudkill expired. They let the others know about the sabosan and the kech, then asked Tomoko if she'd rather continue in the direction they'd scouted or check the other passages. Tomoko briefly struggled with the decision before declaring they should continue to the left.
A short distance past the apothecary, the party reached a cavern with a wicker wall on one end. It also had several living sabosan who were less than thrilled with the intruders in their lair. One of them let out an ear-piercing scream while another took flight and kicked up dust. The other four charged.
Sorkil opened with a fire bomb. Arms took one down, and its master's
snowball felled another. The sabosan in the back continued to scream, so Tomoko yelled "Stop yelling at me!" back as she stabbed its companion.
Sorkil's second bomb killed two bats, but he and Juliver were bleeding heavily from the bites they'd already inflicted. Soraneus's second
snowball killed the one that was kicking up dust, leaving only the shrieker. Tomoko charged at him but received a painful bite in return. Juliver and Sorkil ran to her rescue, stabbing it with their rapier and spear respectively.
Sorkil moved quickly to staunch his and Juliver's bleeding. Tomoko elected to remain invisible and tend to her own wounds. Once everyone was ready, the party decided to leave the wicker wall in place and explore the other passage out of the room. They soon found a few more sabosan lingering near a half-way of crystal blocks and a festering mass of indeterminate organic matter.
Sorkil threw a pair of bombs into the room, instantly killing one of the sabosan and setting another one on fire. Soraneus became distracted while attempting to use his acid blast ability, burning himself from within. "I swear this has never happened before," said the embarrassed wizard.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Juliver tumbled past the remaining sabosan and ran her rapier through his back. Tomoko silently decapitated the other. The surviving sabosan flailed at her wildly, but she deftly avoided every blow. Sorkil's spear soon dealt the finishing blow.
A quick search of the area revealed a gourd full of gold dust and tiny diamonds wrapped in leaves. Soraneus inspected the pile of sludge and decided it was probably a creature killed with large amounts of acid. A closer inspection of the crystals blocking the hallway revealed they were rock salt, so Soraneus suspected they was meant to keep some form of large ooze at bay. Everyone decided to turn around and inspect the area behind the wicker wall instead.
When they reached the wicker wall, Soraneus asked Tomoko to check it for traps. She glared at him and refused to do so. Sorkil checked instead. There were no traps on the wicker, so he moved it aside and the party continued on.
The passage opened up into a larger cavern with a hole in the roof. Jungle flowers bloomed amidst several strange mud pillars beneath it. Sorkil identified the mud piles as deserted army ant nests. Soraneus examined the plants. Tomoko watched her companions, keeping her back to the wall. Eventually Sorkil said, "Tracks! Little Juliver tracks." He'd picked up her original trail through the soft dirt floor.
The party followed Juliver's tracks past a fork in the passage. They soon came to a room with a statue and three other exits. Juliver's tracks lead through a door on their left, but there were also serpentfolk tracks leading from a door to the right through the corridor straight ahead. Since Tomoko remained both invisible and uncooperative, Sorkil checked the door on the left for traps without being asked.
Soraneus stuck his shadow-self's head through the door without actually opening it. He saw a large cavern with crystalline veins throughout. The remnants of a gigantic statue lay shattered in the middle of the room, and huge murals decorated the walls. One of the murals was a smaller depiction of the room itself, and several shards of crystal are scattered around it. A closer inspection of that mural reveals a portal set into the wall with small holes - presumably from when Juliver destroyed the gate.
Soraneus returned to report his findings. Sorkil opened the door. The statue behind the party immediately lashed out at him, slamming a massive fist into the back of his head. Soraneus retaliated with a
snowball shattering a chunk of its side. Due to the room's small size, everyone else was forced to engage it in melee. However, the golem's hard exterior protected it from the worst of their attacks.
Heedless of its attackers, the golem smashed Sorkil twice more. The cornered alchemist decided to play dead. He abandoned his simulacrum, causing it to fall to the ground unconscious. With its primary target neutralized, the golem turned its attention to the rest of the party. It raised its fists to strike Juliver, but before it could attack Soraneus landed a second
snowball. The golem crumpled harmlessly to the floor.
Soraneus cast
whispering winds (a spell he recently learned from the ghast necromancer's spellbook) to inform Sorkil that his simulacrum was no longer in danger. The unconscious clone immediately sprang to life and said, "Thank you kindly. I was punched in the face by fists the size of my face." He set about brewing healing extracts to restore structural integrity to the cloned body.
With the way cleared, the entire party examined the room with the murals. Torchlight revealed that the crystalline veins on the ways were deep blue in color. Inspecting the portal, Soraneus realized the six holes around the portal would require specially-crafted focusing rods carved of the same blue stone. He cast
detect magic to examine the enchantments and noticed that a
firestorm had been worked into the wall as well. Sorkil confirmed the presence of a one-shot magical trap that could be triggered by touching the portal. When Tomoko was asked if she wanted to disarm it now or wait until later, she gave a noncommittal answer. Soraneus internally vowed to ask her what was wrong once they were safely outside the dungeon.
Following the serpentfolk tracks down the passage lead the party to a room covered in a thick layer of slime. As the party pondered what exactly left the slime trail, a massive slug crept out from around the corner and spat acid at Arms. Soraneus causally lobbed a snowball down its throat, freezing it solid. The bloody skeleton fizzed horribly but stood strong.
Exploration beyond the slug's frozen corpse lead back to the room with the rock salt blocks. The party turned and followed the serpentfolk tracks through the omnipresent black dust. The tracks ended partway down the next hall. Soraneus's keen elven senses detected a hidden door. He phased through it while Sorkil searched for the catch.
The doorway lead to the remnants of a magical laboratory. The shelves had long since rotted away, leaving little but shards of glass and an oppressively thick carpet of black dust. Sorkil let himself in. Tomoko remained invisible while the other three searched the laboratory.
Mostly deprived of his sense of touch, Soraneus found nothing. Sorkil, however, pulled a well-worn book from a pile of broken wood. Glancing about nervously, he put it in his handy haversack without telling anyone. Hiding such things from notice was well outside his area of expertise, so everyone saw it immediately.
"What have you got there?" asked Soraneus.
"Nothing." said Sorkil.
"I saw you put something in your pack. Looked like a book." replied the wizard.
"It's nothing. Just a piece of glass. A souvenir."
"Why are you hiding things from your friends?"
"
Are you my friends?" the tiefling asked, glaring at his compatriots.
"Was that ever in any doubt?"
Instead of responding, Sorkil turned and ran away. Tomoko immediately summoned her lions and ordered them to kill him. Juliver screamed, "Die, traitor!" and stabbed Soraneus with her magic rapier. The confused wizard retreated into a wall and cast
hold person on her, but she was unaffected. When that didn't work, he trapped her in the laboratory with a
wall of stone and returned to his body to inform everyone that something was wrong with Sorkil.
Meanwhile, Sorkil responded to Tomoko's attacks with lethal force. His bombs quickly took down one lion, and he continued to kite Tomoko and the other back toward the portal room. The ninja landed a few hits, but her fighting style was not well suited to running engagements. She was already burnt all over from his bombs when Sorkil deliberately set off the
firestorm trap she'd refused to disable earlier. He survived the resulting explosion, but she did not. He sauntered off into the jungle with his prize.
Suddenly, the tiefling found himself a short way from the Sargavan camp. Soraneus and the two efreet simulacra he'd left there were facing him, and Tomoko's incinerated corpse was by his side. He immediately threw an acid bomb at the wizard, but caught a
snowball to the face. His artificial body dissolved into a foul-smelling puddle, and he awoke to find his real body and other duplicates bound and under heavy guard. He slipped his bonds, but was not willing to try fighting his way out of camp naked - especially after Soraneus returned and set the efreet to guard him as well.
Soraneus asked Jask and Havilar to watch him in case he started acting stranger than usual after retrieving the book from Sorkil's pack. Fortunately, the book was not responsible for the alchemist's sudden betrayal. It was a journal written by Pharasma's high priest of prophecy at the time of Earthfall. It chronicled how his attempts to save the city from an unknown disaster went horribly awry after he brought a mysterious plant back from the Boneyard itself. He regularly breathed the spores of this plant and became more and more convinced of both the coming doom and others' plots to stop him from saving the city. The further he spread these "Midnight Spores", the more citizens heeded his words of warning. When the citizens finally built mighty vaults to protect themselves, he filled them with spores too. His increasingly-paranoid ramblings ended mid-sentence when the earthquakes started, but the journal did contain maps to five of the other six vaults and references to a fountain that could cure people of the spores' influence.
The wizard couldn't feasibly retrieve the fountain alone, but he could
wish his friends better. He returned to Sorkil's cabin and had one of the efreeti simulacra cure his paranoia. Sorkil stopped hissing at the guards and apologized for his behavior. Soraneus fetched his things and let him get dressed, explaining what he'd learned about the vaults and the spores. They walked around the lake to retrieve the remaining simulacrum from the Artisan district so they could fix up Tomoko. Fortunately, the trip was uneventful.
Because they required more
wishes than they had on hand, Soraneus had another simulacrum made. He'd spent enough time reading earlier that Tomoko's contingent
reincarnation had revived her somewhere near the vault. Instead of tracking her down, Soraneus
wished her back while Sorkil waited in a nearby building. A naked female kobold appeared in front of him.
"Tomoko?" he asked.
"Leave me alone." she replied.
"We'll get this fixed."
"Just turn me back already!"
"Ok." One
wish later, it was done. A second cured the negative levels she'd suffered from her brief trip to Pharasma's boneyard. Soraneus gave her her Handy Haversack and turned around to let the restored kitsune dress.
"It was the spores." Soraneus said to break the silence. "They're what killed this city."
"Just leave me alone."
"Ok... Did you want another
reincarnation, or would you prefer a
resurrection this time?"
"Do what you want." she said, storming off.
Ressurection actually isn't an option because the efreet can't actually put contingent spells on other people. We only realized this later and found a workaround involving high-level witches instead. Sharing familiars + magic jar + sharing spells = self-cast spells on other creatures.
Soraneus decided that
reincarnation was the safer option. He also realized, immediately after finishing, that he'd forgotten Juliver was still paranoid and trapped back in the vault. He set out in shadow form to retrieve her and his skeletons the next day.
Soraneus called Tomoko down from the roof she'd been brooding on. Sorkil apologized for blowing her up. She lamented her own weakness, and the others comforted her. "There are some truly wonderful and terrible things in the world," said Soraneus. "Yesterday, we ran into one of the terrible ones." They emphadisized that what happened wasn't anybody's fault, just one of the risks of adventuring.
After Tomoko calmed down, the party discussed where to go next. The other vaults were the most likely places to find any spare focusing crystals the Azlanti may have left behind, so they decided to work their way clockwise around the lake. That meant the vault in the Military District was their next stop.
The party soon arrived at a half-hidden cave strewn with tattered cobwebs. Everyone tied bandanas across their faces so they wouldn't have to breath the spores directly. As they moved toward the entrance, another dire crocodile charged forth to meet Skelesuchus. It was covered in a writhing mass of spiders. Thinking quickly, Soraneus cast
command undead and ordered it to stop. He announced that he had a new pet, then ordered Skelesuchus to guard the entrance while the new crocodile lead the way into the dungeon.
I'm pretty sure that I should only have been able to charm it because it has an Intelligence score, but the DM ruled that because it's only of animal intelligence I got full control.
The cave beyond cobwebs was covered in the same black dust as the original vault. Tomoko noticed a change in Juliver's demeanor when she reached the spores and quietly told the others in Sylvan. Juliver called her out on plotting in a language she didn't understand. Soraneus successfully covered for her, and she reluctantly continued to follow them.
The first chamber was filled with piles of dried bones - presumably the remains of prey slain by spiders. Shortly after the party passed them, several undead boggards waiting in ambush breathed spiders all over everyone. Tomoko and Sorkil were too busy swatting at them to fight back, but Soraneus retaliated with a
snowball and Spidersuchus lashed out with its teeth and tail. Juliver took this chance to flee because the others were clearly plotting to kill her.
Sorkil intentionally got caught in his own bomb's splash radius to burn away the spiders. Soraneus killed another with a
snowball. The last one fell before Tomoko's blades, but she was too busy flailing at the spiders in her fur to gloat about it.
With the undead defeated, Sorkil prepared some healing spells. Soraneus used that time to search the bodies and noticed that they all had bronze armbands stamped with a toothed fish emblem. Tomoko and Sorkil split the healing extracts and made a more thorough search of the room. They soon found what they'd come for: four focusing crystals for the gate marked with the Azlanti symbol for anger.
After a quick discussion, the party decided to press on to see if more loot could be found further inside. They soon came to an eighty-foot tall hall completely filled with massive webs. A gigantic spider lurked on the ceiling. Soraneus recognized it as a Corpse Spinner just as Spidersuchus blundered into the web. They drove it off with some
snowballs and a couple charges from a wand of
lightning bolt, but not before it pinned Sorkil in place with a shot of webbing.
Soraneus tried to suggest chasing the corpse spinner back to its true lair the Astral Plane, but was interrupted by Sorkil. For some reason he wanted out of its webbing. After a few minutes Spidersuchus managed to pull itself free from the webbing and tear apart the strands holding him in place.
The vast field of webs made a full search impossible, but Soraneus noticed a large, gnarled stick jutting out from a shriveled corpse near the ceiling. He soon identified it as a necromancer's staff and claimed it as his own. Suddenly, Tomoko pointed across the room. In the edges of the torchlight a pair of ruby eyes glimmered brightly. Ancient powers were watching - and judging.