Down the Drain

After retrieving Suishen from under the noses of some angry gorgons and killing Munasukaru’s son, Ichirou, the party had continued in their exploration of Munasukaru’s Penance. After traversing a very long hallway, they’d found a series of barracks, and ambushed the Withered Blossom Warriors who were living there. But the hobgoblin warriors weren’t the only threat; another huge ogre mage fighter had appeared, and entered the fray.

Despite potential threat posed by this newcomer, everyone had their hands full with hobgoblins. Sawyer was once again happily surrounded by foes, and Suishen was singing a battle song as he removed the head from first one and then another. Bella also was wielding her blades with precision, and the warrior facing her fell. Nicki was concerned about the veteran warrior still battling, so he summoned forth the fires of Hell, but the veteran nimbly dodged the Hellfire, leaving only one of his underlings to get singed.

One of the remaining warriors saw Nicki cast his spell, and took exception. He charged down to the doorway, and slammed the sorcerer with his morningstar. Sandoval stepped forward to intervene, and his echoblade caught the hobgoblin in the liver, leaving him gasping with pain. The veteran charged Shinjiro, but the monk ducked under his blow and responded with a vicious Flurry of Blows. But he was also dodging the attacks of another warrior on his flank. The veteran took advantage of his distraction, and hammered him with a pair of blows from his morningstar. Marie saw Shinjiro staggering, but there were too many bodies blocking her from reaching him. “Hey – ugly!” she shouted, and as the hobgoblin flanking Shinjiro turned to see who was yelling at him, she buried her starknife in his eye.

Munasukaru's Chosen

The ogre mage fighter pointed his enormous katana at Sawyer and bellowed out a Challenge in Tian: “Face me and feel the wrath of my blade, you cowardly foreigner!” Fortunately, Sawyer didn’t speak Tian, but he got the gist as the oni leapt down from the stairs and charged the fighter, gashing him with its huge sword. Sawyer got in an immediate riposte, and Nicki unlimbered his Metamagic Rod and used its last charge of the day to send a trio of Empowered Scorching Rays at the huge creature. The searing bolts of fire burned clear through the oni’s body. He staggered backwards, dead on his feet, but amazingly he called upon his Resolve to complete one final act before dying: he breathed out a Cone of Cold that enveloped everyone in the room (and Zhustin, outside it), except for Shinjiro and the veteran. Then he collapsed in a heap.

The hobgoblin threatening Nicki had been turned into a corpsesicle by his master’s final breath, so that only left the veteran battling Shinjiro. Bella Pounced down behind him, and he slid to the floor, her rapier buried in his back.

After Marie had performed some healing, they investigated the room that the oni had emerged from. Unlike the messy hobgoblin barracks they’d just been through, this room was neat, if spartan. A simple military cot, sharply made, rested against one wall, and several trophies and art objects were displayed on the walls. On a low shelf beside the bed was an ornate lacquer and pearl box; Bella immediately opened it, and found an opium pipe and several does of opium. Going through the oni’s things, they were able to surmise that his name had been Fujai, Munasukaru’s Chosen.

Along with the other items was a shelf holding a set of leather-bound ledgers (and the leather appeared to be made from human skin). Zhustin began to examine them, and found they contained a comprehensive and apparently oft-updated genealogy of the five imperial families of Minkai, listing every known legitimate and illegitimate member of each family, and notes on which had died. These notes, all in the same hand but in different inks, spanned hundreds of years. The handwriting appeared to be the same as on the notes they’d found in the strongbox in Ichirou’s chamber. The last update on the Amatatsu line showed Ameiko’s great-great-grandfather still living, and her great-grandfather as his heir, along with several brothers and sisters. Checking the dates of the last entries on some of the other imperial families, they saw that all the notes ended about the same time, roughly 160 years ago. Apparently someone in the Five Storms had had an intense interest in Minkai’s imperial families before the oni all escaped into the world.

There was another door leading out of Fujai’s chambers, and the roar of water could be heard through it. It opened into a natural cavern, with an underground river (likely the same subterranean watercourse they’d already encountered several times in their descent) that poured out of an opening in the wall and disappeared down a huge open pit, like an enormous drain. A narrow path corkscrewed around the walls of the pit, disappearing into darkness and mist below.

Everyone stared at the path, shoulders drooping. Had it really only been a few hours ago that they’d left the hobgoblin’s cave, far above them? Marie spoke for most of them when she said, “We might want to rest here before we try to go down that. I’m getting pretty low on healing spells.” Bella didn’t see any need to stop, but everyone else went back inside to make the barracks as livable as possible, and she reluctantly followed.

After a good long rest and a hot meal, the group was in much better spirits, ready to tackle whatever might await them below. They went out into the cavern and began a careful descent of the path that circled the drain. The water poured down over a lip of stone and then dropped straight down the center of the shaft, and the constant mist made footing on the steep pathway treacherous. They inched along single-file, knowing that one misstep could send them (and possibly the people on either side of them) hurtling down into darkness.

They had completed almost one full circuit when a figure suddenly separated from the cliff wall below them and rose up to attack Sawyer, at the front of the procession. It was one of the hobgoblin monks, the Sisters of the Broken Path. She’d concealed herself with a piece of cloth that blended in with the rock wall, and appeared to be floating in mid-air. She whirled her nunchucks at Sawyer, but missed, but two more of her sisters appeared; the one at the back of the party hit Nicki while another in the center hit Shinjiro.

Sandoval began singing, but cursed as he realized that the narrow path and treacherous footing prevented him from engaging any of the attackers. Bella had the same problem – at least until Marie unfurled her wings and teleported off the pathway behind the one attacking Shinjiro. That gave Bella the opening she needed, and she charged up to stab at the floating monk, but her feet slipped on the wet stone, and he missed badly, barely keeping her footing. Zhustin cast a Ray of Enfeeblement, and the monk battling Sawyer suddenly grew weaker.

Sawyer didn’t have any issues with reaching his foe; she was right in front of him. He swung Suishen, and the blade bit twice, but the third blow, which might have taken off her head, went wide due to the Sister’s Blur. The Sister retaliated by trying to disarm Sawyer, but this time he held tight to Suishen. The Sister in the center shifted onto the path and tried to deliver a Punishing Kick to send Bella hurtling off the walkway, but the rogue neatly sidestepped the kick. The one at the rear sent a Flurry of Blows at Nicki, and the sorcerer was dodging and blocking for all he was worth, but he still had the wind knocked out of him.

Nicki was not keen on hand-to-hand combat, but he didn’t see a lot of options. Normally he’d use his Boots to levitate out of reach, but since she seemed to be levitating, too, that probably wouldn’t help. Luckily, he had an insurance policy he’d been carrying around for months; he pulled Deadly Kiss, the magical dagger he’d taken back in Ravenscraeg, out of his belt and as he drew it, he imbued it with the Phase Spider Venom he’d harvested in the arctic. He stabbed the blade forward, and twisted it in the hobgoblin monk’s gut. She turned pale, as the poison began to rob her body of strength.

Shinjiro leveled a Flurry of Blows at his attacker, but her Blur caused all but one to go wide; that one, however, caught her square in the kidney, and she gasped with pain. Zhustin fired off a volley of Magic Missiles at the Sister attacking Nicki, and Marie flew down and jabbed it with her Wand of Inflict Moderate Wounds, but did only minimal damage. Bella focused all her attention on the Sister in the center of the party; her blades flew in a bloody blur, and the hobgoblin monk slumped to the ground.

The weakened Sister attacking Sawyer abandoned her efforts to disarm him, and assaulted him with a Flurry of Blows, but the big fighter easily parried all her strikes, then sank Suishen deep into her thigh. Shinjiro slipped past Sawyer and distracted her momentarily, and that was all Sawyer needed; Shinjiro flashed twice more, and she, too, dropped dead.

The poisoned Sister hit Nicki again, but there was no force behind her blow, and he barely noticed it. He stepped forward and delivered a Corrupting Touch, and she retched in agony. Bella Pounced down and stabbed her once, and Marie poked her again with the wand. The hobgoblin knew she was done for, but refused to yield. She punched Nicki one last time, and as he recoiled, he pointed his finger and hit her full in the face with a volley of Magic Missiles. Her body hurtled down into the mists of the waterfall.

Only Nicki had taken significant damage in the battle, and Marie, suspecting there might be a long and dangerous day ahead of them, used her Wand of Cure Light Wounds over and over to bring him back to close to full strength. Then, every nerve on alert, they continued their cautious descent.

They reached the bottom without any further attempts on their lives. There, the waterfall dropped from the ceiling into an underground lake, its surface broken by large widely-spaced boulders forming crude stepping (or jumping) stones. The walls of the cavern were carved with hundreds of leering faces, their mouths twisted in silent screams. Far across the dark water, a narrow landing could be dimly seen, flanked by what looked like a wall of worked stone.

Having managed to successfully navigate the slippery descent, the party was in no mood to press their luck by jumping across the stones. Instead, they fell back on their tried-and-true method: group Dimension Door. Marie partnered up with Sawyer, Sandoval, and Bella, while Nicki took Zhustin and Shinjiro. On the count of three, they vanished, and reappeared on the distant landing.

They were standing on a flat stone shelf that appeared to be a natural feature, but to their left a high wall of fitted stone rose above the lake’s surface. Ahead of them, the ground rose in a pair of terraces, each about four feet high. From their vantage point, they couldn’t see what might be on the top level – until a trio of faces appeared, peering down at them. Damn! It was more of those friggin’ Sisters of the Broken Path!

The PCs earned 10,057 XP for their efforts over the last two sessions, putting them at 215,548 XP, with 220,000 required for level 12. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll get to level 12 by the end of next week, so start leveling up your characters. We’ll be at Rich & Joette’s next week. Roger will be in Arizona and won’t join us, but I’ll be there in person.