Shits and Giggles - January 28, 2022

- Rant / Giggle Session

- Osiris rescues a librarian from Theophania's emphatic explanations of the kind of creature she's trying to research so they can trudge through the sewers some more

- They head back to the same sewer entrance they used before and back track to where they found the dragon's body

- Yet more distractions.

- Theophania finds a few stray marks on the sides of the brick tunnels and a few remnants of footprints in the deep mud of the tunnel and can tell they were headed northwest.

- They start heading that direction

- The tunnel and trail goes on for a long time with only small branches off to the side

- Gradually the tunnel is getting smaller as they are following it, and one they are nearing the end of the line, and they find a spot where the brick is damaged and broken away to a natural tunnel not bricked over

- Theophania determines that the brick wall of the sewer system definitely has teeth and claw marks, but that may not have been what caused the brick wall to open, it may be incidental as they climb through 

- Marching order: Osiris in the lead, then Theophania, then Raiàn, then Lyrielle, and Rusty is the caboose

- Osiris uses her cleric feature Eyes of Night to give Raiàn and Rusty Darkvision. Theophania has her goggles.

- This tunnel has also been reinforced, but with wood timbers and the occasional large stone rather than being built of masonry

- Several hundred feet as the tunnel is slightly sloping downward, there is an opening that goes almost straight down with a steep ramp you could slide down or climb up carefully

- Osiris can see several (less than a dozen?) vaguely humanoid things moving around down at the bottom of the opening 

- Raiàn lights a candle and throws it down the hole, but it goes out about halfway down, and then tunks on the ground

- Raiàn calls out "Hello?"

- Several of the creatures stop and look up at the party then go back to their business

- Theophania whispers to her to try it in Draconic, so she does it

- A few go to the bottom of the ramp and try looking up the ramp, but there are no overly aggressive movements in their direction

- Rusty tries calling out in Undercommon, and there's a groaning sound in response, but no actual language.

- They all look at each other, Osiris grabs her shield casts Bless on herself, Rusty, and Lyrielle and starts carefully creeping down the ramp / slide

- Osiris slips and slides part of the way down the ramp before she stops herself about a third of the way up from the bottom

- The creatures slowly approach and they look like people, but on one of them the hand looks like the nails look sharp

- Rusty finishes creeping down to where Osiris has stopped 

- Theophania creeps down as well

- Rusty again speaks in Undercommon saying that they came in peace and just wanted to know if they were responsible for killing the dragon

- One of the creatures starts screaming, then all the creatures start screaming, and they start rushing towards the party

- At this point Osiris can see that these are zombies

- 750 XP ea. for 10,790 XP total ea.

Now what are we going to do with these Potions - January 14, 2022

 - Rusty and Theophania head back to the Temple after she has scraped some samples off of herself for testing

- T asks Raiàn for help getting clean since the sludge is so sticky

- She then goes and pulverizes the ruby for Osiris then proceeds to test the sludge 

- While Theophania is testing, Osiris casts Continual Flame on a pebble pops that into a small incense jar with a lid, and then gives it to Rusty so that he can have an un-extinguishable torch

- He discovers two small built-in compartments he had forgotten existed when trying to decide where to keep it

- Theophania's tests show that the sludge is composed of fecal matter, rotting flesh (indeterminate species), and some trace amounts of what look like flecks of chitinous material which is slightly shiny amongst the rest of the sludge

- They all agree to head back into the sewers in the morning to try to find the source of the rotting sludge material

- Tiff takes a proper bath because even though Prestidigitation cleaned her, she won't feel clean until she's had a bath

- Osiris collects the two Potions of Acid Resistance Reggie in the apothecary was helping her to make

- The next morning they meet at Callie's boardinghouse and then go examine the outlet where the sludge was coming from, and decide to find the nearest intended entry point rather than damaging the sewer grate

- Just as Theophania is expertly popping the lock open, a city guard shows up and objects to them going into the sewers

- Rusty refuses to talk go talk to Captain Swinson and enter the open sewer door with Lyrielle and Raiàn following immediately

- Osiris and Theophania hesitate for a second, and the guard tries to grab Osiris but she Misty Steps out of his grasp

- Theophania tries to close and lock the sewer entry door behind them, but she drops the padlock and then chases after her friends down the tunnel

- Osiris manages to sniff out the correct tunnel they need to take based on how Tiff smelled yesterday heading away from the river

- About 3/4 to 1 mile up the tunnel they come to a large thing that is blocking most of the tunnel, it is big enough to be the dragon that attacked the marketplace

- The smell has been getting stronger as they've walked

- Osiris casts Bless on herself, Rusty, and Lyrielle and they creeps forward until Osiris can see that it looks like the dragon, but it looks it has some severe claw mark wounds on it very different than the ones they would have inflicted when they fought it

- They walk the rest of the way up to it and confirm that it is dead

- The claws are in groups of four and five like humanoid type creatures would have, but the quantities and size imply it was a group of medium-sized creatures that killed 

- Osiris estimates that it died at least a few days ago

- They tie a rope into a harness around and start pulling it, but when they pull it away from the small side tunnel, a bunch of fetid water pours out drenching them all to the waist except for Tiff who is up to her shoulders.

- They eventually drag it back to the sewer entrance where there are five guards waiting for them

- Tiff sticks an arm out of the crack in the door waving dragon scales at the waiting guards to show them that they really were trying to track down a dragon and weren't being shady in the nice part of town

- One of the guards loses rochambeau and has to come see the dragon corpse and loses his lunch

- They organize that one of the guards will get a cart and another guard will get someone from the hall of justice who can 

- Everyone shushes Tiff vehemently when she tries to say that the didn't kill it.

- Eventually they make it to the sewer grate at the river through which the corpse will fit

- A gnome shows up and opens up the grate

- They manage using a Levitation spell from Theophania's playlist to get it up the river bank to the cart waiting on the nearby road

- The cart isn't big enough, so they have get a second cart and rig the two together and then Levitate the dragon corpse onto the new contraption

- A crowd has developed in the like hour it took for the guards to get the second cart and to rig the two together

- Raiàn sends for Magnus and Osiris offers him dragon parts for spells much to Tiff's dismay

- They start hauling the cart to the Temple to take care of it in the Hall of Rites

- There is still a trail of sludge dripping behind the carts due to the state of decay it is in

- Once they reach the Temple they dismiss the escort of guards who were helping to keep the gawkers at bay

- Raiàn tells Osiris about Dragonborn funeral traditions where depending, which is the closest they have to full dragon funeral traditions

- Osiris begins preparing the dragon's body for burial rites

- Tiff runs off to research what might have made the claw marks on the dragon 

- Rusty convinces everyone whose still at the Rites Hall that they should head back down to the sewers to see if they can find what did this to the dragon before the trail goes completely cold

- Osiris casts Gentle Repose on the dragon corpse and they all head to find Tiff at the library

- 1400 XP ea. for 10,040 XP total ea.

Shitty Rolls - January 7, 2022

 - As Theophania, Lyrielle, and Osiris are exiting Callie's bed chamber, Magnus throws opening his door yelling "Stay away from us!"

- There is an explosion and Osiris and Theophania are thrown down the stairs and injures them both rather badly.

-  Tiff pulls herself painfully back up the staircase followed by Raiàn and Rusty 

- After they give him a chance to see Callie for himself, Raiàn scares him with an illusory fireball and then everyone scolds him for his lack of situational awareness, so then he retires to his own bed chamber for the rest of the night

- They all decide to sleep at the boardinghouse in case the Black Bloods aren't as good as their word for Rusty's protection

- The next morning they all awake to the smell of cooking bacon as Magnus is making breakfast, you know, because he feels bad for blowing up a half-formed fireball in their faces and knocking them down the stairs

- Theophania then expounds a bit on her thoughts on tracking the spells that affect their brains both to figure out who is messing with their dreams and who is sending Sending messages as The Voice ("TV")

- The bacon is delicious and crispy, but he accidentally put chili powder instead of cinnamon in the pancakes

- They head back to the Temple where Osiris checks in on the Acid Resistance potions that she had an acolyte brewing and so that Theophania can start researching more about Sending spells

- They settle in to do some research on Sending and telepathy type spells in order for Theophania to try to figure out the way to track the source of such a spell

- While the research is happening, Osiris goes to a jewelry shop and buys a 65 GP Ruby and then brings it back for Tiff to pulverize

- Lyrielle gets lost in books that are not as helpful to the cause, but she does learn a few new songs for her flute

- Rusty wanders off to see if the sewers are passable, and they are half-full of water, so not so much. He's hoping that if the dragon was hiding in the sewers the water might drive it out, so he heads the river side of the Temple to watch for any signs of it. He thinks he sees something black streak of a sludgy looking something out of the bank on the opposite side, so he runs for his friends

- He gets Tiff from the library and they go to the location from which the sludge is emanating and tie a rope around Theophania and she climbs down the river bank and uses the rope anchor to lean way out and inspect and ends up falling in the mud several times and then the river due to rope issues, also through the sludge.

- The black sludge smells putrid and is sticky like peanut butter, but it is not caustic on her skin. It's definitely fecal matter with something else in it too. Theophania is coated in it.

- She scrapes some of it off into vials for testing, and then tries not to let any part of her body touch any other part of her body on the way back to the Temple

- 500 XP ea for 8,640 XP total ea.