The Prisoner

Participants

• Elgon Kitmus
• Tingle
• Kaladan of Norixius
• Arden Rook
• Iria

Recap

The group found themselves in an empty and dim living quarters, coming to grips with the information they just received from Boro Kline. As Boro’s visage fades into the shadows, a commotion coming from the next room catches the group’s attention. Violent outbursts of screaming, crashing and swordplay reverberate through the door before and sudden and eerie silence takes hold.

Without any other means of exiting the room they entered from the ventilation shaft, Arden detects a faint return on his scan for enemies through the nearby door, as Iria sets to action, making easy work of the lock.

The scene on the other side of the door is horrific, as JKS cautiously crosses the threshold. Blood pooled in the center of the floor among the uneven stone tiling, catching the dancing flickers of the lone candle lighting the dim space. More splatter and signs of death and carnage litter the room among several apparently slain 10th circle guards. Iria noted one guard may still be alive, detecting shallow breathing under his armor.

Elgon knelt beside the injured man, who could only cough out “got...us” before his shock overtook him. Tingle’s attempt to heal the man with a potion seemed to work initially, but his body seemed to later reject the healing process in a concerning turn of events. Elgon moved towards the body in the center of the room. It was ripped to shreds, and the ranger concluded the attacker killed this man in a fit of rage, based on the sheer violence unfolded around them.

Tingle, upset that his attempts haven’t helped, notices flickering shadows across the guard's neck briefly cast the silhouette of a set of terrible hands, closing in. The guards eyes widen suddenly, his mouth reacts as if to gasp, but he fails to inhale. Before their light fades, his eyes dart in the gnome’s direction, a look of pure terror meeting his gaze before all life in them fades, and his body slowly relaxes.

Tingle suggests relocating the bodies to the room from which we entered, closing the door to avoid unexpected returns behind the group. His paranoia has proved helpful in the past, and this caution now rings in agreement across the group.

Iria continued to scout ahead, noting a few other empty rooms. Her instincts on high alert as she thought she saw something catch her eye, but no, nothing was there. Uncertain and gradually growing more uneasy with the events unfolding, she continued ahead with caution. At that point she started to feel oddly tired and weak. Taking a moment to recover, she sees the rest of her companions suffering from an onset of exhaustion. They cannot seem to shake this feeling, but muster forward all the same.

Tingle begins to hear urgent and repeated banging on the door to the room where the bodies of the guards were moved. His heart rate intensifies. Iria wanders back in, flipping through a guard rotation list: Sherin, Grem, Freretol, Hent’io, Tohyu, Drehlo-Re. Also a schedule: Daily rounds (check), 23:00 transfer inmate 611 to execution, 09:30 inmate 615 return from solitary (check), Tohyu on evening slop rounds. Freretol on scribe, Cherin on quartermaster. Toss 610 cell.

The drow looks up as the banging on the door grows louder. Arden runs over and uses a magic ring to place a rune on the door. It only delays the inevitable, as the reanimated remains of the guards break the door from its hinges.

The combat started immediately, with Tingle sensing the threat early, he summoned the might of meteors to smash into his foes, boring into the bodies at supersonic speed. Elgons’ arrows follow up to bring one to its knees, and Kal’s axe finishes the job.

In a further disturbing turn, the second body clings to the walls, clibing around the clutter now blocking the entrance way. It slashes at Kal, causing a grievous wound. Yet before the creature can take advantage, a hideous laughter emanates from its mouth with Arden behind it’s sudden change in demeanor. Kal seizes the moment to counter, and within moments him and Elgon finish off the threat as the bard moves in to help aid his wounded friends.

Moving deeper into the prison, the group finds a room occupied by the guard Drehlo-Re, and a prison inspector, Griff, who is here on a routine operations audit. Taking shelter when they saw a horror attack and kill a fellow guard, they have been hiding there a couple of hours, listening to the terror unfold outside. When pressed, the two men fold inward, traumatized and falling silent.

Allowing them to collect themselves, Kal and Elgon get the location of cell 17, deeper into the block. The keys would be found in a nearby office in this wing. The group locks the door behind them as they seek out the keys based on this new information.

Finding the door, Iria slowly pushes on the door, ready for anything. The heavy door slides open surprisingly easily, and immediately she hears the soft murmurs of calculation, and the familiar scratches of a pen on parchment. When the dim light is allowed to filter into the room, she sees a 10th circle officer working by the light of a small lamp only, altering some kind of document and attaching it to something. To Iria’s horror, as the guard works he does not indicate he notices his arm slowly separating from this body at the shoulder. Iria feels frozen in place from terror as the grotesque sight unfolds before her.

The officer slowly worked on the papers as tendons snapped, and flesh separated from bone, blood flowing freely onto the shoddy workspace. Only when the work is done, and the officer put his pen down, did he see and feel what has happened to him. His skin turned a sickly pale hue, and a scream began to escape his lips...then, it seemed what was only a vision is cut short, for now Iria sees the apparent aftermath of that vision before her, cold and still.

Ever so stealthily, the drow sneaks forward grabbing the key which had fallen to the floor in front of her. Eyes never leaving the body at the desk, she moves to reverse out of the room. Behind her, allies whisper to retrieve what the man was working on. Hesitant, Iria makes a rare error, and loses her balance. Recovering quickly, she grabs the papers and various objects and flees, with Elgon shutting the door behind her, wide-eyed.

The papers contain largely information about prisoner 611, transfer orders for 615. Number 611 was a simple bribery charge, but then has an addendum for a murder of Ahtorus member with testimonies of guards that we're familiar with (Freretol, Tohyu, Grem, and Hent'io), which carries a death sentence. The group makes note of all of this information, taking the holo-disc that Iria obtained back to the room with Drehlo-Re and Griff, equipped with technology capable of reading the magical recording.

Tingle watches the disc on prisoner 611. It is a male drow, footage of execution performed today. The execution was not clean. He wears a loincloth while multiple guards attack him with sword strikes, laughing and drawing him out, gradually flaying him. The drow muttered a curse with one of his last breaths, and dies.

Troubled, but still without the complete picture, JKS moves deeper into the block, as the exhaustion again seems to take hold. They are now feeling quite terrible and weakened, but trudge onward, not wanting to spend an unnecessary moment in this place. Entering a breezeway with signage pointing towards the cell-block they sought. It looked to be lined with off-shooting store-rooms or other such small spaces. Up the hall, some of the group hear the muted raucous noises of prisoners in the dark distance.

Suddenly, a door to one of the nearby closet-like spaces thrust open, and a 10th circle guardsman strode out into the breezeway. Adjusting his belt, he closes the door behind him and moves as if to turn towards JKS, who are caught rather flat-footed at this development.

Without warning the floor of the entire hallway begins to move, the metal begins to crawl and gyrate. Rusting steel floor plates give way to a writhing black mass slowly erupting into a fountain of disembodied hands, the stench of their rot nearly overpowering. Some of the hands left the mass, and swarmed towards the party, moving with a coordinated purpose. The other legion of these rotting claws grasped at the feet of the guard, dragging him into the horrible mass, screaming. As this occurs, the mass shudders, and the center of the oozing blackness appears to rip and the orange glow of hellfire emanates from the tear. Deep within, the sound of a million tortured souls can be heard wailing. The claws in the mass then began to drag those caught in their collective grasps towards the new opening, as JKS launched into attack in response.

Tingle casts a levitate spell on the guard, pulling up against the effort of the rotting hands as his friends dispatch the hands with extreme prejudice. The mass begins to fall apart as the hands are destroyed, and the glowing tear fades. In the end JKS saved themselves, but the guard was ripped apart by the claws, despite Tingle saving his body from the hells. Now it was not far from cell 17, and Iria bound forward, counting the cell numbers as she deftly moved through the darkness and quiet of the prison hall. At number 17, she paused, peering through the bars into the darkness. A human man knelt in the corner, grasping his trembling right hand with the other to steady his nerves. He looked up, surprised to see someone who wasn’t a guard outside his cell.

Iria launched into a line of questions for this man, trying to glean any relevant info before putting him down. The man, who said his name was Erodus, had information on events that would affect the entire Rave, and he had additional details on how a mind-flayer would launch his plans. Erodus continued that his now deceased cell mate was a former Githyanki bounty hunter, the Gith known to be a race obsessed with hunting down the ithilid.

Iria took in this information as a cold calculation for future consideration, and then loosed an arrow at the prisoner, fully intent on completing the job she was contracted for. Erodus, a hardened ranger, managed to survive the effects of the poison, but stared wide-eyed out of the bars as the drow coolly and calmly began to knock another arrow.

It was at this moment that Arden had wandered nearby, and saw what was transpiring. The bard immediately recognized his old ally Erodus, and moved to stop Iria from finishing him off. The ranger, thankful to see a familiar friendly face, begins recounting how he arrived here, but is cut off when Tingle raises the alarm to the group.

A boy, dressed as a prisoner had appeared as Tingle was sifting through the remains of the dead guards for anything useful. The boy was merely an illusion of some kind of demonic presence, revealing itself to be the manifestation of the curse the earlier executed dark elf had put onto this prison block to attain his revenge. At this reveal, the group feels their exhaustion nearly dragging them down to the ground at this point, yet they somehow find the energy to muster themselves for battle.

Within moments, axes and arrows find flesh, and burning rays streak and flash into the darkness, and the demon is easily defeated by the beleaguered group. With the creature vanquished, their fatigue fades and they make their way out of the prison from the way they came, Erodus in tow.

Outside, the team splits, Iria going to meet with her contact to complete the job, and the remainder taking a secluded route to keep Erodus out of obvious public view as they make their way to SquadQuarters.

Iria manages to convince her client that the execution was completed presenting Erodus’ blood stained cloak as proof. After a bit of diplomatic convincing between rogues, the payment is received and she begins her journey back home to meet back with the rest of the group.

As their home base comes into view around the corner, the group breathes a sigh of relief. Suddenly, Erodus stops in his tracks putting a hand out in front of him as if pressing against a pane of glass, a quizzical look crosses his face. A moment later, Erodus erupts into a cry of agony, grasping at the top of his head.

JKS sprang into action, finding an invisible barrier between them and the ranger. All manner of spell and attacks proved ineffective. Arden casts Faerie Fire, and colored sparks rained down into the area slowly touching and exposing the writhing humanoid form of an illithid who has Erodus head caught within his tentacled mouth. The ranger's eyes, tearing up and filled with terror, lock with Arden as he winces in agony. His failing voice rasps out “Please--” and the group hears a sickening crunch, Exodus's eyes rolling into the back of his head and his body goes limp.

If a mind flayer could smile, it likely would have at that point. The creature stared at the group as it consumed the remains of the ranger’s frontal lobe, and pointed it’s thin fingers in their general direction with one hand. While gesturing at the street with the other, it created the familiar markings the group now knew was Qualith. It simply read “5 days”.

The mind flayer then touched itself on its head and faded from vision, leaving behind only the partially decapitated corpse of your friend bleeding on the street in the early morning silence.

Live Notes

The group finds themselves in the empty dim quarters, coming to grips with the information they just received.

• As Boro's visage disappears, a chaotic racket explodes on the other side of the door - crashing, screaming, a fight. Before long, sudden and eerily complete silence
• Arden uses his wand to detect enemies, picking up only a faint signal from one direction
• Iria picks the lock, the group exits the room
• A single room lit by a single flickering candle. There is an awful scene of pools of blood, arterial spray, a mangled 10th circle guard on the floor, another slumped against the wall and seems to be very raggedly breathing
• Elgon inspects the injured man. He barely chokes out the words "... got us..." before descending into a shocked stupor. He also assesses the other body, observing it has been brutalized by something powerful and angry.
• Tingle feeds the injured man a health potion. There is a momentarily positive reaction, but then there is some kind of reaction around the wounds and he winces in pain, falling back into a dying state
• Iria searches the bodies for keys or special items, but finds nothing
• Tingle suddenly notices the shadows dancing from the candle on the man's face become almost like gripping hands, and the man's eyes go wide, and he seizes in a kind of panic, and dies
• Tingle suggests relocating the bodies to the room from which we entered, closing the door to avoid unexpected returns behind us
• Iria opens one of the doors, finding a dark passthrough to another area. For a split second, Iria thinks she saw something move, but in an impossible location in the corner. Iria opens the other door as well, leading to an empty room. Arden and Tingle stand by the passthrough door while the rest of the group searches the other room.
• The group starts to feel weak, overwhelmed. Everyone is under 1 Level of Exhaustion
• Tingle begins to hear urgent banging on the door to the room where we stashed the bodies
• Iria finds a guard rotation list: Sherin, Grem, Freretol, Hent’io, Tohyu, Drehlo-Re. Also a schedule: Daily rounds (check), 23:00 transfer inmate 611 to execution, 09:30 inmate 615 return from solitary (check), Tohyu on evening slop rounds. Freretol on scribe, Cherin on quartermaster. Toss 610 cell.
• The banging grows louder. Arden runs over and uses a magic ring to place a rune on the door. Shortly after, the door breaks loose of its hinges

Initiative!

• Tingle fires a meteor at the first to appear for a good hit
• Elgon launches a trio of arrows for some further damage
• The door explodes in flame, and Arden's insult takes an edge off
• A strike from Kal and the first guy goes down
• The second thing spider-climbs and lashes out at Kal, striking for a formidable hit, and seeming to recover energy from the blow
• Arden cracks an amazing joke, the creature finding it hilarious and falling to the floor in laughter
• Kal makes a massive strike, though his axe sticks and he cannot take another. He wrenches free and takes another, though the baddie recovers from his hysterical fit
• The baddie sinks a hit into Kal, viciously incurring an internal injury
• Elgon lays into the bad guy with a frost brand
• Arden rests a healing hand on his dragonborn compatriot, the magical healing recovering his injuries

Victory!🎉

• Iria opens a door and we find Drehlo-Re and an Inspector Griff who was in to check the prison operations. They took shelter in this room when shit started going down.
• They seem to half-believe but grudgingly accept our presence. They tell us how they ended up in this room
• Tingle scans the contents of the room, and fetches details of the fallen comrades for these men to ease their minds
• Arden asks some questions of what the men saw. Drehlo manages "it was bad" while the other Griff looks away. They aren't able to verbalize much more.
• Kal and Elgon inquire and receive directions to cell 17, and an indication access would be gained via the office across the hall
• An officer working on a document by a single light seems intent on his work, apparently unaware that his arm is slowly separating from his body. As he finishes working, he seems to notice his injury, screaming in realization and pain. This visage seems to fade, leaving the cold and lifeless aftermath before us
• Iria sneaks in and grabs a key she spotted on the floor, and we warily just back out of the room
• The group really wants the papers he was scribing. Iria tries to sneak in and grab it, but trips and falls. Its super awkward, she just grabs the papers and books out. Elgon trunk-shuts the door quietly and judgingly
• The papers contain largely information about prisoner 611, transfer orders for 615. 611 was a simple. bribery charge, but then has an addendum for a murder of Ahtorus member with testimonies of guards that we're familiar with (Freretol, Tohyu, Grem, and Hent'io), which carries a death sentence
• Tingle watches the disc on 611. It is a male drow, footage of execution performed today. The execution was not clean. He wears a loincloth while multiple guards attack him with sword strikes, laughing and drawing him out, gradually flaying him. The drow mutters a curse with one of his last breaths, and dies.
• We went down the hall. Passed an escaped prisoner in the kitchen grabbing a snack. He did not appear to present a threat, so we paid him little mind
• The party feels further exhausted and increase to Exhaustion Level 2
• We get to the end of the hall and there is a writhing mass of hands grasping out and engulfing a guard
• Some grabs and attacks were had. Tingle levitate saved the guy getting eaten and we saved ourselves and destroyed the hands
• Iria made it to cell 17. Started questioning the guy inside - it is Erodus!
• He said his cellmate was a gith who had been tracking it
• Iria casually readies and fires a poison arrow at Erodus
• Arden walks in to see whats up and recognizes Erodus, holding up Iria from further pummeling
• As Erodus explains himself, Tingle is looting a body and sees a boy prisoner. The boy waves and as it does, shifts into a demon
• The party feels further exhausted and increase to Exhaustion Level 3

Initiative!

• Kal swings hits. Elgon swings hit. Tingle slings fire rays and phantasmal forces. The demon doesn't last more than 2 turns.

Victory!🎉

• Exhaustion level clears!
• We collect loot, collect our shit, bug out
• We bring Erodus, but keep him secret. Iria goes to meet her contacts to say the job is done
• The contact is skeptical, but pays Iria and we head back to Squadquarters
• On the way, Erodus suddenly stops. An invisible barrier is in the way. He begins to descend into wracking pain, grabbing at his head.
• The party grabs, attacks, casts spells. But the invisible dome deflects all
• Arden casts Faerie Fire and as the swirling colors begin to reveal the Illithid figure with its tentacles attached to Erodus' head, Erodus screams in pain and we hear a sickening crunch
• The Illithid touches its face and begins to fade from view. Only Quallith markings on the ground remain aside from Erodus' corpse
• Tingle deciphers enough of the text to recognize the phrase "5 days..."

That's where we call it for the evening

Loot