Adventurers of the Drinking Crow Session #6 **Updated with a Journal Entry by Bors**

It seems that a darker mood rolled into the Drinking Crow with the recent storms. The clientele frown are the ghastly corpse found at the Burning Witch and talk at length about how something like that would never happen at the Drinking Crow. Antermule Anthrip Antherson, Esq. and Professor Pondriferous Clud sourly discuss this new "Library" being set up by a trio of magic-users and a half-elf. The investigator, Fredrick Featherstone, while working angles on the missing person's case of Kameel the Torchwell Girl (who is not apart of Bartimus Fludge's caravan like it was rumored); finds himself lost into a consuming obsession of Elvira Wylde and fully lost in her thrall. The funerals performed for tavern regulars Rustam of the Twin Lakes, Fräänk Shäärk, and Tom still sat fresh in the minds of patrons.

This is the mood that the regular party of adventurers operating from the Crow plan their delve into the now-emptied sections of Level 2 once held by some gnomes.  With a new-to-Orm Vat-Spawn in their ranks, the following adventurers set out:

• Bjorn Firebeard (Level 1 Cleric of the Mythic Groundhog)
• Bors Redbeard (Level 1 Dwarf)
• Cinnamon Stix (Level 1 Druid)
• Elvira Wylde of Odellwood Abbey (Level 1 Gothic Villain)
• Malagath Fenbaros (Level 1 Elf)
• Relfus (Level 0 Hob Valet)
• V'Naïss Two-Face (Level 1 Vat-Spawn)

Here is a journal entry by Bors Redbeard (via the dwarf's player Shahnawaz):

Bors’ Journal

Entry three:

        We’ve finally got a nice haul! At first I was weary we wouldn’t find anything since we were going to cover some of the same ground we did before, but we did find some nice things.  Before we set out, we met V’Naïss Two-Face, a Vat-Spawn that wanted to adventure with us.  I’m not sure where this being came from, but I guess I’m not really much for conversation anyway.

        We decided to go towards the area where the Illuminated Eye assholes tend to stay, and along the way I noticed that one of the doors that we normally go through hasn’t been mapped out yet, so we decided to go that way.  Immediately upon entering, a giant worm burst through the side, I mean this thing was bigger around than I am tall.  It’s a wonder that this creature hadn’t burrowed through more of this complex before, it can consume stone as if it’s nothing, and this is good quality stone! There was some sort of machinery here which was beyond me, maybe we should try and describe it to some of the scholarly types here and they can have a clue about it. Or I might try to look it up myself some time.  Anyway, there were two doors in this room, one lead to a room full of crates but only one was packed, and the other was where there was lumber and tools to put crates together.  The one crate that was packed was filled with bottles of clear liquid, after opening one and smelling alcohol, I of course took a sip, as any good dwarf would I might add, but it wasn’t drinking alcohol, which was the greatest tragedy of the night.  If that wasn’t enough, those Eyesholes came in and started attacking us and blew up the vial I had in my hand and almost killed me dead! My arm was on fire but luckily I put it out before it killed me or became lame.  The rest of the group killed them right quick.

        We pressed on to where we knew the gnomes Gawoosh befriended used to stay, and when we went there we were met with a horrifying sight.  The Illuminated Eye freaks put their heads on pikes in front of the exits to this chamber.  We went down and immediately the hero Malagath found a secret door that we went through on the eastern wall.  We ventured through and as I was inspecting some of the stone work in the hallway a bit further down, we were attacked by three giant spiders through and illusionary wall.  What is with normal sized things becoming giant in this place? It makes no sense! But we luckily killed all of them, almost losing Elvira, but luckily I was able to get some healing salve from the merchants and I used it to save her life.  But in the spider’s lair was a small treasure! We found 3000 gold and a scroll.  Not being able to carry all the gold, Björn had the great idea to get one of the empty crates from the room above to collect the gold in, as Björn and I were on our way back from getting the crate, we saw four amoebas, and of course they were giant as well.  We were able to rush to the secret door and get to where the illusionary wall was it seemed like they did not follow us.  So, we gathered up all our treasure and left, luckily without any more incident.  Today was a good day.

Loot

• Crate of 36 bottles of ethyl alcohol.
• Order of the Illuminated Eye devices and short swords x 3 ea.
• 3000gp
• Scroll of Protection from Lycanthropy
• Giant Spider venom sacs x 3 

Experience Points

• 3000xp from treasure.
• Giant Worm worth 350xp
• Order of the Illuminated Eye members worth 15xp ea. x 3
• Giant Spiders worth 125xp ea. x 3

Player Character Cut

• 500gp ea.
• 627xp ea.

The Demon's Egg

After there delve, the adventurers have enough coin to bring into session a special meeting of the Society of the Coruscating Seal. Hungry for a taste of flagging relevance, all eight members of the Society are present. The subject of the meeting is the ascertainment of the magical properties, if any, of a fist-sized hunk of jade in a primitive copper setting.

Doctor Ravee Achewile set about using his assortment of tuning forks to uncover the resonant frequency of the jade. Frequently, the doctor would bump into Sir Dev Elfinear as he took precise measurements of assort aspects of the stone. As soon as possible, Matron Fiophone Starr wrestled the object away from both men as she set off on testing properties of it. Did it float? Did it repel water? How did light play off its surface?

The rest of the Society began pages through tomes, scouring pages for hints or references of the object. Periodically, one would pop up to look at some aspect of the jade before returning to their volumes. Professor Clud's caught first clue of it in an obscure volume by Homerinous: Oral Histories of Folk Curses, Hedge Sorcery, and Diabolic Contracts Among the Shorned Nomads of the Sunset Lands. Lady Celestine Muirk research into the unattributed history Necromanic Massacres of the Crepusclar Era of the Twenty-third Imperial Dynasty yielded just as fruitful if grizzlier results.  Regardless, both paths started by these references lead to a slim folio cataloging the inventory magical oddities held by a proregina of the cave river kingdoms of the 6th Epoch of the prior aeon. It was impossible to deny: the inventory item covered on page 11 was undoubtedly the artifact before the Society (though the Esteemed Claudnitus Vale did decide to abstain from any such determinations). The heading roughly translated to the common tough as: The Demon's Egg.

None in the Society liked this conclusion. They suggested the adventurers hurl the jade into the Bay of Favul. They described in detail the energy the Egg would release and horrible dust-like remains of its victims. Oddly enough, not of these protests stopped the members of the Coruscating Seal from sharing the command word that must be sung discordantly from throat nor did it prevent a diagramming of the 6" radius disbursement of the Egg nor to an exhaustive dissertation on the daily power cycles it followed. It seemed the 100 pieces of gold and a moment of being able to share knowledge no other in Orm possess was enough to do away with at true commitment to concerns that would normally be flagged by reading Norvorru's recounting of the Demon Egg's deployment to stop the unionization of the alchemical workshops Magus Abgalabba or the building of power mad cruelties reflected in Spell Captain Trom Prefacti's journals after he obtains the Egg. Instead, the secrets of the Demon's Egg seemed quite easy to obtain indeed.

Downtimes

When I can, I will tackle the following downtimes in the comments below:

• Bors seeks to pursue the spiritual answers to certain questions around putting Rustam to rest. Shahnawaz needs to roll 2d6+Wisdom Modifier to check on the success.
• Bjorn Firebeard wants to unlock the rites that followers of the Mythic Groundhog use to build their bonds with the Groundhog's earthbound children. I need to inform Bryn of the result of his research from last time and tell him how to progress forward.
• Elvira Wylde wants to Cultivate a Relationship with Drinking Crow Owner Gabby. Julia needs to tell me how Elvira would like to approach this and rolled 2d6+Reaction Roll Bonus to see the progress.
• Malagath is going to carouse.