session 18

Crate Expectations¶

The party, with the encouragement of Sita the Inquisitor, opened the crate Saros had been transporting. Inside there were six people hung in chains in various states of duress. It seemed that they were likely victims of the abductions of which we’d been hearing. Sita checked their vitals and then motioned for several Hetai to release them and lay them on the ground outside of the crate. I never thought that this marketplace could seem clean, but after seeing into that crate it seemed like a hospital room in comparison.

Sita went about trying to stabilize the various abductees. Ryalith offered our healing potions but they were politely turned down by Sita, who proceeded to use her mental powers to heal two of the worst off of the victims. One apparently was beyond help, but the others were scooped up by the Hetai. Sita asked if we would come “of our own free will” with them to the Redemption Center inside the Citadel, so that we could all work out what had just happened. Really we had no choice – we were in no condition to resist. And so we went, along with the Hetai, the abductees, and a bound and gagged Saros Karenikos.

At the Redemption Center we were ushered through a cheerfully sterile reception area and into a grimy waiting room while Saros was incarcerated in a cell nearby. We were introduced to the head of the Redemption Center, a cleric named Corinth Panagios. She seemed pleasant enough and saw to our needs. We got a bit of needed rest. Another Hetai warrior named Garos Karenikos (who we learned was Saros’s brother) questioned us thoroughly on what had happened and what we knew. We were as truthful as possible without revealing that we had been working with Velik and had taken the Astranomicon from the crypt of House Tethys. Garos led Ryalith and Gloopwing into the main jail room while he and Sita questioned Saros, who had been healed and was now awakened. Sita had been unable to mentally scan him so they proceeded with verbal questions. Saros was extremely unforthcoming. He muttered some cryptic remarks about how the “way would soon be opened” and the “process couldn’t be stopped”. Sita tried to more deeply probe his mind but shrieked and fell away from him when doing so – yelling that Saros was “absent” and that there was some other presence there. She told Garos to get out of the cell room. Gloopwing tried to unsettle Saros by shape-changing into a “skitter” creature, but the logistics of this proved difficult and Saros was unfazed, whispering to Gloopwing that she had something he wanted. Gloopwing redoubled her hold on her precious Astranomicon.

At this point, as if all this wasn’t unsettling enough, we noticed several things. First, one of the occupants of another of the three cells seemed to be in a great deal of physical distress (Velik’s old crony Savran was in another cell, which somehow wasn’t that surprising). Second, there were a surprising number of rats starting to skitter their way around the room. Ryalith convinced Sita to attend to the woman – Callista – and see what the problem was. Apparently Callista and the other person in her cell – Rhys – had been found wandering the Magna Platea in Astryth, with no memory of how they had gotten there or where they had been previously. Some Hetai and Corinth took Callista down the hall to the “lab”.

From here on things began spiraling out of control. Rats began climbing up Saros and chewing on his bonds, accumulating around him at a faster rate than Gloopwing could devour them. From out of the wall behind us emerged a seething mass of even stranger rat-like things, with misshapen skulls and little fur, they attacked us. Out in the waiting room Stigs and Gwen became concerned about what was happening to Callista and barged their way into the lab despite the protestations of several guards. Callista was apparently collapsed on the ground with Corinth trying to heal her while her body continued to writhe and bleed from every orifice. Gwen had turned invisible trying to inspect the room for anything interesting. Meanwhile, in the jail, Saros had freed himself from his bonds and was exchanging blows with a Hetai and with Ryalith. The rat swarm had been covered in oil and lit on fire by Gloopwing, but continued to churn and seethe at us. These were no ordinary rats. They somehow took control of Garos’s mind and proceeded to command him to kill a guard and attack Sita. In the jail we now faced a triple threat with Garos, Saros, and the rats. Up in the lab Stigs and Corinth were attempting to comfort Callista when, in a final paroxysm of pain Callista seemed to virtually explode – her entire body ruptured and split, spattering us all with gore. Nearly everyone in the room was horrified and frozen in place as the mass of Callista’s remains began to bubble and pulse, collecting itself together into a new and disturbing form. With the party split, and this new menace emerging, we were clearly in a fight for our lives.