At the conclusion of our prior session, the characters had found and killed the “queen” of the spider eels that had been killing folks in a relatively small area of the Shingles of Bridgefront. This queen had taken over a large “square” in the Shingles as her lair and filled it with webs and with eggs. This, hopefully, puts an end to the terrors in this area but left the overall tangled mystery of the Shiver Killings unraveled. The party has needed to take care of the eggs before continuing and that is where we pick up after the break. Oh, and Darcy still seemed to be mesmerized by the queen so maybe they should start with her first.
Jen (and thus Isabella) was missing. My GM comments, as usual, are in italics.
Still in the Spider Eel Queen’s lair, the party set about addressing the aftermath of the fight.
- Aimar’s return to the group was marked by some healing magics to shake Darcy from her lethargic blankness (Darcy had rolled a crit fail to resist the queen’s mesmerism). Although rather unpleasant feeling, it worked.
- Elvo reminded the group that some of Sergio’s men would be following behind and could arrive shortly. He and Darcy set off to deal with them. Elvo hoped that he could convince them to join him and oust Sergio as leader of the Street Serpents. (If I haven’t mentioned it before, Street Serpents is the name of this gang.)
- The others set about destroying the egg sacs and things within.
- The egg sacs are tough and leathery but can be cut open.
- Within is a sac of blood with a miniature spider-eel floating within.
- One was able to leap onto Mac, but he and Stan made very short work it.
- Messy, with blood splattering about, they were able to destroy all of the egg sacs.
- Meanwhile, Elvo had Darcy hide in a side room off of the route that Sergio’s men would take.
- If diplomacy didn’t work, he hoped that having Darcy come out from behind would intimidate the men. (She has garnered a bit of a reputation with the gang.)
- Two of Sergio’s men did show up. Elvo tried to convince them to join him in taking over the Street Serpents. One of them asked why shouldn’t he be the leader instead of Elvo and Darcy was called to action.
- Darcy killed one of the two and the other agreed to by loyal to Elvo.
- The trio made their way back to the Queen’s lair.
- With the eggs handled and the “spies” dealt with, the party now just needed to fulfill their end of the bargain with Elvo.
- Elvo led the group out of the Shingles via a different route they had entered. They bypassed the ambush that Sergio had planned and arrived at Sergio’s front door.
- The group entered quietly and found a couple of guards in the next room. They were quickly subdued (but not killed). As Elvo had promised, Sergio had only a small number of men since all the others were off waiting for Elvo to lead the party into the ambush.
- Sergio was found, alone, in a connecting room. He surrendered quickly, dropping any weapons and holding his hands out. He offered the party an even better deal than whatever one they had made to come take him out.
- Darcy was having none of it and stabbed the man who had just been planning on killing all of them. It took a couple more blows before Sergio was killed. (In hindsight, I should have let Darcy just kill him. Sergio was essentially helpless, she was armed, and she is a rogue…no brainer except in the moment of running the game.)
- Elvo then came in and killed the two subdued guards, stating that they were too loyal to Sergio.
- Flavio, the thug that had agreed to Elvo’s leadership, gathered the rest of the gang. Elvo announced his take over of the Street Serpents with the party standing with him. Most of the gang didn’t seem to have much issue with this. The party took out the creatures, are friends of the Street Serpents, and that it was time to recover and rebuild.
- After the gang went about whatever business they might have, Elvo shared that they are indebted to the party and that they are welcome here anytime. He’ll share any information that he gets regarding the killings and hopes that the Street Serpents and the party can remain allies and friends going forward.
- During his absence from the group (i.e., the last few days from the prior session), Aimar learned that the Hellknights had ended their investigation into the missing jewely of Queen Ileosa. The brooch had been found at a neighboring stall (just like Darcy and Gero had planned). Fedro Luto was a bit suspicious, but still dismissed the investigators he was personally paying.
- On 7 Pharast, Mac was contacted by Divo again (his detective friend/ally in the Korvosan guard in case anyone has forgotten). Divo took the party a small home in Old Korvosa.
- Guard “tape” was blocking off the area around the home. Divo explained that a couple of guards had come to investigate a foul smell…ammonia and rotting meat which the party could smell. They had entered and one had already killed himself and one was getting thoroughly drunk.
- Inside was a body, torso split open, lying on a bed. Floating above the bed was a large jellyfish like creature, nearly filling the space. It was rotting and liquid and “flesh” was slowly sloughing off it.
- Another body was suspended within the main body of the jellyfish with only the lower legs sticking out. Only bones remained inside the jellyfish. All flesh had dissolved.
- Aimar and Darcy took a closer look within. Areas of wet slime indicated that the creature had had tentacles which had already dissolved. Tentacles that, given the pattern of slime on the floor, ended in human shaped hands. Human shaped and three to four times the size.
- Looking into the translucent body of this jellyfish thing, both spotted an “impression” of a woman’s screaming face AND could then hear the scream in their heads.
- Aimar exited the home and just started walking away. Pop followed him. The resident priest of Asmodeus was able to calm himself and mentally put the screaming out of his head.
- He also swore an oath the he would personally make sure that whoever was responsible for these killings would suffer a painful death.
- Darcy was not able to put the screaming out of her mind.
- Somewhere while this was all happening, Divo shared some additional information.
- The victim on the bed was Silas, a shiver addict who was otherwise pretty functional. He had his own business as a fishmonger.
- The victim in the jellyfish was Cassia. She was something of the “block mom” and was kind to everyone in the neighborhood.
- He believes that Silas died on 4 Pharast, matching the same pattern of the Shiver Killings.
- The door shows some damage indicating that someone had force their way in. His guess is that Cassia came to check on Silas in the last day or two and somehow ended up in the jellyfish.
- The smell eventually got strong enough to get a neighbor to contact the Guard and the party knows the rest.
- Pop never went in. Mac did, but he did not look around too closely.
With that disturbing scene, we ended the session.
I stumbled a bit in describing this latest murder scene, but I think we got there. To be fair, I was making it up on the spot. I’m still not planning or preparing much of anything for this game and just responding to what the players do. Up until this session, I did not know why the victims were the victims being killed outside of each was a shiver victim. Now, after this session, I know why each victim was “chosen” as a target for whatever is killing them.
So many questions for the players and myself still remain unanswered…play to find out, right?
