Session 7: Letter home from Mellaril

Sorry for not having written in so long, but it’s been quite a ride.

Do you remember that ruined deep gnome village I wrote you about? The one with the creepy dolls and the chokers and the giant phantasmal worm who spoke as a companion of Taargick? Well, it turns out that there was a survivor of that village, someone named Jirelga, who was swallowed by the worm but cut her way out with a fragment of adamantine. All we had to do was find her, and let her lead us to the worm, assuming she was able and willing to do so.

You see the obvious problem, but it was made worse when we learned she was being held in a private prison. She was being held for smuggling, illegal tunneling, and various misdemeanors, but she was obviously a cat’s paw for more powerful interests. Rumors were that the Blacknoon crime gang were involved, and the name of a renegade Molgrade smith was connected. There was a chance we could use our connections to get her sprung, but we would have to find a bigger crook to take her cell. Going through her things at the flophouse where she had been staying before her incarceration revealed a business card for a defunct bakery in one of the less salubrious neighborhoods. The building was now an ironmongers. Ah, an ironmongers and a renegade Molgrade, the association was too good to be a coincidence. We decided to walk in as customers and see what we could find out.

We walked in, and who did we find but our old “friend” Ygrin Oathcarver! He knew we were no casual shoppers out for a new set or ratchets, but we knew something was very strange about him managing a hardware store! I had never pegged him for corruption, but clearly, I was wrong. How wrong I was became apparent when he transformed into a man-hag! Whether this had always been his true form, explaining his personality, or whether he had transformed from the shame and bile that had built up in his dark soul, we may never know. Anyway, we killed him. It was a tough fight.

There we were, beaten up and with most of our magical powers spent, and about to fight a Molgrade renegade with the gods know what kind of enhanced equipment, when this shady character walks in. Turns out he’s a representative of the Blackmoon, come to tell us that illegal tunneling is a crime too far for them. He hands us a bunch of healing potions and suggests that Ms Molgrade would not be mourned.

That fight was indescribable, and there was not a drop of those healing potions left when it was over, but we prevailed.
The Highhelm Guard showed up not long afterwards, highly upset at our causing such a ruckus. Fortunately, fewer alibis are better than the corpse of a hag. The entire situation was too embarrassing for too many people, with the result that while it wasn’t exactly swept under the rug, nothing was done which might keep people talking more than was unavoidable. Lucky for us, as killing high priests in public is generally frowned upon!

Our actions got Jirelga out of prison. She’s not a very delicious young lady—certainly that worm didn’t think so, ha ha—but after what she had been through, I suppose one could hardly blame her. She had been quite traumatized by her time in that creature’s stomach—do worms have stomachs? Everyone she knew was dead, and her dreams were not pleasant. She came to Highhelm seeking answers, only to be stonewalled by persons of authority. Given her extreme outsider status and lack of what might be called social graces, I don’t suppose that’s surprising. She knew this much: that a place called the Court of Ether was on the worm’s itinerary. We sought maps from Kagri Breakiron of the Iron Archive. She sought an explanation of us. Sadly, Jirelga’s mistrust of others and anvil-like subtlety led her to a clumsy prevarication while I was still contemplating an appropriate response. Lying to the Dragon in her lair is not recommended, and we were out on our ears. Fortunately, we were accepted more gracefully at other libraries, though it turned out that the documents we sought tended to be mysteriously missing.

All clues pointed towards a legendary lost library of the Droskar priesthood. We were able to locate the long-lost secret entrance to this library, thanks to a clue hidden in a board game. The library itself was guarded by a hellish fiend who was hellishly bored. After some wrangling, we worked out with him a way to claim his contract was null, at which point he happily left for warmer climes. Unfortunately, his departure triggered the original security system of the library, which was a series of animate statues, the most frightening of which was a giant worm. Fortunately, we were at the opposite end of the library from this creature, and the statues coming towards us all fought each other along the way. We grabbed what we could, picked the lock of the door that had predictably closed behind us, and fled. For the last few days, we have been sorting through this material (back at the libraries of their original owners) in preparation for an expedition to the Court of Ether. This place is suspended from a cavern ceiling and ruled over by a formidable elder of the Fey peoples, powerful enough to have withstood the assault of the great worm. What fun this will be.