33. January 15, 2017

January 15, 2017

We travel toward the Imperial District, where Jessa's grand-mentor Odette was last seen. There are ruins beneath the city, under part of a market area. We think she may have gone there.

We enter the ruins, squeeze through a wall, and end up in a passageway underground. There's been a collapse, so the tunnel only goes one way. It's dark, there's debris everywhere, tree roots from above. Takes us about 2 hours to get to something, working our way down, to a remnants of a room. We enter through a crack in the wall. On another wall, a wooden door that was pryed open, recently. Looks like there was a skirmish between a humanoid from inside, and a human (from the footprints) that had entered the room. Further in, there's a corpse, a pale humanoid, wearing ratskins on its feet (though its clawed toes are not covered) and ragged fur or hide decorative bits of clothing. It has blood caked under its clawed fingernails; it seems to have been slain by a sword, seems a few weeks old.

We proceed. There are more tunnels, more rooms. In one, there's been a collapse, and a there's a (living) man, trapped and half-buried by a collapsed ceiling. We help him...his name is Ghard. He said that he was down here with a woman, and were attacked by six of those pale humanoid creatures. They fought...the woman who hired him to bring her down through the ruins was turned into an icy blue statue and the creatures couldn't hurt her, so they carried her off; this was after the creatures knocked Ghard into the wall and it collapsed onto him. He's been trapped for nearly a week and ran out of food. Bel gives Ghard some food and drink and heals him. He agrees to continue with us, to try to save the woman.

We continue. The passages are linear. Where there are collapses, we can often work our way down a level to another passage. There's one vertical passage that we have to climb down. We reach a true intersection for the first time after 4 hours total travel, and the creatures went right instead of left. Eventually, we hear noises ahead, an occasional chitter or bark. We proceed, and enter a natural cavern. There is some moss and fungus growing, it gives off a little bit of phosphorescent light. The cavern is huge...there are several passages leading into it. In the middle of the cavern is the ice statue woman. The creatures are further in; they are clacking and clicking with different tones and sounds of things strapped to their bodies. We think the creatures may be totally blind.

The creatures hear us, one shrieks, and they swarm toward us in a shrieking, barking pack, mayhem obviously on their minds. Bel casts a Magic Circle Against Evil centered on her; the creatures are repulsed and skitter off it when they attempt to swarm us. We run forward to the ice statue, the creatures unable to touch us within the circle. At the edge of the bubble, Ghard eviscerates one of the creatures with his sword, then in an amazing feat of martial prowess, pulls a tent stake from his pack, hurls it with force and impales his target creature through the eye; the throw is so hard that it impales a second creature as well AND they are hurled back and break the necks of two more creatures behind them! Jessa summons seven Blink Dogs to create chaos and a lot of noise using the Staff of the Woodlands, while Bel tries to free the woman who became an icy statue. A Remove Paralysis spell seems to do it. The woman is a 50-ish year-old woman. “Let's get out of here!” someone yells, so we scamper. We collapse the passages on both sides of the exit tunnel, knowing we can excavate later with backup.

We ask the lady her name to confirm if she is Odette. She responds in a series of grunts, barks, and clicks, communicating like the creatures who had carried her off. She seems unable to understand Common. But she seems willing to go with us, she seems desperate to get out of the cavern.

We hurry the 4 hours back, and emerge into the alley at about sunset.