20060501
The King of Kardia had died, and his young son had claimed the throne. To cement deteriorating relations with the nearby nation of Angland, the new King Richard was betrothed to the Anglish King's niece, the lovely Princess Alysanne. No sooner had she been brought to the Nightstone Palace in Kardia City, and the date of the wedding set, then she disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Turning to his Chancellor Hobson and a group of Kardian seers and sorcerers, King Richaard tracks his betrothed to the island of Freeport in the Marauder's Chain. Freeport is a town of mostly pirates and exiles, ruled over by the pirate king, called the Red Right Hand (and an enigmatic sorceress known only as the Silk Lady).
Richaard's troops stomp around, turning over rocks, unable to find the Princess. In desperation, Lord Hobson suggests that they use criminals to infiltrate the underworld of Freeport to locate the Princess.
The party was recruited from among the prisoners of Xartalca, a magic-shielded island from which none return. Each had been sentenced to life imprisonment for a variety of crimes, ranging from murder to treason to extreme rendition to buttsex. They were fitted with finely crafted chains which act as slave collars, placing the entire party under a geas (or several). Lord Hobson instructs them in their mission and assures them that if they fail, they will die, but if they succeed the collars will not be removed, but the terms of the geas will be altered to simply prevent them from causing harm to Kardia and they will be exiled to a far off and pleasant retirement.
Yeah... right.
Given little choice, the party sails to Freeport and begins to explore. They meet urchins and slave traders, make friends and enemies, and begin to discover they they are only small pieces in a game that they are only just beginning to fathom.
On the evening of First Night celebrations (New year's Eve night), Eriola met and became engaged to the leader of the Kardian troops in Freeport, Beauregard Abernathy III.
The party teamed up with a martial wizard-philosopher cult (the Bloodkin) to attack the processional of the Red Right Hand and the Silk Lady. While the Bloodkin began rioting throughout the city, the party used the ancient sewers of the city of Sanctuary (on which Freeport is built), to collapse a section of the street under the Red Hand's entourage. They let the Bloodkin do some of the initial mop up against the Red Hand's Guards and then moved in to capture the Silk Lady who they believed held the Princess in her Fortress.
The Red Hand (immune to normal weapons) was killed by a single mighty blow, and the Silk Lady escaped through the sewer tunnels. The party gave chase and ran her down to the Fortress of the Hand. (I used this for the general floorplan of the Fortress.
The party entered the Fortress, only to be confronted by Mungo, a massive bear-chested bald man with a magic greatclub and indeterminate loyalties. MUNGO fought them, but made it clear that he has been robbed of his will in the matter. The party won and left him incapacitated but alive. Finally, they entered the Fortress to confront the Silk Lady.
Last night's game started here:
They made their way into the inner courtyard of the Fortress, and followed a disembodied laughing voice (the Lady) into the shrine. Inside, they discover one of their new enemies, the Flesh Merchant Dalmar, who had clearly seen better days. Dalmar was burned badly, eyes gone, flesh black and flaking, completely MAD. He attacked them, enduring wounds that should surely have killed him. Creepy. Meanwhile, the risen shades of the ancient defenders of the Fortess of Sanctuary attack from behind.
They didn't manage to destroy Dalmar, but they fought past him and through the old priests quarters and through the mess hall to circle back out into the courtyard behind the shades. Unable to attack them shades, the party fled through an iron door into a massive chamber that may have once been an armory.
The Silk Lady attacked, using illusion to make it appear as if the party was engulfed in a firestorm. The pain of their burns should have been enough to send them into shock and death, but the controlling entity of the slave collars interferes.
They had had brief and cryptic contact with the entity before, knowing it to be called "Demon" by Lord Hobson and that its recent orders from the King and Hobson were directly in conflict, leading to a conflict within its own structure through which it gained a measure of self-control. The entity was trying to used the party to get to the chain worn by Princess Alysanne (which had been a betrothal gift) that would allow "reprogramming" of the geas which binds the construct and through it, the party.
Confused yet?
ADAM (as the construct decides to be called), instructed the party that it could not intervene as it was still bound too strongly by its directives, but that it could answer questions. If only they would ask the right ones. In an effort to bypass riddles, the party simply asked "What are the right questions?"
They learned that ADAM could work around certain gaps in his directs because of the inherent contradiction of recent orders and that if it could obtain a Golden Circuit (Princess Alysanne's chain), it could use the gold links to re-write some of its own directs, freeing the party from certain death and perhaps acting as an ally. It revealed that its ultimate goal is to find and destroy the binding that was used to lock MAGIC away from this world, and bring about a new golden age of magic and prosperity (or something like that).
Yeah... right.
Once again, given little choice, the party woke to descend into the Silk Lady's labyrinth beneath the Fortress. They encountered some cells containing prisoners (including a street urchin they had previously befriended) all of whom had been drained of years of their life to sustain the Silk Lady in some way. Their urchin (Jasper) was 8 years old, cynical, and looked to be in his mid 30s. Sucks to be him.
The disembodied voice of the Silk Lady tried to turn the party against itself with a combination of truth, lies, illusion, threats, and promises of power. The party, in true adventurer fashion, replied with quips and offhand insults that reminded me of some of the best moments in Adrian's Star Wars game.
They made their way deeper into the catacombs, occasionally fighting off a decreipt old man (the freed prisoners were susceptible to the Silk Lady's mind control). Finally, they entered an enormous chamber, dominated by an underground lake, lit by phosphorecent fungus and EVIL. There was no convenient way to cross the lake without swimming (MWAHAHA), but they group surprised me by using the cell doors as makeshift paddleboards. On the other side of the lake, the Silk Lady stood before the remnants of an ancient shrine. Tied to the altar was the Princess, while the Silk Lady chanted a spell. The party confronted her, battled the leader of the Bloodkin (invisible), and finally disrupted her spell casting with a silly little distractionary spell called "Blurt". Apparently, the Silk Lady just needs a good deep dicking.
Enraged, the Lady re-animated her champion and the party had to fight the leader of the Bloodkin again (only this time he was harder, and his intestines were hanging out). A well placed dagger throw which should have dropped the bitch to her knees, instead wounded the Princess (Wound Transference, it had been used before, when they cut off her hand).
Instead, they wrestled her to the ground and gagged her while the rest of the party curb stomped the now largely ineffectual animated corpse. It was still moving when they finally left, but ewww, just eww. The Princess was saved. The Golden Circuit was safely removed from her neck and one link was joined to each of their collars, replacing an iron link . The 6 iron links were used to make a collar to bind the Silk Lady, but seemed to only be able to cause her pain, not control her actions. Rather than be bound, the Silk Lady committed suicide by chewing off her own tongue and drowning in her own blood. Her spirit escaped and promised revenge.
Upon leaving the now disintegrating cavern, the party climbed to the walls of the deserted Fortress to watch the city of Freeport burn at the stroke of midnight on First Night.