Session 12: Subterranean Revelations

Characters involved:

• Pisqual “Piper” Dunraven, human rogue and ambitious thief.
• Primeiro d’Pirazzi, human mage extraordinaire.
• Shrain, dwarf cleric of Moradin.
• Vaicht, elf monk of Kelemvor.
• Zelder, halfling rogue and pastry aficionado.

The PCs assisted Brother Hodges with the trampled and injured as the daylight waned. Ravengard eventually came over to them and “thanked” them in his own bullish way for their part in staving off what could have been a massacre. He gave them a sum of platinum pieces, saying, “I will not be indebted to anyone,” then ranted briefly that the Guild clearly wanted a bloodbath and that the patriars would happily comply—and that of course if that had happened it would have all been blamed on the Flaming Fist.

The PCs told him about the Flaming Fist corporal who had been involved in the kidnapping of Omdarsh. Incensed by this news—Ravengard knew there was corruption in his ranks but seldom had evidence—he stormed off to the Seatower to see the body of the dead traitor himself.

A short while later, a small procession of wagons approached the gate to the Upper City. It was three coffins being transported by the Candulhallows—a patriar family of morticians who’ve handled funerals, burials, and transport of Baldur’s Gate’s dead for centuries. The guards at the gate immediately parted for them. Shrain, wondering at this, quickly cast a detect good and evil spell and found a flicker of fiendish energy among the patriars’ guards who escorted the small caravan. Meanwhile, Primeiro used detect magic and saw the mild, if steady aura of alchemy radiating from one of the coffins. In order to get a better look, Vaicht feigned grief and mourning and threw himself upon the wagon in the lead. The guards started and turned their attention on him, drawing suspicious looks. But the elf monk was convincing with his false tears and was able to get a look at the guards. One of them seemed less surprised than the others and far more serious, and makeup had been used to conceal heavy facial scars. Suspicious.

Nevertheless, the guards forced them back and the procession rolled on and through the gate to the upper city. Meanwhile, Zelder spotted a figure waving to him surreptitiously from a nearby alley. He went over to discover that it was Thurgo Songbuckle, the halfling they’d met at the Guild’s gathering several nights before. Thurgo told Zelder that Rilsa Rael wished to meet with the party, and that he could lead them to a safe and discrete place in the Undercellars. There would be no need to head into the Outer City.

The PCs agreed—for Zelder, on the promise of brownies—and followed the Guild-hired halfling into an alley, through a hidden door, down into the sewers, and through a maze of passages both moist and dry. When they approached a wide junction in the stench-filled sewers, they spotted a pair of ghouls sloshing through the refuse water towards them.

As they moved forward and began to destroy the undead—somewhat easily, from a distance—Thurgo said, “I must apologize, but it’s not personal.” With that, his body contorted, sprouted bristle fur, and suddenly no longer resembled a mere halfling. He was a wererat in hybrid form, still small of stature, but much too large to be a normal rat!

He sprang up and attacked Vaicht, for the elf was the closest PC to him with his back turned.

A battle ensued, in which several small swarms of rats and a handful of dire rats also ran screeching into the fray. (It seemed the PCs had learned what might have been behind the rats plague the streets at night.) Even a second wererat appeared, swinging down upon them from above, pulling a chain, and loosing a stone-colored blob onto the scene: a gray ooze!

With arrows, bolts, blades, rays of frost, and the unarmed strikes of an elven monk, the PCs wonof The PCs won the day, but some were severely injured in the battle. The gray ooze landed a nasty blow on Zelder, burning away much of his cloak and armor and searing his back with its acidic mass. Whipped into a frenzy by their wererat master, a swarm of rats surged up onto Piper. Several clung directly to the human's face and bit into his mouth, nearly cutting his tongue in half. Blood sprayed and dripped as the rogue screamed and clutched as his mouth.

By far the most dramatic injury was dealt by Vaicht, however. The PCs had difficulty effectively harming the wererat, whose lycanthropic flesh could only be easily injured by magic weapons or silver, but the monk seized Thurgo Songbuckle in a grapple and attempted to maneuver him into the hungry ooze. After struggling in vain for several moments, Vaicht finally lifted the wererat's body around and found an opportunity to use the creature's own natural weaponry against him. Grasping Thurgo's own clawed hand, he drew it across his the wererat's own belly and eviscerated him in the process. Organs and gore showered out as Thurgo stared wide with disebelief before Vaicht dropped him to the ground—where the mindless ooze engulfed him and made a meal of his dying form.

More rats, and the still-unharmed ooze made it seem that the PCs would have to make a run for it. But a sudden search of wand-flung spells suggested help was at hand. A glance down the passage from which they'd come revealed the presence of a group of woman—warriors and mages among them. It was the Lady's Court, the bodyguards of Nine-Fingers, mistress of the Guild. And Nine-Fingers herself had come as well. She bade the PCs follow, confirming that she didn't want them dead, but perhaps Rilsa Rael had ordered their death.

"I never liked that halfling," she remarked of the now-dead Thurgo Songbuckle.

Nine-Fingers led them deeper into the sewers and finally into a chamber within the Undercellar beneath the Upper City. There, they took some rest, and she wanted urgently to speak with them about

When she’d met the PCs several days before at the Guild meeting they’d crashed, she had said she was concerned for the city, for the identity of Abdel’s assassin, and the purpose of his death. They told her about the cultists they’d seen. Now things had worsened. Nine-Fingers was worried about Rilsa Rael—her favored protégé—for the Little Calimshan kingpin had become more erratic lately, and more violent. The Guildmistress admitted that many of the acts committed or instigated by the Guild had been sanctioned by her—with the sole purpose of crippling the patriars' commerce and the institutions that hurt the lower class—but that Rael had taken these acts too far. The sewage jams, the vandalism, the arson. The kidnappings especially concerned her, for most of the wives and children who’d been taken had ended up dead with no hope for rescue. Nine-Fingers believed that something was driving Rael to greater acts of violence. To deep and uncharacteristic levels of sadism.

And on that point, Nine-Fingers had something to share with the PCs, for she believed they had the city's interest at heart and could trust precious few others. She said her agents had found the flat where Abdel’s assassin had stayed before the festival of Returning Day, and they had uncovered a very revealing letter that had been folded up and hidden by him. It was a letter written by a Bhaal cultist, perhaps even the cult’s leader. The letter's recipient was addressed to Viekang—a name the PCs had heard recently spoken by Abdel himself through the stored magic of a whispering candle.

Viekang, according to Abdel, might have been the very last Bhaalspawn beside himself, one of the mortal progeny of Bhaal from the old days many years ago. Abdel had evidently him him before

Nine-Fingers read them the cultist's letter:

Master Viekang,

Nine-Fingers

It is with considerable humility that I entreat you one last time. Your window of opportunity will soon pass.

On the Day of Returning, Abdel Adrian will appear publicly in the Wide for ceremonial and political purposes. Understand this: He will never be more vulnerable than on that day, in that moment. I have summoned my disciples to the city already and we will ensure that neither the Watch nor the Flaming Fist interferes with your destiny. I will take further steps to hire local muscle to keep anyone from among the peasantry from interfering. It matters not what weapon you wield against Abdel, so long as you can deliver a mortal wound. You possess our Lord’s power at your fingertips, as you always have. Murder is in your blood.

Viekang, listen to me now. You have lived in fear of Abdel and the others—in fear of yourself and what you are—for far too long. I offer you this final chance at absolution and ascendance. The days of the Bhaalspawn are long past. The time for Bhaal’s rebirth is at hand, for change is coming to the face of Toril and the Lord of Murder will be among the first to claim his due. With Abdel’s death, enacted by your hallowed hands, Bhaal’s divinity will coalesce within you. You will do what Sarevok failed to. You will become inviolable, indestructible, an exarch of our Lord’s will. Baldur’s Gate will be yours to claim—the first of many governments to bow before you. I will be in attendance, and I will be the first to herald your rise.

I trust you need no further convincing. It is time to stop running, to stop hiding. You and Abdel are the last of your kind, and have survived for a reason. You already wield immortal strength. But which of you is the stronger? Abdel lacks the courage and conviction to wield the power given him by the Lord of Murder. Abdel has grown old and complacent, content to rule a single city of sailors, merchants, and thieves. You were meant to rule so much more. You must now become Bhaal’s champion, the last of his children, favored above all. Do not refuse this mantle.

We will speak again when you have triumphed. Then I will call you my liege.

Azevell, First Blade of Bhaal

The PCs agreed that Viekang, Abdel's killer, must have been manipulated. The letter's composer, Azevell, had coerced him into a suicidal assassination. He'd wanted Viekang and Abdel to die. When Viekang had killed Abdel, Bhaal's essence had surged into him but it hadn't saved him or made him into a god at all. With the last of the Bhaalspawn dead, what then became of Bhaal?

Where did the energy, the divinity, go? Nine-Fingers wondered. Clearly this is what Azevell had wanted: the Lord of Murder's energy released somehow. The Guildmistress felt this was part of Rilsa Rael's bloodlust. And who else might be affected? So Nine-Fingers asked the PCs to find a way to counter this violence. Abdel's death was a blow to the city, for he'd help keep all factions from turning against one another, but clearly civil unrest wasn't the real problem now. To deal with the latest threats of violence, such as the march that had almost become a riot, the Council had scheduled an emergency session of the Parliament of Peers for the morning.

There were a few leads to possibly follow, and the PCs had some ideas. Nine-Fingers cautioned them against trusting too many people at this time. She didn't trust Ravengard—and the PCs readily agreed that while he meant well, the Flaming Fist marshal wasn't doing much good for the city—and she certainly didn't trust the three remaining dukes. She did intimate that many of the Peers of the Parliament were on the Guild's payroll, but not enough to enact the great changes the city needed.

The PCs slept the night in a comfortable chamber in the Undercellar. The next morning they set out to continue their investigations. But what came next was alarming. As they ascended the stairs up into the Wide, above, they felt the ground tremor. A rumble and a great explosion rocked the Upper City.

When they reached the surface, they looked over and saw a plume of black smoke rising in the air right above High Hall.

Where the Parliament of Peers was supposed to be in session.