The Gates of Heck

Summary

Adventure: The Gates of Heck - The Sequel to The Fires of Heck
GM: Jacqui
Session: Spring 819
Night: Thursday
Location: Smiths
Level: Low+

Party

• Jaycey - Party Leader & Halfling Illusionist played by Anne
• Angus - Caledonian Namer played by Keith
• Eugene - Necomancer played by Sam
• ? - played by Justis
• Rhoswen - played by Beth
• Loot'er (Luther_Luthier) (Mike P.) non-mage Hobbit with the usual skills; and Kevin the Pony
• Emrys - played by Paul

Employer: Pobble the Gnome
Mission: Do something about the Goblin King
Pay: see below — N.B. Nominate what you want for your physical talent

The Job

We were hired by Master Pobble to help the goblins get rid of the goblin king permanently. NO: they were NOT wanting a party that were all, in the words of that ancient song, “an A, Double-S, A, Double-S, ...” etc. Not for any airy-fairy moralistic scruples, but down-to-earth pragmatic they suspect they was one (or even seven) merely to kill the G.K., somehow he’d come back a bit miffed and vent his irritation on anyone who might have been responsible or, failing that, just anyone at all.

gNo. Instead the gNomes are working on a Ritual to Banish the G.K. to a place that he WON”T be coming back from. And they need us to help gather the very specific items listed by Juniper the Not-Quiet, Mad Prophetess … (or possible the Not-Quite-Mad Prophetess — all that excessive facial hair makes it very hard to hear or lip-read what they’re saying).

What we will be “paid”

1. A Fungal potion each (cunningly prepared by Tink and Tonk) that confers an intended a magically Physical Talent on its imbiber, such as Elven Witchsight; Dark Vision; Resist Pain; … The Fungiologists would appreciate advanced notice of what is preferred.
   
2. Gems
   
3. Incidental loot that we “acquire”.
   

Scribe Notes, Chap.1: Frome Home, To Gnomes, & into the Layrinth

We obtained Greaters, Amulets, Healing potions, Grizelda’s cookies, and other support materiel & magic — the Party Leader & Scribe advancing funds to those a little short ... so the mission needs to make a profit (one way or the other). Pobble then took us to Alphonse’s — where we obtained extra rations, naturally.

Then, after a short journey, we (the hobbits, pony, “doubling”, and horses) eventually reached an un-DA-able door or two and ended up in Caves on a Different Plane. There were other doors too, including one with a Lazy-8 that leads to The Labyrinth. Oh dear: it seems we forgot to get an astrology reading. What a pity! Unfortunately the yellow-capped folk have already a mystic prognostication, as we discovered when we reached the Gnomish Under-Under-Ground and were introduced to T&T, Old Hogarth, Myrtle, Juniper, and other VIPs. A party was being set up. For Us and them.

Gnome Geography (& history) in brief

The Cave system, where the Gnomes now live is the Under-Under-World. Above that is the Underworld (the ancient sewer system, etc). And above that is the Over-Land, which is where the Gnomish city was until it was overrun by Goblins.

Gnomes are mostly earth-mages. And they were surprised we didn’t bring an air-mage for their Lightning which, apparently, could have been useful (which surprised us!).

They are pacifists, and live on Mushroom, eggs, cheese, fungal bread, and Beverage. Lots of beverages. The party went well.

THE PROPHESY, as sung by the N.Q.M.P.

Nobody knew
What kind of magic spell to use
Slime and snails
Or puppy dog tails?
Thunder or lightning
Then baby said
Dance magic, dance magic
Jump magic, jump magic

The plan, as interpreted by Myrtle the Wise

The ritual will be performed under the gNome gTrone gRoom. Those ingredients mean:

1. Living Slime— NOTE: we were provided with a special (expandable!) slime bag for the gunk from the slime creature.
   
2. Snails Antennae of Giant Chaos Snails.
   
3. Puppy-dog tails: the tails of Hellhounds from Avernus
   
4. etc

We are to enter the Labyrinth and find the Doors that will take us (directly, or not) to the Home Planes of the creatures, so that we can physically Kill (or Subdue?) the Special-of-the-day and remove its specified body part. First up, we should go to a specific place within Golarion and talk to the locals to get to where the slime creatures live. Myrtle sketched the Rune for us.

We Enter the Labyrinth

Apparently the Labyrinth has been described as “the Universe’s Basement”; it links many places. Weirdly. Which sounded odd for those of us who hadn’t been there yet. Then we entered it and were on a stone landing (with a door labelled H behind us). The landing had stone stairs going Up. And Down. And Sideways. AND maybe even somewhere else mutually perpendicular. Which, at the time, looked odd unless you concentrated on the steps and just thought of “down” being whatever was under your feet.

A Ball of Light, that had a warm & calming radiance, popped up through the floor: “Oooh, Visitors”.
[Detect Aura : “Lantern Archon”. Plane of Origin: “Celestia”]
Archon: Are you lost?
Hobbit (cheerfully): Not yet.

JayCee [Party Leader, following Myrtle’s advice]: We looking a door marked by an “O” with 3 vertical lines through it and a subscript Runic-K.
Archon: I know several of those [Starts to go up & pauses] ... Archon: “Is this a good thing?”
Experienced Party-members [in unison]: “Yes!”
Archon: “Then I can do it.”

Chapter 2: On the trail of Living Slime (and shopping)

Once powered up (by our mages & the Archon), typically with Enhanced duration, we opened the appropriate Outer & Inner doors and stepped into rain & an Alley way in (as we later learned) Corsova. The outer door clicked shut after us leaving the extremely obvious inner open — which we closed & Jaycee illusioned to match the local wall.

Remembering we were here to find Living Slime, we exited the alley seeking local clues or directions and entered a nearby shop, which had a sign over the door reading Episcipo’s Dolls & Figurines (Yay! We can read, and presumably speak, the local patois as if it were common). Even better, Episcipo was not fazed by the armed melange of species entering his shop (Hobbits, Elves, Equines, Direwolf, Caledon firemage, etc) — apparently because Party-leader’s Jayce’s openly worn, visible necklace identified her as a Pathfinder, namely some type of reputable super-Ranger, who are known to conduct expeditions that are good for the local Economy. And it helped that our necromancer knew the right artisan lingo and bought a well-crafted dolly of apparently exquisite taste (if you like that sort of thing).

Episcipo advised that we were in the midland region of Corsovo, and gave us general directions (the main road to Aeldred Square, Citadel Way, and so-forth) for establishments that would be useful: Adventurer-related shops and an adequate hostelry.

Tiffin-time, followed by Light Shopping

We followed the directions. The locals on the streets were mostly humans, with some hobbits, a few dwarves. The spies Some of us estimated, comparing the buildings and the numbers of people observed, that the City must have recently experienced a significant Drop in Population. There was a large pyramid visible (apparently near the city’s centre and visible from much of the city). And Citadel Way end in a large citadel. Not much interesting by way of street hawkers, although the “Elephant’s Ear” was a curious fried pastry not for its taste but its production (traditionally fried in a Tower shield, allegedly sufficient for 3 men).

We duly reached the Creaky Hammock (an inn catering mostly for ship-folk clearly somewhere near the docks, to judge by Nose) and paid for a couple of rooms, each with 4 bunks. Mine Host was called “Du)stin Shmish” (or some such, I was too hungry to catch it). Since it had been literally hours since we’d lunched with the gNomes, we all had a light meal: battered Fish fillets with abundant chips, washed down with tolerable beer (except, obviously, Keven just had the chips followed by some apples from the provisions).

Master Shmish answered some questions and directed us to where we might purchase supplies. Nearby was the “Gold Market” (just a name for an open area of stalls and such), and more permanent establishments: shops, alchemists, butchers, haberdasheries, a barber’s shop (although xxx took exception to its proprietor …“Never trust a half-orc barber that dresses well!”) . Amongst the useful shops were weaponsmiths and armorers (got Kevin some light barding), and we were able to purchase mildly magical weapons etc, including weapons that were sufficiently adequate to hit standard targets needing magic/silver. Looter picked up a very practical bolt-case as did XX??? While XX??? and XX??? got the quiver version (((Q: anything the others wish to have recorded))).

To The Sewers and What to Expect there…

We returned to the Creaky Hammer Hammock, which was somewhat more lively (a gracious way of saying it got really VERY noisy at night). However, that night ??? // in the morning ???, when we (meaning Pathfinder & company) spake to Master Shmish about how to reach the Sewers, he advised that he knew a service entrance. And it’s not just “sewers”, also vaults and catacombs. And traps. Wildlife involves gators, were-rats, dire rats, Fhorar (??), goblins, Oatiog.

After sleeping that night (generally requiring healer assistance) we headed back to the Labyrinth and re-upped on or queued the spells (including Archon’s). We then followed Shmish’s directions but, on removing the covering and seeing the slime-encrusted ladder and how far it went down, Jayce made Kevin (with a feed bag) & the direwolf invisible, we went down teh ladder carefully.

Tog

We descended the S.-E. L, and were in a tunnel system with fungus or mould on reaching at least 10 feet up the “walls”. As we moved there were patches of light (but not water, not yet) coming down through gratings and such. There was almost no garbage, but definitely a sickening smell. (Almost made one dread what the next meal was going to taste like. How horrific!)

Mercifully (?), such thoughts were soon banished by a monstrous wail (part keening, part wailing) and then the monster itself. It was an Etoig — Good taste prevents further description. It bellowed: “Feed Tog. You give good food, I let you live”. We whipped out sweets and food, but fortunately Angus saved the day with some Haggis (No, really !!) laced with liquor from his sporran.

Chapter 3: etc

The Design of the Sewers

The sated Etiog retired back in to a chamber in the side of the wall. Clearly it’s den, We could see the sophisticated bricks the wall was made of. Over the next few hours we discovered that, the Sewer itself was designed as a network of tunnels about 15 ft across: a 5-ft walkway either side and a deep 5-gutter between them containing water (and assorted waste “materiel”). The walls either side were generally 10’-straight, then arching over to support the city above. The system was clearly planned, but not to any obvious, regular pattern. Over time we noticed the intersections were deliberate T-shapes or crossroads, sometimes at odder angles, probably because of whatever was above (or to avoid some subterranean?). As we went we rangers conferred and kept track of our heading. Being a Sewer, we generally followed the flow, but kept track of our direction; and obviously sometimes the same intersection had routes that, relatively, rose in one direction but fell in another. Sometimes the sewers just intersected with other underground features: designed underground passages, natural caves, or just areas of collapse.

Goblins

Six arrow flew out from the darkness ahead, 2 palpably hitting Angus. Perception checks showed goblins 120’ ahead for those with the magic/items to see that far.

Jayce [Mil Sci]: Fire some fireballs into that Darkness!
Emrys,the Firemage: How far?
Jayce: Any, as long as we're NOT in the Blast Radius.

He Dropped a fireball that overshot their unseen front line but hit the main body and some goblins around the corner … and apparently a goblin alchemist was there was well who took out many more people and some masonry. Angus, Emrys, Jayce, & Looter moved up at various speeds while the remaining goblins fled. We saw a semicircular chamber with an alcove holding an ugly idol of an elephant with spikes on its back and a topknot. Perhaps a goblin deity?

We also saw the 5ft pipe that the’y fled down. It was far to small for most of the party, so we didn't pursue. At the next T-intersection we took the path sloping upwards

OTHER QUOTES:

Gnome (explaining their pacifistic social set-up): “We don’t run to the Military.”
Possibly Tipsy Hobbit: “No, Course not! You should run from them.”

Military Scientist Section

Marching Order

Loot'er
Angus
Jaycey
Emrys
Eugene
Rhoswen
Carrie

Watch Order

Emrys			Jaycey			Rhoswen			Carrie
Angus				Eugene				Loot'er

Buffs

Long Duration

+13 GREATER
lesser

(REMINDER:Jayce & Looter advances cash to those that needed to purchase Greaters & other items.)

From Archon All Rank 10, but Buffed in the Labyrith for duration:
Light-sight
Corruscade

From Party: Enchaneted Armour: +16 def; +3 protection