Wealday, Desnus 29, 4713 mid day
Yugureda Shosaito’s Island
We found the “master” a short while ago, and I found the encounter to be more than a little disappointing.
I was expecting to find a wizened sage of incredible talent who had spent his long years in a pursuit of arcane (if not forbidden) knowledge. Someone who had forced back the nature of death itself to bring some resemblance of life to the creatures with which he surrounded himself.
“Nope!” Pookie chirped.
Instead we found a sad and pathetic post middle aged man with the a case of the hots for his own (possibly illegitimate) daughter so bad that he tried to force the soul of his wife into her body.
That’s not just sad and pathetic, but seriously perverted, and I was happy to play a part in his death.
And his wife was no angel either. She was apparently just fine with (and indeed assisted) him in creating their undead servants. Her soul is now forever lost and good riddance to it!
I realize that good help can be hard to come by, but it is not that to find.
Of course as soon as those words hit the parchment I looked over at Zos and wondered if maybe they didn’t have a point. But still… I mean these were real undead, right?
We had gathered in the saki cellar before the portal that we assumed led to the Shadow Plane (even Beorn finds the place disturbing) when Ivan said, “Hey, wait up. Maybe O-sayum actually left clues for her potential rescuers in those things she had crafted, but didn’t take with her.”
We all paused for a moment and exchanged looks that said, “Why the hell didn’t we think of this earlier?”
Takoda helpfully pointed out, “Well he is an oracle.”
He then explained which different materials and colors we should look out for while searching for O-sayum.
This made Kali very happy. Prior to this we would have been just be randomly wandering about looking for a geisha. But now we had a Plan. Kali likes plans.
With that we were ready to enter the gateway. Olmas went first, and he faded to a what amounted to a charcoal sketch of himself. Each of us followed in turn, the colors ebbing out from my companions as they passed through, but not so much for myself.
We followed down corridors, noting the various passageways and “moon gates” we passed along the way and which materials and colors were used for each.
Sometimes a passageway would dead end, and sometimes at those ends was a mirror which sent either lightening bolts or ice storms at us. Ivan and I seemed particularly adept at dodging the worst of the effects, and so we often did the honors of looking around the next corner.
But because we were following the Plan, we did not need to go down all of the passageways, and indeed we skipped at least half of them.
Presently the corridor ended at a room in the middle of which, on a nice rug, were two woman kneeling and facing one another.
“That rug really ties the room together,” quipped Takoda. “Not helping, buddy,” I replied.
Olmas entered the room, and as he did so the color flowed back into him. He looked closely at the women and said, “They may not be dead.”
Suddenly there was a loud shout, growl, screech type of a noise from elsewhere in the room, and Olmas braced himself, holding Suishen before him.
I ran into the room and saw and odd monkey-tiger creatures slavering in the corner. We did the usual thing we do with such friendly critters, and soon it lay dead.
We then had more time to examine the women, who were under the influence of a Gentle Repose spell. One of them looked like the drawing we had seen of O-sayum, and we assumed we had found our goal. But the problem was that while she may not have been dead, she wasn’t truly living either.
A door led to the east, which opened into an a nicely decorated office. We searched around and found a number of interesting items, including the master’s journal. Kali and I poured over the later entries.
That’s when we realized what a sick jerk he was, but Pookie also realized something and exclaimed, “O-sayum is his daughter!”
Well that explained some things, but not the fact that her father had the morals of a kobold.
Meanwhile Radella had been busy searching the book cases and discovered a secret door. We gathered up everything that looked useful.
| 669 | samison (O-sayum’s and highly magical) |
| 670 | ivory plectrum (to go with the above) |
| 671 | potion of Bull Strength |
| 672 | potion of Cure Moderate Wounds |
| 673 | Potion of Protection from Cold |
| 674 | Potion of Water Breathing |
| 675 | Scroll of Bestow Curse |
| 676 | Scroll of Ice Storm |
| 677 | Scroll of Lightening Bolt |
| 678 | Business records and maps of Minkai |
We opened the door and followed a corridor east. To the north was an alchemical lab (“We’ll come back for the rest later”).
| 679 | shards of mother of pearl |
Further east was another door, beyond which was a large chamber with an alcove to the north and a table set against the far wall. A man stood next to the table sipping tea.
He knew why we were there, but like most egotistical megalomaniac’s he had to posture and boast, totally convinced of his own invincibility. He picked up a vase filled with pearls and said that the souls of the two woman were each trapped in one of the pearls (we already knew he was lying about that). He implied that only he could return their souls, and we would do well to deal with him in a friendly fashion. He then dumped the pearls onto the floor.
Timber said, “Man, we know you’re not going to help us or return the girl, so quit pretending!”
Olmas strode forward into across the room to show just how friendly he could be, but slipped on the pearls and fell.
At about that time four large shadowy figures formed in the alcove. Kali called out that she’d deal with them, and so the rest of us closed in on the old man or launched ranged attacks at him.
“Consider this friendly fire,” Star raged as I cast a greater Dispel Magic on him.
We were winning the battle against the old man, but losing the war. Kali had put up a wall of force, sealing the shadows in the alcove, but soon they phased down into the marble floor and rose back up around us.
Naturally the old man gloated. They always gloat.
They were eerily attracted to Olmas, and kept clawing at him as his strength ebbed away. Kali telekinetically moved Olmas over to me so I could heal the damage.
The old man fell first, and some time there after we managed to destroy the shadows. We looted the corpse.
| 680 | collection of pearls |
| 681 | A lacquered dark wood box inset with emeralds forming a dragon turtle — it has three compartments |
| 682 | compartment 1: magic (conjuration) blue green aquamarine |
| 683 | compartment 2: large black pearl |
| 684 | compartment 3: magic (necromancy) large white pearl |
| 685 | potion of Water Breathing |
| 686 | scroll of Resist Energy |
| 687 | master work dagger |
| 688 | +4 cloak of resistance |
| 689 | dusty rose ioun stone (+1 insight bonus to AC) |
| 690 | +2 ring of protection |
| 691 | ring of swimming |
| 692 | spell component pouch |
| 693 | spell book |
| 694 | 250 gp diamond dust |
| 695 | professional master work alchemy lab |
We moved back into the room with the women and after a brief conversation we determined that O-sayum’s soul was in the large white pearl, and that casting Dispel Magic upon it should restore her soul.
I performed the casting and moments later O-sayum began to stir. We told her why we came, and she was thrilled that we used the clues she had left behind to find her. I simply pointed at Ivan and said, “Thank him.”
It was time to leave. The maze through the shadow plane was gone, and so we had no trouble returning to the house and making our way down to the dock. We would take the master’s barge back to Sakakabe.
But the old codger had another surprise for us. A band of hobgoblins filed out from the barge and charged.
“Well, at least they aren’t undead,” squeaked Takoda. “Yeah, but they’re not hobgobs either, ” Pookie said as one of the attackers flew up and over the wall of whirling blades with which I had encircled the troop.
More oni. But lesser, runty oni. We had delt with these before, and quickly killed the lot of them.
We’re taking a moment to familiarize ourself with the barge and how to sail it, and then our first stop will be a visit to O-sayum’s turtle-man uncle.