Eberron Campaign - Mission to Xen'drik
Chapter 1
Our story opened in Sharn, a bustling city on the mouth of the Dagger River in Breland. Being an adventuring group that had been questing after low to moderate importance relics for the last six months, our shop "Belenor's Exemplary Group of Legend Seekers" was on the second plateau of the city -- close enough to the ground to be shady enough to be known to the right customers yet higher than the base level to illustrate our success. Our heroes were relaxing in their shop when they were suddenly visited by the woman Uleena, who entered hefting two large sacks of coin. Uleena explained that she had been sent by her superiors at Morgrave University to hire our group to travel to the wild continent Xen'drik. Their scholars had finally deciphered some ancient texts that gave clues leading to a metallic sphere that -- once found -- could then lead to one of the Orbs of Dragonkind. Ancient fables say that the giant civilizations of Xen'drik created some Orbs of Dragonkind as a last measure of defense against the dragons. If the dragons ever waged war against the giants the Orbs could allow the giants to bend some of the dragons to their will. For better or worse, the giants underestimated the swiftness of the draconic armada and their continent was razed before the giants could run to the Orbs' secure hiding spots.Or at least, so the tale goes. Nevertheless, Uleena from Morgrave University promised us 20,000 gold pieces (plus travel!) to travel to Xen'drik and retrieve the map-sphere for them. The debonair Belanor quickly persuaded her that such a perilous mission surely deserved higher compensation as well as more upfront so we could equip ourselves for the jungle. She increased the total purse to 25,000 gold pieces without batting an eye and offered 10,000 as an upfront wage. She had already checked the airship schedules and one was leaving within three hours. It would be an 11-day journey there and then again on the way back, and she was expecting us within 35 days total. Our adventuring party had never once been hired for so lucrative a mission and Belanor's imagination was filled with the glory and riches that would come from exploring such a storied continent. They accepted Uleena's offer and sped off to the shopping district to get fitted out before their journey. Most of our heroes purchases armor upgrades, with Val'Dax also enhancing his longsword and Toff buying tons of pastries and meat.
Once we boarded the airship, we learned that we would be four of twelve total passengers. There was a captain and his first mate (who had been impressed into cooking due to their short staff), a noble man and his wife, and a second adventuring party with a cleric, fighter, wizard, and rogue. Eleven days is a long time, so our party got social and chatted everyone up. These are their stories:
- The nobleman and noblewoman were headed to Xen'drik on a second honeymoon. He'd always been enthralled by the stories of Brindiana Bones who was always raiding lost temples and finding hidden relics on the continent. He expected his wife would be too afraid and stay inside at the hotel all week, but nevertheless talked her into the trip. He manufactured magical rings back in Sharn that give the wearer the power to levitate about a foot off the ground wherever they went. Inside of Sharn these rings even granted the full gift of flight. He was convinced these would become the next big fashion fad and he would be immensely rich quite soon. She was wearing the first prototype of the Ring of Levitation and would float around on deck joyously all day.
- The other adventuring party had been hired by House Lyrander to travel to Xen'drik and survey the land. House Lyrander was gifted with the power to manipulate the weather and climate and had already transformed inhospitable islands in Khorvaire into lush tourist spots. They believed that Xen'drik had the chance to be the next Maine and wanted this adventuring squad to scout out the land. None of them had ever been to Xen'drik before. They were based out of Sharn on the first level (the cleric's name was Syleh and could easily be found in Sharn by checking the Temple of the Silver Flame) and mostly did caravan guarding. The fighter Tormond was a surfer and was very impressed with Belanor's tale of the Oobajaaba that cannot be killed except at night.
Several nights passed with Val'Dax and Bulwark taking watch surrounded by various levels of warding spells, but little happened. However, the rogue Vakenta had been suspiciously up and about each night although she claimed it was just to get water. Our party eventually determined that rather than try and police the sleeping people that it would instead be better to catch Vakenta in the act red-handed. Using Toff's tremorsense, we stayed up all night and Toff eventually felt someone sneaking down the hallway towards the noblewoman's room and then disappear. After a quick discussion, we opened the door and found Vakenta in a white robe, floating down the hallway with the Ring of Levitation and a fistful of stolen goods. Val'Dax tackled her and Toff's scream of "I KNEW IT WAS YOU" roused the whole ship. Turned out that the previously stolen rings had been in a Bag of Holding sewn into Vakenta's bag.
The nobleman was very taken with our party. He offered Val'Dax a job as a guide on Xen'drik if we were to finish our mission soon enough and were willing to lead him through the forests, and offered Belanor some private barding opportunities if we followed up with them back in Sharn. We have their business card. After the sleuthing on the airship he was also interested in hiring us for our skill as bodyguards back in Sharn. Finally, he gifted Val'Dax the Ring of Levitation for saving his wife's things.
The cleric Syleh from the other adventuring group was supremely apologetic. They had known that Vakenta had a pilfering streak but had hoped she could contain it -- really their group needed the help of the rogue even with her flaws. Graciously, our party decided not to press charges since we got all our possessions back, and Syleh promised that if we were to meet up with her in Sharn that the favor would be repaid.
Nothing else eventful happened on the airship and it eventually landed in Stormreach, the prime port city of Xen'drik. The locals didn't have much to say about the general area we were headed off to and we struck off into the jungle. The undergrowth was thick and slowed movement, and only a short while into the trek did Toff notice a dark-skinned creature with wings and a white ponytail jumping from tree to tree pacing us. The creature dropped down and introduced himself as Kanzer the drow and was very curious why Val'Dax was holding such strange company. Val'dax explained that he was relic hunting to help the war. Kanzer understood and offered to give us shelter and food back at their encampment, which was roughly in the right direction anyway. As we started walking towards their campsite we were attacked by two massive scorpions and two large spiders. Given Bulwark's near invulnerability to physical attacks and Val'Dax's colossal damage (ehh?) the creatures were quickly felled with only minimal scratches sustained by the party. We followed Kanzer back to the camp and.....
Chapter 2
... Kanzer was actually a hilarious joker and had been kidding about his name. He actually was known as Xar'Zein. He introduced us to the four male and three female drow who were working in the campsite. They were part of a scouting party and had just recently set up their tents and campfires. They seemed fairly friendly once they saw the two scorpion bodies we lugged back with us. Val'dax asked for some assistance cleaning out his scorpion, making a little shrine out of the claws and stinger and then donating the meat to the camp. When Toff and Belanor asked if there was any food prepared after their exhausting day of hiking, they were gestured to a bubbling pot of stew. It looked as if it had chunks of scorpion meat, vegetables, and miscellaneous other animal parts in it. If it's good enough for a drow it's good enough for Belanor! He helped himself to a bowl and promptly vomited in his mouth on the first spoonful. He dribbled his puke back into the bowl feigning that it was too hot, and thanked Xar'Zein for his "hospitality". Toff decided to just eat more pastries for dinner. Bulwark (who enjoyed the soup with his superhuman taste buds) and Val'Dax were quite social with the drow and even talked them into giving them tattoos. Since the campsite seemed to know very little of the ruins our map seemed to point towards, nor of any fabled relics left in this area after years of raiding, our party went to sleep with the intention of departing at dawn.At first light we set out after taking our leave and hiked deeper into the jungle underbrush. Thankfully there were no more encounters with giant scorpions or spiders, and eventually the forest started to become less dense and it opened up into a clearing. A few hundred feet into the clearing there was a ziggurat ruin with a peculiar column extending from the peak. Val'Dax -- ever suspicious of open spaces -- magically surveyed the landscape for creatures in the area only to find out that the jungle was teeming with wildlife. There was everything from wyverns to chimeras to pterodactyls around us, but who could know if they were territorial with the ruins or not. The party strode out into the clearing and approached the stone entrance to the ziggurat, but as they neared the base of the structure a creature flew over the tower from behind the ruins while spewing fire down on us poor adventurers. The wary Val'Dax sprang to the side and avoided the flames but the rest of did not react as quickly and were roasted by the magicks. Toff let out a scream as she was nearly knocked out and could not even see the source of her pain -- the flying beast was invisible to her tremorsense.
The chimera landed behind us and bellowed. Belanor, ever one to overestimate his own fighting prowess, cried out that we must purge the land of this foul creature (and bring back many rare and expensive artifacts) and unleashed a magical assault on the chimera. It seemed non-plussed but he believed that the heads were incapable of expressions that would properly show the amount of pain he must have caused it. Thankfully the rest of the party jumped into combat. Led by the Val'Dax's ungodly damage and Bulwark resolutely shielding the party members from further injury, we brought the pain on the chimera. Belanor stayed in the backline by the wounded Toff for her emotional support. A second chimera swooped into the fight to help even the odds but we trounced it as well. We claimed some trophies from their corpses and then decided to rest inside the doorway -- who could know what terrors awaited us in the lost Xen'drik ruin.
Once most of our wounds were dressed and the most unsightly bloodstains scrubbed out of my clothing, we looked around the inside of the temple. The base level was quite bare, essentially a large room holding only a tight spiral staircase the went down into the floor. We cautiously descended the staircase while Toff focused her tremorsense to scout the way ahead. The staircases ended maybe four stories belowground and opened up into a room where the floor dropped away into darkness but a stone bridge extended across the chasm to an exit on the other side. Before any of us could step forward, Toff cried out that the bridge was fake. Furthermore there were stone idols inset into the walls of the chamber, although the tremorsense could not determine their function. Toff carefully inched forward towards the illusory bridge and entered the line of sight of one of the idols on the wall. She instantly felt a sharp gust of wind propelling him towards the edge of the floor and the chasm beyond and leaped back. Even if the bridge was real, it seemed the idols would shove any adventurer off into the pit belong long before they crossed to the other side. Toff had no time for such trifles. Channeling her Ki repeatedly, she imploded each of the stone idols and ripped a section of the stone wall out, molding it into a suspended walkway to the other side. A stone dungeon could never contain her elemental fury! The party crossed to the exit while Belanor mused at how smart he was to hire the young girl.
The dungeon then opened up into a large room, maybe 40ft by 60ft. There didn't seem to be anything of interest here but the party was on high alert after having almost been air-puffed to their death. Soon they noticed a small pile of... dust? in the center of the chamber and Belanor conjured a spectral hand to retrieve a sample of it. The dust looked morbidly like pulverized bone fragments and other biological matter, perhaps like the whole room had closed in on the center to crush a body into this fine powder. Now that Toff knew what she was looking for, her tremorsense did notice that the walls were sectional and that the floor and ceiling were scuffed as if the walls had slid repeatedly towards the center of the room. Again, we were not super interested in dying in this chamber and Toff's mastery over rock was invaluable. She raised a walkway down the center of the room so that even if the trapped walls tried to trash-compact us they would butt up the center walkway and halt. Sure enough, as we dashed across the room the walls lurched into motion and rocketed towards the center, but the walkway broke their path and we our passage was safe.
Now clear of the crusher, the tremorsense seemed to reach to down the upcoming staircase to the end of the dungeon. Toff sensed a dais at the end of the staircase upon which rested a metallic egg-shaped object -- probably the very relic we were tasked to find by Morgrave University. However, as we reached the stop stair we started noticing a very unpleasant and acrid smell rising from the depths. In fact, it smelled of a paralytic poison which was often used as the last line of defense in ancient Xen'drik temples. The party decided to send the impervious Bulwark forward to retrieve the metal egg. After a few minutes, Bulwark lumbered back up the stair unharmed by the poison, but curiously not holding anything.
"Did you find it?" we asked.
"I found Chip!" Bulwark replied with enthusiasm.
"And what is Chip?"
"Chip is what I found!"
After a bit of question and answer, we learned that the egg had been a docent which Bulwark had absorbed into his back. He now had a tumorlike bulge sticking out of his back where the docent had attached. The docent had contained to personality of "Chip", who claimed to have been buried in that ruin for a long long long time and was shocked that it was now 1016 YK. Chip was not immediately talkative. It soon seemed like interrogating Bulwark would only be marginally effective so we turned around to head back to the surface. As we passed through the old chambers Bulwark began translating some of the scripts on the walls. Shocked, we could only surmise that Chip knew this language; based on the subject matter it sounded like this was a Quori temple.
We reached the surface without event and trekked back to the drow campsite. They congratulated us on our successful discovery and were thankful for the gift of chimera meat from Val'Dax, but ultimately they knew nothing of docents nor of this Chip entity. The next day we journeyed all the way back to Stormreach and since we had completed the relic recovery so quickly, we realized we could even meet back up with Aiden and Sentia, the noble couple from the airship. We waited at the inn for them to get back into town and regaled the locals with our brave tales of slaying chimeras and narrowly avoiding traps in the depths of unexplored ruins. When Aiden and Sentia returned we greeted them merrily and asked if they still had odd jobs for us before we headed back on the airship. Aiden said he'd still like to tour one of the more tame temples before leaving for Khorvaire, and Belanor quickly accepted. We would leave at dawn! Val'Dax rolled his eyes.
The temple we chose was only a short walk away and since it was the closest ruin to Stormreach it had been explored countless times by adventurers and tourists alike. The walk there was on a wide trampled trail but Sentia still shrieked each time she saw a particularly large bug. When we arrived at the temple we ushered the two nobles inside while Belanor spun yarns about the deadly traps that must lie within. Toff quickly realized that any treasure this ruin once held had long since been claimed, and all the trap rooms had been disarmed ages ago. Nevertheless, our intrepid heroes led the nobles down several of the false legs of the underground temple and drummed up the imaginary pitfalls and fabricated danger. Aiden and Sentia were very much convinced, visibly rustled and very nervous about the peril Belanor was in as he demonstrated each trap. Eventually deciding the ruse was enough and Aiden had gotten his taste of adventure, we headed back upstairs with our "invaluable relic" of giants-cloth in tow. No sooner had we left the temple than the magical fauna of Xen'drik attacked!
Two crocodiles and a cadre of snakes slithered from the underbrush. While the danger posed was substantially less than by the chimeras, the heroism we displayed was even greater! Bulwark smashed a snake beneath his warhammer sending snake guts flying, and then even wrestled a crocodile to clamp its mouth shut. Belanor insulted the crocodile with vicious words. Toff encased her fists in stone and pounded on the snakes like a three-year-old beats on a cheap drum set. Even Aiden ripped his dagger from its sheath, gave a bloodthirsty howl, and GOT SOME.
Everything was dead. We wrenched one of the larger crocodile teeth out and gifted it to Aiden and Sentia, a momento to remember their valor this day in the forest. Sentia nearly fainted. We walked back to town, each adding a cool 75g to their coinpurses for as compensation for an easy day wowing nobles, and arranged for airship tickets to take us back to Khorvaire. Now all that was left was to discover the further secrets of the mysterious docent Chip, and hopefully break the news lightly to Morgrave University that their invaluable relic had now fused with our Warforged and they were friends...
Chapter 3
The flight back to Khorvaire from Xen'drik had none of the ring-thieving drama of the first airship. Toff occupied her time with more pick-up sticks with Bulwark; Belanor talked of heroic acts he had been a main role player in; and Val'dax skulked a foot above the deck. No sooner had the ship docked in Sharn than Val'dax zoomed off into the air with his levitation ring to somersault in the higher districts. The rest of the party meandered down the gangplank idly chatting about what to do... Since we had arrived so much earlier than Morgrave's deadline we didn't actually have to go straight back to Uleena with the news about Chip the docent. The only thing that was certainly on the to-do list was to open up a bank account with House Kundarak to safeguard their impending windfall.
Toff insisted that we go back to the pastry district -- the return trip from Xen'drik had had low stores of nice pastries so she was functionally in withdrawal from the flaky baked goods. When Belanor accompanied her he saw the hustle and bustle of the pastry district and realized that the most esteemed pastry bakers were quite famous. Perhaps it was time to work this untapped market and break into the pastry industry. He and Toff brainstormed and started to work out the logistics of holding Sharn's first ever pastry chef competition! We could start with a wide field of sixteen aspiring bakers who would all compete in a bracket that ultimately narrowed down to the undisputed top pastry chef in Sharn, who would be awarded a cash prize and the extreme honor of being the pastry chef for Belanor's Exemplary Group of Legend Seekers. With a split relic-hunting and pastry storefront Belanor was certain that business would be booming. Each of the four rounds of the pastry competition would involve crafting a baked good that a panel of expert judges would assess based on taste, creativity, and the use of a secret ingredient. This competition would be amazing! We could get fliers and distribute them around town and get to eat the best pastries and...
Unbeknownst to the pastry planning duo, Bulwark had gone to a completely different district of Sharn. He had dug back into his memory and recalled Jorlanna d'Cannith. Many years past she had been a leading member of House Cannith and in the disorder that followed the end of the Last War, she had taken Bulwark in as a personal bodyguard for many years. In Bulwark's experience, she had looked out for the interests of the Warforged more than most people in power and he had more reason to trust a benevolent ex-employer than Morgrave University. If he got in touch with Jorlanna he could ask her about the mysterious docent Chip, how to repair his damaged memory, and if the rumors of docents assuming control of their Warforged carriers had any merit.
Bulwark wandered to the Sharn estate of House Cannith and straightforwardly explained his docent situation and desire to contact Jorlanna. The guard was surprised to see him, but nonetheless ushered him into the back room and asked him to wait. After a while, a small team of men arrived at his room with some equipment and said they had to run some diagnostics on the docent. "No," Bulwark protested, "I need to speak with Jorlanna." The men kept insisting that diagnostics must be taken and Bulwark began to get the impression that perhaps these men were never intending on sending a message for him. He decided to leave. He strode out the door and down the hall, ignoring the futile attempts of the poorly muscled humans to detain him in the diagnostics chamber.
It didn't take too long after Bulwark's indomitable exit from the d'Cannith estate for the party to reunite, with Val'dax swooping down from the heights and Belanor and Toff walking back from the pastry district with Belanor excited sketching mock posters for the competition and (futilely) asking for feedback from the young girl. Immediately upon seeing his other adventuring companions Belanor whisked them off to reserve newspaper advertisements and order hundreds of flyers without a word being given edgewise to the diagnostics close call. Bulwark used the time in the printing district to send a short text message to Jorlanna way off in Fairhaven, and then finally got a chance to explain what had happened.
We decided that perhaps it would be wise to go discuss matters with Uleena at Morgrave University -- it was quite suspicious that those Cannith men had tried to forcibly take "diagnostics information" without giving any explanation. We arrived at Morgrave and found Uleena researching a statue of a giant. She rudely brushed off Belanor's sage wisdom about that species of giant and interrupted, asking if we had found the relic that would lead to the Orbs of Dragonkind. We cautiously explained that yes, we had retrieved the relic. It turned out to be a docent that was now inside of Bulwark but Chip's memory seemed damaged for the time period she would be interested in and he needed repairs. We had already asked how to repair him at House Cannith but--
"YOU WENT TO HOUSE CANNITH?! ARE YOU INSANE?!" Uleena shouted.
That part didn't go over too well. She quickly explained that she hadn't expected the relic to be a docent, but she could adapt to this. It was imperative that we leave Breland and go to Trollenport in Zilargo. There was a famous and gifted gnomish artificier named Tanter who lived in Trollenport; if anyone could repair Chip it would be Tanter. But what were we thinking, going right to House Cannith?! Ever since the death of Starrin d'Cannith, the House had been split into three factions all vying for control. Here in Sharn it was Merrix d'Cannith who was indisputably the most powerful member of the house, and rumors were that he'd gone essentially mad after the Last War and was secretly collecting ancient relics from Xen'drik to weaponize Warforged. Or something, nobody knew for certain what Merrix was scheming nor how much true sway he held in Sharn aside from "a lot". Stupidly alerting him to the existence of a Xen'drik relic in our possession likely endangered our lives.
Uleena paid us the promised sum for the Xen'drik mission, urged us to leave Sharn for Trollenport at once, opened a line of credit with House Orien for travel expenses and almost shoved us out the study door. As we left Morgrave, we decided that we could probably catch the lightning rail out of the city in the evening, but before we set out on another adventure we really had to restock in Sharn. A one-day turnaround had not been expected. We would head to our storefront to retrieve the rest of the gold that had been hidden in the stone floor, deposit most of it in a bank account, do any crucial last minute shopping, and then leave for Zilargo.
As we rounded the corner for our street, Belanor was stunned to see all the windows for his precious shop smashed to pieces, glass littering the street. Enraged, they discovered the whole shop had been ransacked -- drawers upended, chairs broken, smashed cabinets. Angrily interrogating the neighboring shop owners, Belanor learned that some members of the thieves' guild had been seen busting the place up. This was supposed to be a safe district! Belanor had paid extra for this tier of the city! He hailed down an officer of the law and demanded that something be done! The officer apologetically offered to take us down to the station and file a report and an insurance claim. Excited by the prospect of both justice and recompense, Belanor quickly accepted and followed the officer down the street to the constables' station. He explained the situation to the clerk, who filed case B357-C8 and promised that a constable would personally come down to the storefront this evening to inspect the damages.
Still fuming, we set off to at least open the bank account at Gringotts' while waiting for the constable. Disappointingly, there was no minecart ride into the depths to store the gold; it was merely filed away in the vault behind the counter and each of us received our own House Orien card that was tied to our deposited funds. Returning to the shattered storefront Belanor found that the constable hadn't even arrived yet. So we waited. And waited. Around nightfall -- with still no sign of the damned constable! -- a taunting shout came from down the street as the thugs from the thieves' guild returned to further vandalize the battered shopfront.
These thieves must not have realized who they had wronged. No sooner had they announced themselves than Toff lifted towering stone walls behind them barring their escape and Val'dax zoomed through the air out the broken window and cleaved one of the thugs with his longsword. Some of the thugs literally died before they could move. We were pissed. The thugs were approaching from both directions down the street. Belanor and Bulwark bumrushed the pair on the left and started knocking them out by throwing them back against Toff's huge stone wall behind them, while Val'dax single-handedly slew all the thieves on his end of the street. Toff meant to join in more in the fight but was nervous about cutting her feet on the broken glass still strewn about the cobblestones.
When the abrupt flurry of violence had subsided, three of the six total thieves had been cut to pieces by Val'dax's two blades, one had been bludgeoned to a pulp by Bulwark's warhammer, and only two still clung to life. Having captured the fiends who had destroyed his precious store, Belanor interrogated the thief named Davin, but he learned disappointingly little. The thieves' guild wisely operated with different splinter cells and no single team knew everything. The only helpful thing Davin revealed was that they were specifically ransacking the shop looking for the silvered docent which strongly hinted that Merrix d'Cannith was after us since nobody else knew about Chip. We bound Davin and Fan and decided to deliver both to the constable (if he ever showed up!) as further evidence.
The constable still never arrived. Eventually losing our patience, we readied to haul Davin and Fan down to the constables' station ourselves only to learn that the station had long since closed for the night... So it seemed the constable would never arrive tonight. We were no longer quite sure what to do. We could set off for Trollenport immediately but leave behind a pile of dead thieves and two bound men in the wreckage of our store, or try and wait all the way until morning to resolve things with the constable before leaving. Seeking guidance, Val'dax flew back to Morgrave to ask Uleena for some advice.
Uleena was pissed. She scolded Val'dax up and down for being so stupid as to stay in the city for the entire night when she'd explicitly told us to leave for Zilargo immediately. How was a bank account and shopping worth endangering EVERYTHING with Merrix? She said she'd take care of the fiasco at our store but we had to actually leave now, even another seconds' delay and she would strongly reconsider Morgrave's involvement in our adventuring team.
Val'dax came back to us, delivered the message, and we wisely decided to leave at once. Belanor and Toff strode down the street towards the lightning rail station and Bulwark moved to free the prisoner Fan of his bindings before leaving. Val'dax protested that there was no reason to let the thief slink back to the thieves' guild, and Bulwark responded that there was no reason not to. Their conversation continued just like this for another long while before Val'dax lost his patience and shot Fan in the head with a crossbow bolt to settle the issue.
We left on the lightning rail for Zilargo.
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