Hook:
Visasvellos summons the adventerures to the Library. They have done several missions for him before and are familiar with him and his ways. He explains that it has been reported to him that a woman of the night from the Longship tavern has disappeared. The tavern keeper believes he saw her dragged down into the sewers by unworldly creatures. It was a dark night and she was in the bar area of the tavern when he heard screams and saw her being dragged out the main door. Her future customer of the evening lay dead on the floor with a shattered skull and blood oozing on the floor. Her screams stopped with a thud and as the human or human like creatures dragged her outside into the moonless night. When he finally got the courage to peer outside he thought he saw the sewer drain being put back into place as the beautiful young woman disappeared into the underworld beneath Khazadhol. By the time the legion watch came there was nothing to find except the slain body of the human on the tavern floor. They opened the sewer drain cover and found nothing. They reported this to their leadership who in turn reported this to Visasvellos.
Visasvellos introduces the characters to Bilrund Deephammer. He is the Dwarven master of the sewers. He served in the Legion as the chief camp engineer responsible for creating and maintaining the Legion's marching camps. He was also the Legions master of seige operations and constructing defensive works. After the construction of Khazadhol, he got in a "tiff" with the senate and was demoted from Chief Engineer of Khazadhol to Chief Engineer of the Sewers. Committed to showing the Senate that they had made a terrible mistake he turned the sewers of Khazadhol into an engineering master piece and a work of architecture that was brought great pride to the city.
Map of Sewers:
The Adventure
One night session 23 MAY 2020
Bryan and David met with Visasvellos early in the morning and he explained to them the events of the previous night. He coordinated for Bilrund Deephammer to meet them outside the Library at 7 in order to explore the sewers and recover the missing woman. When Bilrund Deephammer arrived, 15 minutes late on purpose to show disrespect to Visasvellos, Visasvellos explained why they were coming together and why his services were needed. After Bilrund heard the story he insisted on going alone to get his stuff and prepare for the mission. This was odd because Visasvellos had asked him to come prepare to spending the day in the sewers. Bryan followed him as he headed out the east gate in a hurry and apparently nervous. He headed down towards the water and went into one of the main merchant's house. The house belonged to Hakan Rikas who is one of the main merchants in Khazadhol and the head of the merchant guild council. He is a Norsk human who has made a future building trade relations because the city and kingdom of Norsk. Bryan observed from afar and undetected. Bilrund than quickly came out of the house and returned directly to the Library.
The two adventurers and Bilrund then went directly into the sewers. Bilrund said nothing and ignored the two adventurers as he started on the far western side of the sewers and when passageway by passageway from west to east. They spent hours seemingly wandering around through the sewers and they found nothing. He checked none of the several rooms they passed claiming they were just work rooms and storage rooms. The adventures just followed along making no real impact on the search. As the evening was coming Bilrund said that they had looked through everything and found nothing and he left. The adventures were left feeling that they had not conducted a very thorough search, but they decided they should go report back to Visavellos.
Visavellos was, well let us say, not pleased with their report. He could not understand why they had not started with the tavern keeper and gotten his story. It seemed to him starting with Hans would have been the right start. Additionally, he could not understand why they had let Bilrund not check the rooms. It was clear he was not satisfied with the search and was concerned about Bilrund's performance. He sent the adventures back to start again.
Bryan and David went right back at it. They went directly to the Longship tavern and spoke with the tavern owner Hans Tavernan. He told them of the story of Aada's abduction. It was near the end of the night and the tavern was nearly empty. Hans had gone upstairs to check on the guest while Aada was seated in front of the bar entertaining a possible future client. Hans hear a violent opening of the front door and footsteps followed by a thud with a second larger thud. He hurried to get back to see what happened. As he came down from the second floor he was the man Aada had been talking with laying on the floor with his head smashed in and blood flowing out. The front door had just swung shut and there was no sign of Aada. Hans ran down the rest of the stairs to the front door and looked out just in team to see in the bright moon light some deathly white hands pulling the sewer cover closed from below and then the night was quiet.
They went down into the sewers through the cover that Hans had pointed out. It was night now and the sewers were very dark and quiet except for the constant flow of water. They also went west to east again, but this time they checked every storage room and indeed they were as Bilrund had said. After two hours of looking they were getting into the eastern and northern side of the sewer directly under the city and the aquaduct when they heard the noise of people and saw the dim glimmer of torch lights. They saw the light around the turn in the sewer and they crept forward. They saw several humans with torches go into a room on the western side of the north-south passage. There was a guard with a torch left outside the room. They decided to have Bryan sneak around to the other side of the guard and come up to him from behind. After waiting a while for Bryan to get into position, David turned the corner and approached the guard. Not knowing if the guard was friendly or enemy, David addressed him and asked him who he was and why he was down here. The guard pulled his scimitar and approached David asking the same questions. When it was clear that he meant to attack David, Bryan attacked from behind and skillfully, quietly and quickly killed him with one stroke.
David and Bryan then listened at the door and heard the voices of the men inside talking. They burst through the door and saw three thugs and their leader seated at two different tables. It appears that they were waiting and just talking. They immediately responded by drawing scimitars and attacking the party. Bryan acrobatically manuevered around and over and under the table rapidly slaying one of the thugs and their leader. He then joined David and killed the other two.
The room had two wooden doors on the left and right side and a large red dragon tapestry on the wall directly across from the entarence. They checked the door on the left and found it to be a storage room for clearly stolen merchandise from around the city. Many things of great value that would be difficult to resell in Khazadhol like paintings and fine jewelry that would be easy to spot as stolen. Through the door on the right they found an empty room. Completely empty. Returning to the main room they search the room and found another door behind the tapestry. This time they found a strange locking mechanism that Bryan clearly knew was a trap. It was an abstract drawing of three red dragons where the eyes operated like key holes. They had seen these drawings before in the crypt where they had slain the wight several adventures ago. Bryan finally disarmed the trap after being hit by one red beam of laser light that shot forth from one of the eyes when he failed at disarming.
After successfully getting through the door they found a long hallway that at first was empty, but then immediately filled up with 12 zombies that came out of alcoves along the walls on both sides of the ten foot wide hallway. David reacted quickly with a turn undead and turned to dust half of them. David and Bryan then went side by side and fought them hand to hand. They were deep in the fight when suddenly from behind Bilrund joined them with a roar of "For the Legion" he entered the fray and replaced Bryan. He fought like a dwarf possessed and helped David slay the remainder of the zombies.
The three adventures moved to the end of the hallway and listened at the wooden door. Hearing nothing they burst in to find a long retangular room with a fireplace and 3 foot high alter at the far end. On the alter lay a woman with her head towards the fireplace and her feet towards them. Next to her was a Wight armed in chain mail and scimitar who immediately began to close on the party. Around the room was another table with chairs and some book shelves. To their immediate left was a wooden door that was closed and to the far end on the left was an open wooden door and possibly as they entered they saw movement of something into the door.
The Wight charged and engaged the party. Bilrund fought with Rage and David fought strode to the front to confront evil. Bryan maneuvered to a flank and got a damaging strike on the Wight. Realizing that he was going to be destroyed the Wight turned and tried to slay the woman on the alter. The party surged and slew the Wight before he could strike.
Having just killed the Wight Bryan moved to see what was inside the far room by the alter. The room stank as a jail cell with several sets of chains connected to the wall and a beautiful red haired elf woman sunk against the near wall. She looked dishelved but mostly unhurt. She appeared scared and was portraying sadness at the death of the human woman. When the adventurers told her the woman was still unconcious, but stil very much alive her demeanor changed. She seemed concerned and moved slowly to see the woman. As she approached the woman she leaned in to kiss her on the lips. David sensed an evil purpose behind this and pushed her away. The red haired elven woman raged in response and grabbed the Wights sword and struck at David. At the same time Bilrund roared with fury and attacked Bryan. Surprised by his betrayal Bryan and David reacted quickly and defended themselves. David cast a hold person spell on Bilrund which grounded him still and they attacked the elf. After several deadly strikes had her bloodied and near death when she evaporated like steam into the air and she was gone. With her disappearance Bilrund's mind snapped and he died where he stood. Body strong, but mind gone.
While David treated Aada, the beautiful Norsk woman on the alter Bryan checked out the room off to the left when they first came in It was a beautiful bed room with dark red covers on a king size bed. With a beautiful wooden dresser and fancy clothes that likely belonged to the elf.
As David was still trying to aid Aada and bring her back to conciousness Bryan looked around the room. Above the fireplace on a shelf he found something the size of a plate standing up with a black velvet covering over it. Bryan removed the covering to discover a beautiful silver mirror. As he looked at it a fog arose on the mirror and then cleared and in the mirror he saw a beautifully handsome blonde hair main looking out at him. His age was hard to tell for he looked youthful and very mature at the same time and had beautiful blue grey eyes. When first he arrived he spoke in an enchanting voice, "Larli, what is the pleasure behind...who are you?" And he looked closely at Bryan with deep concern and that is the last the Bryan remembers. David saw Bryan beginning to talk with someone about being on a mission from the Library looking for Aada and at that point David grabbed the covering and placed it back over the mirror. Once covered Bryan snapped out of it and came back to his regular self. At that time Aada came back to and began to cry. The party comforted her as she recalled being interviewed by the elf with the cruel presence of the Wight. Then she recalls being interviewed by another being, but she could not recall who that had been, but that the elf revered him. At this point Bryan recalled who the elf was. He had seen her before. She was the lover of the merchant Hakan Rikas. Her name was Larli Metsae.
With Aada recovered the party returned to the Library and cared for Aada and debriefed Visavellos. He was pleased now with their performance and concerned about the events.
Post Adventure
Visavellos conducted some more research and investigation and pieced together the story of what happened. Or, at least a large piece of what happened. In response to the death or disappearance of Larli Metsae several events and actions where taken. And in response to this Visavellos formed another party to conduct "The Hunt"