The investigation continues. We began the session by speaking to the Guild contact we met just at the end of the last one. She told us that she couldn’t help us herself, but she had an associate who could, and that associate owed her a favour. With her blessing, since it would help her own interests, the contact told us where to find the associate and to mention her owed favour in order to get what we needed.
But to do so, we had to get back within the city. On the way toward the walls, I handed out all the money I earned from last week’s performance to refugees in need, but when we got to the gate, we found it absolutely swarmed. There was no chance of them opening it to let us through, so we tried one of the other gates. It wasn’t nearly as busy, and with a persuasive request from me, the refugees there backed away enough for us to slip through without any trouble being caused.
Once back within the walls, we made our way to the inn where the associate was to be found. She agreed to help us, provided we first kept an eye out for some associates who were coming to kill her. I leapt at the chance to do some good (relatively speaking), so we set up our watch.
Soon enough, a group of nine ruffians entered the inn looking for the associate. We engaged them in brutal combat, and almost lost. By the end of the fight, Gib and I were both unconscious (but stable) and Sarek was one hit away from being taken out when the final ruffian, their leader, was dropped by a critically striking dagger to the head thrown by the associate. It shouldn’t have been as difficult a fight, but over about eleven rounds Gib only hit twice, because luck was not on his side this session.
After the fight (and the subsequent long rest) we followed the associate’s tip to look into a public bath house. We entered and, trying the subtle tactics, Gib and I each ended up enjoying a massage, while Sarek just… waited, as he does. Unfortunately, our subtlety got us nowhere, so we left and returned a moment later with a more direct approach. Gib convinced one of the workers to tell us about the secret door, because they hadn’t realised it was followers of evil gods who were using the secret base beneath, and we made our way on down. But not before Sarek inadvertently terrified the worker by suggesting that they might be killed and should maybe stay with a friend for a while, and then I inadvertently terrified them by suggesting they should maybe stay with a friend for a while because there was a chance they might be killed.
Below the bath house, we found ourselves in a maze of sewers and passages. Searching them, we found a pair of followers of Bane with a chained up prisoner. We attacked, and through an extended fight where the dice once again utterly betrayed Gib, leading him to miss a lot and be knocked unconscious again, we eventually killed them and rescued the prisoner. After he ungratefully ran off, we took a short rest and then proceeded further on in.
We soon came upon another person, a mage of Myrkul and her swarm of undead rats. Of course, before we could do anything, she saw us coming (because stealth is a thing of dreams to a party with two heavy armour wearers) and blasted us with a fireball. We barely survived, scraping through with less than ten hit points each, but then Gib ran in and critically hit the mage, wiping her out in one strike, and then I ran in and played whack-a-rat with my warhammer, crushing the undead blighters into dust.
After that, I cast Prayer of Healing to buff us up a bit, and then we proceeded down the next tunnel. We arrived at a door, Gib pushed it open… and the session ended there.
So, once again, we did not die – although, once again, things got hairy in one or two spots. But, and I don’t want to sound like even more of a pessimist than usual, but this campaign feels like the toughest we’ve played for a while, and definitely the toughest module we’ve ever played. Considering we haven’t made it out of any of those others alive, I can’t admit to having high hopes. But we’ll see, as always. In the meantime, tune in next week to see if we make it out of this dungeon alive at least.