Geld the Golden, Change, and The Sword - Session Recap

Cast

• Sebastian - DM
• Harold - Raven - Samurai FFXIV-Ninja FFXIV / Shadar Kai
• Alex - Terentus - Rogue / Garlean
• Holden - Manson Black - Paladin / Human
• EJ. - Olin - Wizard (Illusionist) - Human

Session #7 - 2024-08-24

Ahh, I got interrupted before I could finish up sharing our latest adventures and had to wait till things settled back down. Where was I? Oh yeah, we had put the statue together and the platform had lowered us down to the next level.

Terentus Returns

We were discussing what to do next and there was a flash of light. We prepared ourselves, but there was Terentus and another person that he identified as Kenzo. He looks at Terentus and tells him "Here are your friends. Is there anything else that you need?"

Terentus introduces us to Kenzo Aetheria, and tells the tale of how the mission to get the Ring for Beth, went south when the clown showed up. He saw Pierre and Collom get injured and then the clown came for him and there was a flash of light. He tells us that he woke up in a bed a few days later and was being attended to by Kenzo. That he still didn't know why or how he ended up there, but that Kenzo had been a good host and offered to reunite him with his friends.

Then Kenzo looks at us and sees Manson's missing leg. He asks if he might be able to heal the leg and Manson readily agrees.

It took a little while to regrow the leg, and Manson's screams while regrowing the leg did nothing to hide where we were, but it was necessary. Though Olin, while he was watching the process with interest, got to reinspect his last meal much more closely than he planned when Manson's leg started knitting the muscle, blood canals and bone back together. Finally, the leg was back, much to everyone's relief the screaming stopped, remind me to never think of healing a lost limb as something that is easy or painless. Especially Manson, he was sweating and swearing in a manner so unlike how you think of a calm and cool Paladin. Then again, Manson is not your typical Paladin.

Once he caught his breath, he managed to thank Kenzo who bowed and then gave Terentus a Aetheria lotus and told him it is a one time use item. Using it will place you and up to six others inside of my Planescape/Domain. Where I will be alerted upon your entry. You will be safe there until I arrive to assist you, if I can. Then with a flash of light he disappeared.

We go back and get our ropes back from the statue and prepare to go towards the temple and I give the Flame Tongue back to Manson since he could now wield it. We see a huge scarab off on a different trail but decide to head straight to the temple. Once we get to the ornate doors, while Terentus checked for traps, I went invisible and pulled out the Decapinator.

No traps, so we go inside and see a large open space with two pillars, with the ceiling about 120 feet up, with a huge sarcophagus towards the back wall. Terentus hears a click under his foot, but doesn't see anything happening. Oin cast detect magic and the sand is magic along with the sarcophagus. 

Manson cast Divine Sense and felt a massive undead presence under the sands and yelled to everyone "there's something BIG beneath the sand!" I cast mage hand, reach out as far as I can (about 30 feet) and stir the sand with it. A giant scorpion attacks the mage hand and then sinks back into the sand.

We found out one of the denizens of this place. Olin put salt on the sand, which seemed to turn a small piece of the sand into a solid platform. Then the doors behind us close and the sarcophagus starts to open. We see golden hands pulling something huge up and saw eyes glowing at us from inside the crypt.

Geld the Golden

It announces that he is Geld the Golden who is a monstrous zombie standing about 40 feet tall and asks who dares to disturb my rest. I quickly climbed up the right hand column and Terentus went up the left hand one. It attempts to hit Terentus with the damned sarcophagus, then the scorpion attacks Manson for a small amount of damage. I cast a firebolt at it and it does more damage than I expect and Terentus shots it with his bow. Pluck attempts to take out its knee, but it doesn't have any effect. Olin uses his magic missile wand and hits Geld.

Manson at first pulled out his Oni blade who we could hear say "I'll make an exception this time", but then realizes that the Flame Tongue would work better for him in this situation after seeing what my Firebolt did, He uses that instead, puts the Oni Blade back in its scabbard and hits the Scorpion.

I guess I pissed Geld off with the Firebolt because he threw his sarcophagus at me and while it missed (thankfully), with the debris damage it made to the column, I took a good amount of damage. The scorpion then missed Manson. Terentus attacks again with his bow and while Geld is bent over picking up the sarcophagus, I figured the only way I was going do much was to jump on his back and swung with all my might with Decapinator active and hit him with a critical hit taking off his head. I couldn't believe it!

Even so, that did not kill the monster. I looked down and saw the head looking around and then Olin quickly cast fog cloud around the head, effectively blinding the creature. Pluck hit the creature's knee and as it dropped down it somehow hit me with a glancing blow when critically mistimed my jump and took enough damage that I don't remember anything more until later.

I was told that Terentus cast Feather Fall on me, so I wouldn't take more damage when landing on the ground, that would have killed me. They told me they quickly were then able to defeat what was left of Geld and the Scorpion, but that my brush with Death had been a close call.

The next thing I remember is Terentus stuffing some nasty ass trash berries down my gullet and waking to that awful taste, but at least still alive.

Manson remembered to feed the Oni Blade who was none too happy about giving permission to use it and then being shoved back into its scabbard. It gave Manson a pretty nasty whatfor, but when Manson reminded it that he needed to use the tool that best fit the circumstances, it seemed to pause for a moment and then was silent.

We found some really nice items and distributed them throughout the party.

After a few minutes the sand began to magically create a stairway which led to a gate. Not wanting to waste anymore time here, we crested the stairway and the gate did lead to where we started this Dungeon. Copper level dungeon my arse, whoever classified this one, did a piss poor job of it.

Ester and Terentus Talk

We make it back to the ship and then we fill Terentus in on what's been happening. He introduces himself to Ester as they go back down to their room. There is something about how Terentus is talking, so I quietly follow behind listening in on their conversation.

Terentus tells her more about himself and he tells her that he woke up in a room with Kenzo, who said something about a spark. They spent the next few minutes chatting, and then talked more seriously about Intime Varhailen. Terentus made Ester an offer, "I want power, if I get addicted just kill me."

Ester replied, "I'll keep that in mind, I have to warn you the more you use my abilities, the worse the addiction gets." The more I hear about the addiction side of her abilities, the less I want to use them. Then she says "It kills either way, if I don't use it, I will die and if I do, others seem to. No matter what, every two days I need to use it.”

Terentus tells her. "We're neighbors if you need to, let me know. The more we learn about your abilities and how the addiction works the better.”

I hear her sigh heavily and say, "Being here puts a target on the ship, learning more is a good thing, but it doesn't feel like there is a right answer in this situation."

Then I hear the doors close and I quietly go back upstairs.

A Short Rest and a Quiet Conversation

We're doing a short rest and then planning on going into town to stock up on supplies and see if there is more information available on the creature in the sewers. I see Olin heading down towards the berthing areas and wonder what he's up to, but Manson and Pluck are here talking with me, so I don't try following him. Though later, I hear Ester telling Pluck that someone put a very nice piece of jewelry on her door. Hmmmm I wonder who that was.

After a while everyone but Ester came back up to the mess deck and while sitting there quietly resting, Pluck starts to talk about how much Ester would be worth to other people. That she'd probably be worth at least five airships. We discussed our feelings about slavery, the ramifications of "selling" or getting a reward by taking her to the Majini. Like Pluck said, "We're street rats and need to think about options to keep her and us safe from the predators who will come looking for her. What do we do when we come up against some that we can't defeat. The Majini family would be able to protect her better than we can at this point."

Surprisingly Olin disagreed and stated that we needed to have her stay with us and volunteered to talk with Ester and find out if she decided what she was going to do. This coming from the one who had been so vehemently against letting her stay was now defending her. What was going on?

After he left, there was a hefty sigh from Terentus. He told us that she was attempting to give away the last of her gold to him. Gave up the payment and she put it back by his door. “She doesn’t have any money left and no one but us who actually give a damn about her.” He tells us, "If we don't take care of our own, why bother."

I know that I nodded my head and we all talked quietly about what to do about Ester.

Ester's Memory

When Olin comes back with Ester about 45 minutes later, he seems different, more than he was. I figured that he tapped into Ester's powers and thought about the irony of how he was so set against her staying with us. Yet it appears he is the one that will find out how the addiction works.

He tells us that he wants to give Ester one of her good memories and share it with the rest of us, using abilities beyond his current level. We see a beautiful hill a ways from the fire temple and she tells us about why this is such a special place to her. I hear Ester is quietly sobbing, and Olin attempts to comfort her.

Pluck addresses the increased smell of cherries coming from Olin and asks if he knows what he is doing and Olin persuasively answered that he was and there were no issues. Pluck answered, "Good, I needed to know the risks for when I am with her to improve the lives of our to be born children."

Then Manson looks at Olin and says "I hope you're not the jealous type because Pluck is going to use Ester's powers to help our children any way she can." Olin responded that he wasn't, but the way he said it left me feeling that there would be issues with him in the future over others using Ester's abilities.

Landing The Zelera

I continued with my lessons on landing the Zelera as we approached Gardenia. Pluck gives me the wheel and I land it with a gentle bump at the airship field. Not bad, but it could have been better. My trance ability gave me the basics of flying an airship, now I have to get used to the way that the Zelera reacts, each ship has its own quirks and idiosyncrasies when it comes to flying them.

Shopping in Gardenia

Terentus decided that he wanted to stay on the ship and rest some more.

Ester asked to go into the city with us, but only if she remained in her Thomas guise. Even with that disguise she needed something to mask her scent of cherries. Which would be a give-away that she was somewhere nearby if someone who knew her were to smell it on Olin or Thomas. 

Our first stop was Tim's Corner (a perfume shop) and Manson volunteers to go in with Thomas. Inside he sees a Pink Dragonborn named Tim. I can see them haggling and talking through the window. I thought about how it looked like they were a couple and how Manson would react to that. Then he comes out with three vials containing perfumes with Smoked Vanilla, Delicate Cinnamon and Calm Wintergreen for 4 silver.

Manson seemed to take a liking to the smoked vanilla bourbon scent. Pluck wanted to smell like bourbon without the vanilla extra smell and so she went back in and bought the one that she liked. It smelled like Pluck had a nice glass of bourbon sitting beside us and Holden cuddled up pretty close to her after that.

The Magic Shop/General Store

It was a large emporium suitable to the largest city in Tiberias and for some reason the owner himself opted to wait on us. I guess we had the look of wealthy adventurers.

Manson did some haggling and traded the Staff of Withering and some gold for a Sanctum Amulet.

I sold the Blood Spear for 250 gp and split the gold between Manson, Olin, Terentus, Pluck and myself (50gp each), I checked out the cost for a Headband of Intellect and then sold my butterfly sword for 450 gp. Then I asked what the Decapinator was worth and the merchant's eyes lit up, but when he offered 10K gp or a Ghost Blade, neither of which really interested me. However, he was pretty good about it and suggested that I go see the Black Knights who might have something that they picked up for a trade and gave us directions to their compound.

Olin did some dickering with the merchant, but I was thinking too much about what he had said about the Dark Knights and missed most of what he was doing. I did hear when Olin asked about selling the eyes he picked up in the dungeon and the merchant suggested the Blue Mages, who are right across from the Black Knights. He didn't want anything to do with them.

Then Thomas was looking at different books on how to become certain classes. Wizard, Artificer and Apothecary. She and Olin talked some privately and I saw him paying for one of the books. It seems that she plans on becoming an Apothecary. Which goes along amazingly well with her other abilities.

The Dark Knights

We follow the merchants directions to the Dark Knights compound.

It was one of the happiest places I've ever seen. Which is the exact opposite of what I expected from the tales I've heard of these knights and the reputation that they have. I asked to speak with someone to see if they were interested in trading something for the Bone Saw, which I felt was too corrupting for my taste. 

A couple of them came over and were extremely interested in the Bone Saw. One came back with blades wrapped in a cloth. Knowing the style of your clothes and how you carry the Katana as a trained Samurai on your hip. I believed you were from Kalana and thought you might be interested in this. It belonged to another of our members who was a Warlock and Vengeance Paladin and sadly was recently killed in action.

I was amazed at what he unwrapped, I knew without any doubt it was a Masamune Katana and a very nice Wakizashi, but not the original mate to the Katana, but nice. I looked at Pluck and with eyes wide she nodded as well, without saying a word agreed with my assessment. To say it piqued my interest would be an understatement. When I picked up the Katana, I could feel that it was a Shiranui Spirit Blade. I needed to know if it would allow me to wield it and he said sure as long as he could try the Bone Saw. Not a problem.

I gently lifted the Katana and attempted to attune to it. Once I did, something wonderful happened. Without the usual delay for attunement, I immediately found myself in a field of Blood Lilies and saw a bandaged figure sadly looking back at me, but could not move any closer to him.

All I knew was that I had to trade for it. There was no doubt that the sword was a Masamune Shiranui weapon from Kalana, in the hands of a Gaijin in Tiberias. Who also did not realize what he was willing to trade to me.

While I was holding the Katana, Manson's Oni Blade and the Katana began to pulsate with energy, glowing stronger and stronger as they got closer. It seemed they were connected or "knew" one another in some way. Manson later told me that he thought "if this magic is getting stronger and stronger as they get closer, I'll bet we'll have a real shower if they get REAL close and then Manson swung his Oni Blade at me, knowing that my reflexes would let me parry the attack. 

I reacted without thinking and parried the strike. At that point the two swords seemed to take on a life of their own, and they clashed "playfully" together. All the Dark Knights in the yard stopped to look at us, but did not interfere. Though a couple did grab the hilt of their weapons. Later, someone told me that they could see the wispy images of an Oni and a bandaged man, behind each of us as the swords touched.

After that exhibition, I knew that I would do whatever was necessary to get it - it wasn’t that I just wanted the sword, somehow I knew that I needed it. I now know I was right. Especially, when the others later claimed they could see wispy forms of both blades' spirits seeming to be enjoying the interplay between them.

I continued to hold the blade while one of the Black Knights was playing with Decapinator and laughing and talking to the other Knights at its abilities (feeling about like I was with the Masamune blade). He was revving it up to the immense enjoyment of himself and his fellow Black Knights.

He gleefully agreed to the trade (I should have asked them for more, he was having so much fun). In a way, I'm glad that I didn't act too greedy, since in the end we both got what we wanted. I know Decapinator will serve him well, but it was too far too evil for me to hold it for long.

When I sheathed the Masamune Katana into my old training Katana's scabbard, the scabbard began to change. It went from an old beaten and scarred one to a beautifully ornate onyx one, inlaid with a gold dragon encircling it. I wrapped my training Katana in the cloth they provided when they brought out the set and put it into the bag of holding. Then I proudly wore the Katana and Wakizashi in a place of honor at my waist.

Even so, the rest of the party looked at me like I had two heads for getting rid of the Decapinator. Especially, so quickly after what it had done to Geld the Golden. They didn’t understand how I could feel the corruption in the Decapinator or know what kind of blade I was holding in my hands. Trading for this set was something I had no choice but to do. Even if it meant a trip back to Kanea, to trade it for something even more powerful than Decapinator.

Though I knew that Pluck understood and we looked at one another. She nodded, Mukade hand signaled toward the sword and told me that we needed to talk later. For the magical change to my scabbard meant that the spirit within this Shiranui blade was in some way related to one of the Kalanese Emperors. And for some reason it had "allowed" me to attune to it. I felt honored and scared, all at the same time. I knew some of the stories of Emperor's blades and not all of them were grand stories in Kalanese history.

Looking back, being at the Black Knight’s holding would have been a perfect opportunity to learn more about the creature in the sewers (if they knew anything), and ask discreetly about: Guillermo, Raydan, Morgan, or Cidri. Although at the time we were too focused on the items we were getting.

The Blue Mage Tower

I'll be honest, while we were at the Blue Mage Tower, I was thinking more about the Katana, the Blood Lilly field and the bandaged spirit that I saw. Wondering how, or if I would be allowed to use it. It had let me attune to it, so that was a good start. But the Dragon that now adorned my scabbard both excited and worried me.

Let me say this, I find the Blue Mages are weird. The one who was talking to Olin popped one of the eyes into his mouth and I could tell he was savoring it. He offered Olin 2,000 gp and 5 potions of moderate healing for all of the eyes, which Olin accepted.

Thomas Sells a Vial of Blood

Thomas disappeared for a minute and I was starting to get worried, then she returned holding a vial of red liquid. She offered the mage it and he took a look at it and brought another mage over to talk to. They asked a few questions that Thomas adroitly evaded though I have a feeling they had more questions by the looks on their faces. They offered him 6,000 gp for the vial and asked if he could get more. Thomas looked sadly at them and shook his head no. It had been a one-time deal.

Then after we got in the vehicle Thomas gave us each 1,000 gp for having supported and helping her when no one else would. We all initially didn't want to, but she was adamant, so we accepted her gift.

Boy, then did Pluck light into Thomas about what he had done, about how he may have compromised us and him by selling his blood there. It was a good reminder for us all how easy it would be to reveal who and what Thomas actually is.

On the way back to the airship, we did stop back at the magic shop/general store to get more stuff. I felt compelled to trade my bow for a heavy crossbow and then get three potions of speed and two potions of healing. All of which I had thought about doing when we had been to the shop the first time, but this time I seemed to know that I would need them in the future.

When we got back to the ship, Pluck said we'd talk later about the sword, we had to get ready to find the monster in the sewers. Time to get ready to move out again.