Session 9: Where's Borlok?

Date: 2022-02-03 @ 9:00 PM CT

Audio: MP3 (2h40m)

Synopsis

After finishing the puzzle room, Sah-Sauj was pulled aside by Borlok as you descended deeper down into the ever warming earth. He seemed to probe Sah-Sauj for details on his involvement with Amalchi, and once he deemed that Sah-Sauj was an impostor in his eyes, he blocked you all from going further. However, you easily subdued him and knocked him unconscious.

After Borlok was tied up and undone of his clothing, a scarred woman appeared holding a child made of soil, who Wolf recognized as the lady he met in the forest a few nights ago; the earth goddess Bhreia. She implored Sah-Sauj to renounce Amalchi as his deity. He did so reluctantly while not entirely understanding what was happening. Bhreia turned Sah-Sauj's holy symbol into a branch with 10 leaves, it purpose unknown at this point. She offered everyone an embrace, which Sah-Sauj and Tiran accepted. She then laid her child on top of Borlok, embraced both of them, combining them all together into an amalgamation of soil, and leaching into the ground. And she was gone.

You all continued down the lava tube tunnel until hitting a dark cavernous space with a lava pool at its center. A pile of blood-drained Macoyii lay rotting at its entrance. At the center of the pool stood a stone spire, feeding streams lava down. There didn't seem to be a way across the pool to the spire that you could discern in the low light conditions.

After some looking around the cave, you found five spaces carved into the walls of this cave. Each similar in size and each conceiling a lever in different ways. When all of them were pulled, an obsidian slab rose from the lava, forming a bridge to the spire.

However, from an opening in the spire, a blue robed figure appeared. You recognized her as Rhea Feldspar, the innkeeper's wife. Upon seeing you, she asked "where's Borlok?"

And that's where we left off.

DM: Borlok & Sah-Sauj

Borlok will pull Sah-Sauj aside and tell him that:

• Says: He wouldn't have thought that someone like Sah-Sauj would be 🔐 Cult of Amalchi, but then again he doesn't get to chose who gets to remember His name
• Shows him his brand on the inside of his index finger, the dark eye of Amalchi
• If Sah-Sauj doesn't spook him:
  • He will tell him that he thought and hoped Dauriel would have been the last
  • He will thank him for bringing the sacrifices
• If Sah-Sauj spooks him:
  • Will become more defensive, clamp up
  • Will ask Sah-Sauj about the ritual
  • If pushed, he will prevent them from going forward
• On his body, his loincloth conceals a bag of holding:
  • Ironstone Forged Greataxe (+1 Greataxe)
  • A note: "Pasha Yaraxil. Dragonborn. Affected."
    • Affected by the event in Finippicay
    • His sacrifice would have had special significance
  • A light blue robe
  • A golden dagger (the same stuff that was in the tomb)
  • An old letter, crumpled, folded many times:
    • My beloved Borlok. I hope you and our darling baby Hurq arrived safely in Rivoni Springs. If you have been writing me, I have not yet received word and I pray for your safety. Please hurry back home soon with the healing water, my illness is worsening. Your father is less willing than you are to look after a human of poor constitution. Tell Hurq I love him. - Riva

DM: Mother Earth

• Meeting Bhreia again, she will warn them
  • "My brother is here, I feel him." She will look at Sah-Sauj. "Cleric, denounce your allegiance to Amalchi or all living creatures in this world will suffer for a thousand years."
  • She will offer herself as a replacement god and will require no worship, only the just treatment of all that dwell upon her surface.
    • Sah-Sauj's holy symbol will melt into blood if he does
    • She will give him a tree branch with 10 living oak leaves on it
      • Staff of Healing
    • She will bless everyone else except for Borlok if he's alive.
      • She embraces everyone, whispering to Wolf that "the orc is your foe"
      • Bhreia's Embrace:
        • +1 to AC for until your next long rest
        • 1d10+4 temporary Hit Points
        • Instantly healed to max HP
        • All expended spell slots restored
        • +1 to Nature checks permanently
  • Borlok will freak if he sees her and attack
  • If he strikes her with his axe, it will cleave her and her child, dropping a pile of soil onto the ground
  • Before she disappears in ANY form, she will say "don't let him ascend."

DM: Pool Room

Entering the subterraneous complex

• Notice a pile of rotting Macoyii corpses
  • bloodless and empty
• A massive natural cave, formed by lava which still pools at the bottom
  • there are openings cut into the bottom of the spire, a staircase is clearly visible
  • it's about 50 feet from the edge of the lava pool to the center spire
  • how to cross?
• At the center of the pool, an enormous spire, from which tendrils of lava stream down
  • atop the spire, a stone dome
    • these are the tubes leading down from the tomb here
    • faint pale blue light spills from some openings carved into it
    • five iron tubes come from the ceiling and enter the dome
    • DC 15 Perception can reveal some red liquid dripping from one of them
• Carved into the walls, several openings, resembling rough carved doorways

DM: Leverage

• Opening 1: left of entrance
  • an old wooden desk
    • 1 HIDDEN LEVER under the desk
  • a crate with
    • the disintegrated remnants of a blue robe
    • 5 ancient gold coins (100gp worth each)
• Opening 2: right of entrance
  • a child's charcoal drawing on the wall:
    • a stick figure with a crown flying in the sky with blue wings
    • the word "Amalchi" in scribbled ancient common below it
    • many people dancing around a dead figure on the ground, in pieces
    • the word "Bhreia" in scribbled common around it
  • A big round rock
    • 1 HIDDEN LEVER behind it
• Opening 3:
  • This room has collapsed, it is filled with stone rubble
  • DC 12 Investigation will reveal a bony hand
    • pulling it out will reveal that it is still gripping the LEVER
    • a gold ring is on one of its fingers:
      • A Ring of Evasion (yes, irony)
  • this lever was already activated
• Opening 4:
  • A room filled with old crates filled with empty bottles
  • They can find 1d4 potions of healing
  • 1 HIDDEN LEVER above the carved doorway
• Opening 5:
  • Entirely empty, seems smaller than the others
  • part of the room is hidden behind an illusion
  • DC 13 Intelligence/Investigation will reveal the effect
  • 1 HIDDEN LEVER behind the illusion
• PULLING THE LEVERS
  • An obsidian bridge rises from the lava
  • Lots of noise, rumbling, scraping

DM: Bridging the gap

If they summon the bridge too quickly:

• Rhea will show up.
  • Wearing a light blue robe
  • Hands covered in blood
• If Borlok is still alive, she asks him what the hell is going on.
  • He tells her that he has brought the fifth
  • She says the fifth has already shown up
• She will not let them pass and will fight
• To prevent an OP fight, make Borlok weaker

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