Session 11

Where do we go from here?
We are at the city exit via the Thieves' Guild tunnels, deciding what to do from here.

Options

 * Return to the Professor and investigate the Undercity
 * Bail on Korvosa

If we help Korvosa, we have two options for getting aid:
 * Nearest ally is Quoth, across the desert.
 * The Coinhills are closer, but it'd cost us.

We decide to follow up with "the Professor guy," and punt on where exactly to source supplies.

Heading Back
We head back to the inn for a long rest before we go to see Archivist Fulron.

Knot offers to let the Bard tag along with us for one MEELLION DOLLARS 25 gold. Panini reminds us that the Bard already offered us 100 gold to escort him out. We offer him the way out through the Church in Lowdock, but he decides he'd rather tag along with us.

We relax by the fire, drying off and then head to bed. We wake up to the smell of Beans' Bean Cookies.

The Bard is waiting for us in the morning with a large bag. Larger than he can probably carry for the whole trip. Suleiman informs him that asking him to carry things entails an extra surcharge. The Bard nods.

We head off to the Archivist's office. The door is closed and locked, but we hear heavy pacing inside. Suleiman knocks. Fulron seems to have...lost track of time. After rapidly packing a zillion papers, he's packed and ready to go.

Into the Old City
The (known?) entrance is in some gardens in the north of the city. We head that way.

He gestures for Suleiman to take the lead in the tunnels. We head down until we reach a fork.


 * Left: the Old City, no known way out that way
 * Right: the collapsed tunnel and missing student, known way out via a river on the other side of the collapse.

We go right and arrive at the collapse. Suleiman and Knot very slowly break through the collapse, and we arrive at the head (?) of the river. There are some plants, some Lichen that definitely don't seem fond of our torches, as well as shallow water that rapidly flows out through a tunnel that isn't big enough to walk through.

We also find a hole, which Knot drops a torch down. Its about 20 ft down, with water at the bottom. We can see brick down there. We decide to lower a rope and let Knot climb down. He falls on his ass and takes 5 (damage).

There are branching passage down there:


 * Stairs up
 * A broken doorway, through which the water flows.

Beans collects some Lichen from the ceiling before we head down. Suleiman brings the rope down him.

Up the stairs, there appears to be another collapsed passage. We try the other way first.

We explore the area. Water drains out slowly to the southeast. One of the doors opens into a room with stagnant water. The other---a simple stone door---is blocked. Suleiman breaks it down.

Inside, we find two more doors. One, another stone door. The other: an ornate metal door, clearly magical (Xanie has Detect Magic going). It has a smooth surface in the center. Xanie cannot identify the school of magic.

The stone door hides another locked stone door behind him. Xanie tries to open the magic door with Mage Hand, but it can't interact with it. The door is like a mirror---highly reflective.

When Suleiman attempts to open the door, words in Elvish appear in his mind. As he can't read them, he asks Xanie to try. They are:


 * Patience and Politeness Separate the Man from the Beast and Open the Doors to Civilization

Xanie politely asks the door to open. No response.

Suleiman breaks down the other door, and beyond it they find another metal door. It is faintly magical.

The Professor has no ideas, but notes that the Old City was predominantly Elvish thousands of years ago. Suleiman remarks that Chult is also a primarily Elvish nation.

The Mirror Door & the Dragon Room
After fiddling around with the reflective door for a while, Knot finally cracks it by suggesting that Xanie ask her reflection to open the door for her (basically).


 * Xanie: attempts to open the door, stops and says "No, after you!"
 * Xanie's Reflection: "No, I insist!" and opens the door.

Inside is a dais, with a skeleton that appears to have wings. It was bound with enchanted shackles. The walls are covered in murals depicting dragons.

Suleiman finds some simply pointy bits and crescents, some things that might be the heads of hatchets maybe? Nothing obviously weapon-like, or even remotely usable.

Xanie finds depictions of a "veritable horde of Red dragons". Worship of dragons was fairly common historically, but the bones are so old that it predates anything Xanie might know about.

We previously saw a Brass dragon on the way to Korvosa. Brass being notably not Red.

The Exit
We find a tunnel on the opposite end of the previous area. Suleiman feels a breeze, and Beans immediately begins following the tunnel.

After walking some distance, the tunnel ends with a sheer wall and a hole above through which sunlight and fresh air enters. We hear the sound of running water.

We briefly discuss yeeting Beans through the hole, but Suleiman ultimately nixes that in favor of the much saner strategy of tossing a rope up with a weight tied to it. Beans then climbs up.

This is just outside the North wall of Korvosa. It is out of sight of the coast, and out of sight of the main North bridge into the city.

''Kayla has to take her puppy to playtime. The rest of us head back into the tunnels to continue exploring.''

Down the Waterway
We wade into some of the flowing water (about waist-height). Knot slips and gets swept along a bit before catching himself.

We find a cave tunnel in the water. There is room above for us to stand and not have to actually swim.

We hear more loudly rushing water ahead. Suleiman ties a rope to a stalagtite and checks it out. The rope pays off because he's almost swept away.

The tunnel ends at a cave mouth that appears to intersect with the river to the north of Korvosa.

Señor Bedroll does not, in fact, have a bedroll, so after this we escort him back to Korvosa.

Exit: Stage North
We head back into the tunnels, taking the not-river passage out of the tunnels.

While in the tunnels, we inquire about the contents of the bard's bag. The magical contents.

We eventually persuade him to show us the item. He very sincerely claims it was a gift.

The ring is embossed with the coat of arms of the Chult royal family.

He used to be a court bard, and fucked around with a princess, and then, uh, had to make a rapid exit when she mysteriously became pregnant.

We decide to bring Prince Bard along and head towards Bilge City in the Coinhills. The alternative is that we head through the desert towards Quoth, and none of us exactly feel up to the task of walking 3 weeks through the desert.