Adventures

Upon appearing Through the portal to Arboria, the party first notices that the area they are in is shrouded in the darkness of night. They have appeared through a stone archway covered in dense vines, amid the ruins of what looks like a temple. As to who was worshipped here, it is unknown. All of the symbols and writing have been meticulously destroyed.

The party lights up spells to see in this darkness, and begins to try and get their bearings.

After climbing some tall trees, they can see the night sky. Using the old Greek constellations, they determine direction, and make out Mount Olympus to the East, the sound of faint drums to the north, and fain light to the west, maybe a town?

(One thing that the group hasn't done yet, is figure out if the portal that they used can go back to Sigil)

The group decides to head in the direction of the lights. this brings them to an established trail heading west. Zero spots at least 5 figures in the trees ahead.

The group readies for a fight, but is peacefully approached by these figures, who turn out to be moon elves. The elves leader is named Neral, and he gives the group some basic directions and the locations of towns. They tell the group to be weary of the area to the north, as many nasty creatures live nearby. And, back to the East lies Mt. Olympus. They are very clear that the Olympic gods are nothing to trifle with. And that the creatures that live at the mountain's base are deadly.

He offers the group escort to their village, as it has walls and is hidden from view. The party accepts.

At the village, the group is given food and shelter, and they agree to meet with the village elder to discuss a problem plaguing the elves. The Elder explains that the village has been plagued by a monster, a cyclops. The creature is unable to penetrate the illusion that protects the village, but it has killed or captured anyone outside, including some nearby farms, and hunting parties. the elder pleads with the group to aid them, and after a hot minute, they agree for a fee. In exchange for killing the beast, the elder will reveal where they may go to find the moon pool, which can remove the stink from Shmorgash. Worth it.

The Monster, named Messarith, makes its home in a cave near Mt. Olympus. Young(ish) Neral offers to guide the group there, they set off without incident.0

Our party crosses through the portal into Sigil, arriving in the clerks ward through a garden gate.

They make their way back to the Inn, and contact Rick, letting him know all about what this new 'Prime Morty' had talked about. Rick is obviously disappointed that his Morty wasn't there. but does compensate the party for their efforts.

What he does mention is that the group should be on the look out for any information regarding this 'Prime' and what he might really be up to.

During their travels, Way-ne and Gorglug had been talking about what their purpose was in the universe. This, of course had started small, but by the end of their journey through the Beastlands, an idea had grown between them.

They wanted to test themselves in battle. against the toughest foes, whether they be monster or humanoid. They wanted to seek out the nastiest, craziest creatures of legend, and defeat them.

Much of this came to them after observing the sect known as the Vile Hunt. They were a group dedicated to hunting down a variety of creatures, but had been focused on capturing intelligent beasts for the priesthood of Malar.

The thought came to Gorglug to check the Mimir about possible leads on legendary creatures, and it mentioned the Vile Hunt was accustomed to doing just that. And, in the past year, the sect had established a Sect House at the edge of the Lower Ward, in a former insane asylum, called ????.

He decided to stroll on over, and see what he could learn. The party tagged along.

The guard at the gate was less that cordial. And, claimed that their master was inside in his office, and that he was the toughest out of all of them.

That was a mistake.

Way-ne and Gorglug tear inside, followed by the rest of the group: Gulgrog, Zero, Bog, Kilgarr, Lex, and Smorgash.

A day after making it back to Sigil from Automata, The party contacts Rick with an update about their latest adventure, including the off-schedule modron march. Upon hearing Rick's name, The talking cat tells the group that he has seen another of his kind wandering the streets of Sigil. Rick asks the group to his home to deal with a possible threat.

When the party arrives at Rick's house, He is greeted by ANOTHER Rick, and a young man named Morty. This is apparently not the Morty that the groups Rick is looking for. So, there are more than one of Rick and Morty in the multiverse...

This Rick (identifying himself as C-4392 Rick), our Rick (C-137 Rick), that one of his contacts in Mortytown has information on where C-137's Morty could be. C-137 tells the group that he needs to go to the Citadel of Ricks, and asks them to come along. He also tells C-4329 Rick and Morty that if the information pans out, the debt is paid in full. Rick takes out a squarish wand, and opens a portal with it. Everyone jumps through. (interesting side note: Rick's house must be somewhere other than Sigil in order to open a portal like that, The Lady of Pain prevents anyone from opening their own portals within Sigil. However, if Rick's door in Sigil led to another plane, where he had a house, he could portal all he likes)

On the way back from Elaric's home, each member of the group is hit with a massive headache, of such debilitating force, that everyone passes out on the street. Seconds later, most of the group regains consciousness, still with their heads ringing, and stagger forward. As they move forward, the pain lessens, and they head in the direction of decreasing pain, which leads them to a small two story clerks office. As they enter the building, they hear a voice in their heads say,

"Oh dear, I had no idea that would be so painful for you, please accept my apology."

They start to search for the source of the voice, and find that this office has been abandoned for quite some time, yet the front door was open when they entered...

The only living creature they find is a grey cat who tells them in a Common,

"Sorry, it wasn't me."

Finally, they head upstairs and see a large, leather-and-metal-bound book. It flips open, revealing a humanlike face, and apologizes again.

The Book explains that it has a job for the group, and is willing to pay in gold, as well as giving the group the deed to the building.

It wants the group to take the cat downstairs, and return it to its creator, a wizard named Heiron.

The cat wanders up the stairs and explains that Its name is Ydemi Jysson. He originally owned this shop, and was the one who commissioned The Book from the wizard. Heiron is known to make intelligent items, and he had need of one that could calculate numbers for him. He couldn't pay for it in full at the time, and had a payment plan with the wizard. Unfortunately, he died before he could pay off the book.

As a petitioner of the Beastlands, the Cat Lord had compelled him to deliver a message to an associate in Sigil, which he had relucantly done, and on the way back to his prtal, he felt compelled to walk down this street and enter the shop. It was then that The Book told him who he was in his former life. Jysson feels compelled to return the Book back to Automata, but couldn't carry it himself, hence the call out from the book.

After hearing all of this, and drueling over the prospect of owning more property in Sigil, the group takes up the job.

The Book knows where the last place his maker had lived at in town, as well as the portals to get there and back to sigil. To get to the gate town, managed to discover the key,

The portal is in the Clerk's Ward of Sigil, in the doorway of a small scribe's shop near the Hall of Records. The key to this portal is a piece of paper torn in two perfectly even halves, wlth the letter E printed on each half.

After making a few preparations, The group heads out through the portal, and arrives in the orderly town of Automata. Here the can see tat all the buildings are lined up perfectly, and streets divide the town into districts for shopping, living, government, and so on.

An armor-clad soldier nearby directs the pc's to the Office of Visiting Entities, to register. The group spends the next 4 hours filling out paperwork to gain street passes.

The book directs the group to a building that has a sign outside that says Thandol's Smoked Meats. Thandol tells the group that Heiron doesn't work there anymore, quietly mentioning that he h ad a number of secret compartments and hiding places. That Heiron wasn't completely on the legal side. He also mentions that Heiron used to frequent a tavern nearby called The Divine Machine.

Upon arrival, the party can see that the tavern has been designed for halflings, and are forced to sit in very small seats, with apologies from the staff.

After quietly asking around the bar, no one has seen the wizard in sometime, but there is a whisper that he crossed the local criminal element, called the Council of Anarchy.

Seeing that there was nothing else they could learn from the patrons, They head out to canvas the town. As they leave the bar, a female tiefling exits as well, and asks them what the party was going to do with the book? They answer that they are returning it to the wizard, and the book confirms this. She sees the truth of their words, and tells the group that the wizard is hiding in an extradimensional space in a closet in the Council of Order building. If someone knocks on the closet wall five times, then whistles, Heiron will open the door and let them in.

The party chooses to bluff their way through the bureaucrats and make it to the closet after ONLY a few hours of paperwork.

They perform the signal, and Heiron opens the closet, but is surprised at not seeing a friend. He quickly tries to shut the door, but the group explains they have his book, and they start to have a conversation, but are interupted by agents of the Council of Anarchy.

Stealthy thieves and bulky warriors attempt to kill the group, but are defeated. by the group. just as the guards from the Council of Order finally show up to stop the fighting.

However, they are pulled away by the odd sound of thunder, maybe an earthquake, no a stampede. The guards are shouting that the modrons are marching, and Heiron dives for the door to his Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. The party follows.

Over the next 20 hours, the party gets to know Heiron a bit, as he and Jysson are grateful for the Book's return. As agreed, The cat tells the pc's where a secret drawer is in the upstairs of the building, which has the deed to the building, and gold.

Heiron willingly talks shop with anyone willing to listen, giving tips on magic item creation, a few names of good contacts in town (Marskin, The Deputy Lieutenant of the Council of Order Guards and Muenscall, a member of the Free League Faction, and caravan master whose route covers a few gate towns), as well as Sigil (Vorx member of the planar trade consortium), and another in a gate town called Excelsior( the gatetown to Mount Celestia, named Espa, with The Order of the Planes Militant sect) that he uses to move his items, to advertise his wares and talent. He even gives out the name of a reliable merchant who deals in exotic components in Sigil, named Varley, in the Market Ward.

He also talks about the oddness of the modron march happening early, almost 200 years too soon. That this has never happened in the entirety of recorded history. The modrons are ruled by an entity called Primus, who is the embodiment of order, living on the plane of Mechanus, the plane of ultimate law. This deviation almost seems to be chaotic in nature, or could it be the start of a new pattern? If Primus will be questioned, maybe some scholar will be able to gleam an answer.

Heiron looks over the designs to Smorgash's idea for a rifle/gun that incorporates magic, and gives him some specific pointers about his design, even going as far as suggesting a few metals to use as a base, including mithril, baatorian green steel, and adamantium. He suggests that the goblin visits a smith on Bytopia by the name of Melgru, who is an expert in creating alloys of different metals to get the best properties in his creations.

After the march has moved on, The party makes contact with Thandol, about selling his smoked meats and setting up trade with him.

The party heads back to Sigil, taking the cat with them, who shows them the hidden drawer in the upstairs apartment in old clerks shop. They gain the deed to the building, and 736 gold pieces.

They head back to the inn with no name...

On the Party's last adventure, a Death Knight, named Elaric, made contact with Zero to retrieve another stolen object. This time it is a Holy Book, that acts as a Power Key from Lathander, God of the Morning. This particular book holds quite a bit of knowledge about the nature of fiends and undead, and also the means to fight them more effectively. And, even thought the Death Knight can no longer touch or use the book, he does wish it to be returned to him, from the necromancer who stole it.

Zero and the Party prepared, heading to the sewer entrance in the clerks ward. Two guards belonging to the City Watch did warn them of the large amounts of undead still beneath the city, but the party was seeing their reward, and headed down those dark steps.

They knew the general direction in which to travel, thanks to directions from Elaric, and eventually came upon a sewer junction. The sounds of fighting ahead led the party to move cautiously forward, to find cranium rats fighting off a group of undead consisting of shadows, zombies and a ghost. The pack of cranium rats was outnumbered, and losing fast. At least until the party stepped in to smash the undead, and swing the tide of battle to a victory.

After the fight, the cranium rats introduced themselves as part of The Us, one of the oldest and biggest colonies of cranium rats living under Sigil. They were extremely grateful for the help, and lent the group one of their members as a guide to the necromancer.

The sewer the group followed became filled with rubble, and eventually the group saw the remnants of a large manor in ruins. Finding such forgotten places is common in Sigil, as most of the time new construction is merely built on top of the old. The rat shows them a room where a number of ghosts linger, and a second passage clear of any undead. The party decides to fight their way through the ghosts, who are pretty tough. And eventually make it to the next chamber, where they continue the fight wights, skeletons, ghosts, zombies, and shadows. The necromancer is reading from Lathander's book, on top of an alter, which is covered in darkness. He has a basket of cranium rats, which he kills, with his hands during the chanting, and another ghost appears at his side. Eventually, they slay the necromancer, and liberate the holy book from his dead hands.

The group releases the cranium rats in the basket, and then sees a sarcophagus nearby. They also open this, and are surprised when more cranium rats pour out. In mass, they climb on top of each other, and form a vague humanoid shape that contacts the group psychically, letting the party know they they are grateful.

They call themselves 'Vermin'

Vermin explains that the necromancer had used dark magics to twist the power of Lathander, and the slow death of Vermin's cranium rats to fuel and increase the necromancers power, allowing him to raise the powerful undead ghosts to do his bidding.

Besides the book, the necromancer had a mirror shard dagger, a ring of mind shielding, his spell book, and a potion of healing.

Vermin feels obligated to the group for saving it, and asks to join the party to in recompense. The Guys accept.

After the party heads back to the surface, they make their way back to see Elaric, who takes them back to his house. Here, priests of Lathander are waiting for the group and the book, and once the death knight hands over the book (careful not to touch it), he immediately heads outside. The priests act as a conduit to the god, releasing the power back to the deity.

After the holy-men finish and leave, Alaric pays the party handsomely, and promises more jobs to them in the future.

The party starts walking back...