I have mentioned before that we recently had an adventure in the city sewers of Gothingham, where we saved a baby that was stolen by kobolds. I have also mentioned that while down there I was bitten by the disgusting Otyugh, a creature that dwells in the foul sewage pools. This resulted in a nasty infection or illness.
Well, when we left the sewer we found that an unnatural darkness had fallen over the city. The streets were almost devoid of inhabitants, though we did find the baby's mother. We returned the child to her and attempted to take her home (it was dark after all).
As it turns out, the reason there were so few people in the streets was an influx of dangerous creatures. Not less than three times on the way to our hostel we were attacked by swarms of bats! Now, I was in no condition for more fighting, but during the first encounter I cast my Sword Burst spell and waded into the swarm, only to be bitten badly. Derrick used his Chill Touch spell to damage the swarms, as Killian, Joe, and Wendrey also fought. Eventually we made it to the hostel!
Now, Wendrey is a trickster cleric of the Author Wiloki. He cast a spell to heal me of my infection, and we thought it was working at first, but alas the spell failed! Apparently my affliction had an element of curse. Now, we have twelve potions we gained from the kobolds, and it seems likely that one of them might have cured me, but in my condition at the time I didn't trust myself to interpret the labels on the potions correctly. Joe needed a similar healing, so left the lady and her baby at the hostel (Derrick payed for them) and set off for the Shrine of Wiloki, where Wendrey would ask the clerics there to heal us. It seems they owed him a favor.
The walk to the shrine was dangerous. We met more bats, but the city guard was friendly and didn't stop us.
When we got there, Wendrey had a nice visit with a more expereienced cleric named Gagli, and do-tell he was a GOBLIN. Now I had been led to believe goblins were all mean, devious little people, just one step up from kobolds (who I of course despise). Apparently I was wrong. This goblin was quite good natured, spoke the Common Tongue, and agreed to heal me of my disease as his favor to Wendrey. HOWEVER -- that was only one favor, and we needed two, since Joe needed healing as well.
Now keep in mind that Wiloki is the patron Author of tricksters, but is seems the Author Gayius Gaxes also favors tricksters (to a lesser degree), and it seems that Gagli has a friendly (I hope) rivalry with a local cleric for Gayius Gaxes, Edgar, and wished to play a trick on him. So he made us an offer. If Wendrey would sneak into the Gaxes shrine, find a "toy" owned by the cleric Edgar, steal that toy and replace it with a plain chess piece, and bring the toy back to Gagli, he would then heal Joe.
Of course we agreed.
We made our way through the still-darkened city (we still don't know why it is dark), avoided more damned bats, and arrived at the Gayius Gaxes shine.
There were two doors in front. One was open. On the sides were two carved faces above some curved smooth masonry. When we went in we found a large fountain, an alms box, and four statues roughly at each corner. There was a also a real really big statue in roughtly the shape of a man, but it looked unfinished. There was a sign inside that had been knocked over that read "We're busy, come back later." No one was inside. We explored.
Derrick took a look at the big unfinished statue. Weirdly it had not base. Its feet were just there on the floor. Joe and Wendrey donated some money and each took a drink from the fountain. Joe felt a burning and discovered he could breath fire! Probably temporary, but useful! Wendrey shrank to half his normal size -- so he was tiny! The rest of us didn't take a drink.
We began examining the other four statues. There was one that was a wizard, so I check it out. It was holding a book (part of the carved statue) that had some actual pages attached. I was curious about them, but they didn't look to be in great shape, so I cast my Unseen Servant spell and had the Servant go up and turn some pages while I was 15 feet away. I was glad I did, because from top of the wizards tall pointy hat (no one really wears those) some green acidy stuff dropped down and burned the book! It would have surely hit me had I been standing there.
One of the other statues was a knight. The sword hilt looked real, but no one dared touch it after my experience with the wizard. The third statue was a huge laughing face with a mouth you could crawl into, but it was so black inside that you couldn't see what was in there. I cast my light cantrip on my staff and stuck in in there, and me and the staff were nearly pulled into the mouth. I barely managed to pull it free!
So the final statue was of a somewhat portly man with his hand out, as if asking form money. Derrick put a gold coin in the hand, and a door opened in the floor revealing a stairwell down! We could hear voices!
Wendrey snuck down the steps and saw two priest, one surely Edgar, playing a game, but he was too short to see that was on the table. He came up and report this to us. We decided to create a distraction up top, to allow Wendrey to go back down and get the job done. So Joe made a huge ruckus by knocking down a wall of very beautiful pole arms, and up came the priests. While they were up top questioning us, Wendrey took one of their toy soldiers and replaced it with the chess piece. I was hiding behind a statue. When Wendrey came back up, I used Vortex warp to teleport him out of shrine. Luckily the priests didn't attack us! We apologized for the mess and ran away!
The trip back to the Wiloki Shrine of course involved more bats but we survived, but when got there Gagli was delighted and healed Joe, and so we are now all healthy and ready for more adventures. I would love to know what is causing the darkness in Gothingham.
Joe and I owe Wendrey a favor.
