Session 16
April 22nd 2020
We’ve made it to Murann (almost)! After looting more than half a dozen magic items off the Dragon Knight’s corpse and passing an unnaturally uneventful last week of travel, we made it to the outskirts of Murann, a city of monsters run by two Ogre Magi of the Mar clan. Outside the city, we passed through a makeshift settlement full of goblins and a camped caravan of humans from Calimshan, a desert country to the south. At the ruined gates of the city, we were stopped by orc guards who asked our business. We told them that we had a business proposition for the Ogre Magi Kokorg, who currently has the Eye of the Serpent and the captive princess. The guards told us that they would see what they could do and told us to make camp outside.
That night, one of the men from Calimshan warned us that the orcs weren’t likely to let us in. Instead, they were probably going to wait for us to give up and leave so they could ambush us on the road. The Calimshan man, Ibin Samal, told us to seek another way in, possibly through the sewers. In exchange for this tip, he asked us to remember that the Calimshan would like the city to be opened to them so they could open a lucrative trading port. Any help we could give them would be greatly appreciated and would likely open great business opportunities for both parties.
Preferring to avoid the probably smelly sewers, Johaness hatched the plan of entering the city by distracting the guards. He and Burke used Minor Illusions to make a human woman appear, flip off the guards, and shout obscenities at them. One of the guards went the other into the city while he himself approached the offensive woman with his battleaxe. Johaness had the woman flee faster that the orc guard could pursue, and the orc blew a horn, rousing the goblins into action.
As the goblins ran around frantically, apparently looking for someone or something, Grixis asked them, in the Goblin tongue, what they were looking for. They said that the horn meant that there was some sort of trouble, and that they were supposed to deal with it. We offered to help them, and they, seeing Grixis’ staff and clothing, guessed that he was some kind of shaman and asked him to come with them. Grixis agreed, as long as his friends (whom the other goblins considered food) could come along.
The party was led to the fanciest hovel in the goblin settlement, and Grixis was told to go in alone. He did so, first warning the goblins outside that if they ate Grixis’ companions, that would anger the fire spirits. Inside, he met the goblin chieftain, Gorks, and a goblin woman who was bound and gagged. Gorks told Grixis that the bound goblin was one of his wives and that she was afflicted by some kind of evil spirit. Grixis couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the goblin woman, let alone how to cure her, but Burke’s bardic knowledge helped him to discern that there was, in fact, a spirit possessing her, so Grixis set up a ritual in attempts to cure her.
He set up a septagram with a campfire at each point. While the goblin woman sat bound in the center of the septagram, Grixis shared the Fire Resistance conferred by the Staff of Fire to the goblin woman without sharing it with the spirit inside her or waking the ire of the Efreet inside the Staff. He then had seven chickens sacrificed, one at each campfire, and opened a portal to the Plane of Fire, hoping to make the possessing spirit unbearably warm to force it to leave. As the portal opened, a charred human corpse and three fire mephits emerged from the portal, and the mephits danced around the septagram while the corpse remained inert. Burke managed to identify the corpse as the body of Thol Deepwood, a former owner of our Acq Inc franchise who disappeared in a fight against the Efreet and was never seen since until now.
The ritual is ongoing, its outcome yet unknown. With luck, the ritual may succeed and earn us the favor of the goblin chieftain. If not, we may soon have a goblin problem that will make it even more difficult to live to see the inside of the city of Murann.