For many player characters, one of their first fantasy adventures is that old standby, clear the cellars of a tavern of vermin. So I decided to throw that concept at my players' high-level characters. The characters involved were in the level 10 range. The NPCs were lower in level.
I had a short adventure designed to be dropped in any time the players were in their home town. With a few players still away I decided now was the best time to do it.
I also borrowed one of my favorite adventure names, "What's that Smell?" But the adventure itself is entirely original.
Session 138: What’s that smell?
Eathwund (human fighter), Aldus (human cavalier), Alrix (couatl sorcerer), Ian the squire (human cavalier, NPC), August (human magic-user) *.
*Lakima’s player played as August for this session.
Eathwund’s evening bite to eat at the Manor house is interrupted by Huntley who shows in Morton Bray to speak with him. Morton is the owner of the Dancing Dragon Inn on the Market Square. Eathwund and Lakima often stayed at the Inn when they first came to Edgerton.
“Eathwund, I need your help!” Morton anxiously tells him.
Morton talks to Eathwund about his troubles as August and Aldus enter the room. It seems guests at the Inn have been complaining about a bad smell in some of the rooms. Morton tried cleaning repeatedly to no avail. The smell seemed to come from the common room fireplace so he had it swept. The smell continued to linger so the houseboy Brenn was sent down to the cellar to check the flue of the fireplace. He returned to tell of seeing light coming through cracks in the wall right near the fireplace ash trap. The next day two workmen were sent down to check the wall. Reporting that the wall was in danger of collapse the workmen started to remove it so it could be properly repaired. When Brenn was sent to check on them, he came back upstairs in a hurry reporting that the men were dead and he saw a giant rat eating the corpses.
Knowing just what to do, Morton went to an adventurer staying at the Inn who had a large bill. Morton asked him to kill the giant rats in the cellar in return for excusing the bill. The adventurer agreed and immediately put on his armor and took up his sword despite being drunk. Morton pleaded that he wait until morning but the adventurer laughed and headed to the cellar. At first, they heard laughter and squealing noises but then they heard human screaming. After a half hour, Brenn went to check and reported a trail of blood leading through the hole in the wall that the workmen had opened.
“And then I knew I had to come to my old friends for help,” Morton said, “You will help me won’t you?”
Immediately, Eathwund agrees to help Morton but Aldus asks about the pay. Morton nervously says he could afford to pay maybe 50 gold per man to clear the cellar. Business was down and he could not afford more. After some arguing Aldus and August agree to help.
“Could you come immediately?” Morton asked.
Eathwund, Aldus, and August went to put on their gear. Running into his squire, Aldus tells Ian to get ready for a fight as well. Four members of the Company of the Black Dragon set out across town following Morton.
“Should I have told Lakima where we are going?” August said.
“Don’t worry, Eathwund and I can handle a few giant rats,” laughed Aldus.
Entering the Inn, Morton leads the troop into the common room. After a few minutes of talking, they begin to notice the smell of something rotten coming from the fireplace. A smell like sour milk and dead rats.
Morton leads them into the kitchen and has Brenn open the trap door to the cellar. Descending they find a clean cellar full of barrels and crates. Two doorways lead off to other parts of the cellar. One leads to a room full of broken furniture a wall with a hole in it and a pile of rubble.
“Look at that!” Aldus says pointing at a large bloodstain on the floor. The hole in the wall is five feet wide but only 3 feet high and at the bottom of the wall. So Eathwund crawls into the next room. On the other side of the wall, he finds the dead adventurer. Soon Aldus, August, and Ian join him. The light from August’s continual flame staff lighting the chamber in an eerie blue light. Aldus tells Ian to go back up to the kitchen and fetch a lantern. While in the kitchen he is met by Alrix who says Huntley told him where everyone had gone so he decided to join them. Ian and Alrix descend into the cellars and rejoin the group.
Meanwhile, Eathwund has examined the body. The body has several large bite marks as expected. But the throat of the corpse is also cut – clearly by a blade. Eathwund points this out to his friends. There are more than just rats in the cellar. As Eathwund rolls over the corpse, two poisonous giant centipedes are uncovered and Eathwund quickly stomps on them killing them. The way out of the room is through a rotted wooden door. Eathwund tries it but finds it is barred from the other side. He slams against it a few times but it does not break. Then Aldus takes a run at the door and slams into it, the bar on the other side snaps, and the door crashes open.
On the other side, they see a large chamber and several doors. In the darkness, Aldus spots three pairs of red unblinking eyes watching him.
“August! Light!” Aldus yells.
August moves to the doorway and Eathwund and Aldus see three wererats facing them with anger in their eyes. A fourth wererat in a doorway then yells something before slamming the door shut. The three wererats immediately attack. The fight is a bloody one, the wererats use claws and slavering teeth to claw and bite at Eathwund and Aldus. Alrix fires arrows from the doorway behind them. After a minute the three wererats are dead.
“Quick the door,” August yells and points at the wrong door. Eathwund corrects him and they kick open the door the wererat retreated through. On the other side, they see a large iron cauldron under a chimney. A fire burns beneath the cauldron and inside is a bubbling morass of green goo. A wererat and a half-dozen giant rats face them. Two more wererats can be seen running through an open door on the far side of the chamber. Aldus charges through the giant rats and attacks the fleeing wererats chasing them into the next chamber. August casts a sleep spell and all of the giant rats fall under the spell. Eathwund runs across the chamber to join Aldus. Alrix follows walking carefully through the sleeping giant rats and fires a stream of magic missiles at one wererat killing it. The other two wererats are killed by the swords of Eathwund and Aldus. Ian stays in the back shining his lantern into the melee.
After the fight, another room is checked and found to be an eating area. Eathwund checks a chamber with a bed and a dresser and he finds some human armor, a mace, and a holy symbol of the Dark Lady. Alrix and Ian have busied themselves killing the sleeping rats. A search of the bodies only turns up a few coins. August uses a large pot of water to dose the fire beneath the cauldron. The contents of the cauldron look like the green cheese Eathwund recalls from their adventure in the Emerald Moon Cheese Factory a few years ago. Aldus suggests dumping the cauldron contents down a trapdoor they find that leads to the sewers. But the cauldron is too big and too hot to handle.
“I don’t think we have the full story,” Eathwund says, “we should follow the trail into the sewers.”
“I know what Lakima would say, that we are done what we were paid to do,” says August, “but I agree let’s see where this trail leads us.”
All agree to descend into the sewers. Aldus takes the lantern and leads the way. Eathwund joins him. The sewers here look the same to Eathwund as any other area of the sewers. Alrix joins them and looks about in disgust. Eathwund tells Alrix about their adventure in the Emerald Moon Cheese Factory and their fight against wererats and their Rat King in the sewers.
“Did you kill the Rat King?” asks Aldus.
“We definitely killed him,” says Eathwund, “we think he was created using magical green cheese from the factory.”
“Maybe that is what they are trying to do again,” suggests August.
The group picks a route through the sewers at random. They do not see any tracks but everything is wet and dripping so tracks would not last long. They cross unsteady iron grates over open sewers in places where they have to cross the channel. After a half hour, they come to a confluence. The only way across is over some unsafe-looking wood boards balanced on a wood post stuck in the sewer sludge. The boards creak alarmingly when the heavy fighters, Eathwund and Aldus cross but they hold. August crosses easily. Alrix unfortunately slips on the wet wood and falls on the board. He does not fall into the sewer but they distinctly hear the board crack.
“What should I do?” Ian asks. The last of the party and the only one not to cross.
Aldus tells Ian to head back to the Inn Cellar.
The group soon finds a wood door in an iron frame in the sewer wall. Pushing the door open they surprise a man sleeping in a hammock in a small chamber.
“What you doing in here, eh!” the man shouts at them.
The man is questioned and claims to be a sewer worker in the employ of the Castellan. Unsure about the man they demand to answer if he is a wererat. The man is indignant. Alrix grabs the man’s hand and cuts his forearm with a normal steel blade. The man howls in protest and cries about the tremendous wound that is weeping blood.
“Quit complaining, it is just a scratch, and now we know you are not a wererat,” Alrix says with a sigh.
The man keeps complaining and demands recompense. August gives him 5 gold to shut up. The man tells them his name is Mott. He works in the sewers. When they ask for a map, he tells them the map is in his head. When asked about strange happenings he tells him he knows when to mind his own business. Eventually, they get him to reveal that he and other workers got word that they should avoid storeroom 5. He assumes that thieves or smugglers are using it. He does as he is told. For another 5 gold he agrees to show them the storeroom.
“Fer 10 gold I would murder my own mom!” he gladly says. Alrix is disgusted but Mott just shrugs. “It is just a saying ‘round here”.
True to his word Mott leads them to storeroom 5. He points it out from a distance then salutes them and runs away. The storeroom is entered and they find it is a small chamber full of wooden crates big and small. As they are discussing which crate to open August points out a door on the back wall of the room hidden by a stack of crates.
Aldus tries the door handle and finds the door is barred from the inside. Aldus drops his shoulder into the door several times but the door and the bar hold. Then Eathwund tries. On the second try, they hear a crack but nothing else.
“Let me try!” August says. Then the slight magic user hurls himself into the door and it flies open, August finds himself stumbling into the open doorway of a large chamber lit by torches. Five wererats glare at him in anger. Four right near the doorway and another one dressed as a priest further back into the room.
August stumbles back out of the way while Aldus and Eathwund quickly rush into the chamber and take up the fight. Alrix yells that he has the priest and he casts a bunch of magic missiles at the wererat priest. The priest yells something magical and poisonous yellow mist pours out of a censer blanketing the entire area. Aldus and Eathwund start coughing and choking while the wererats attack them.
“Oh no you don’t!” yells Alrix and he uses his innate control winds ability to blow the censer onto the floor and blow the poisonous cloud back into the chamber obscuring the priest. He also casts more magic missiles at the priest.
Eathwund and Aldus each take on a pair of Wererats. Eathwund kills one and moves to the other. Aldus is bitten by one but stabs it in the heart while it is gnawing on his wrist. He looks down to see the bite and the broken skin.
“It bit me!” Aldus yells with concern.
August holds back from the fight as he is out of magic spells. But he pulls the Pipes of the Sewers from his pack and begins to play. Soon a host of large rats rush into the chamber from the sewer passages. The rats are diseased and dead looking but August continues to play and hold control over them. The wererat fighting Eathwund also goes dumb listening to the tune August is playing and Eathwund takes the opportunity to kill him.
The last wererat angrily shouts at August, “This is your doing!” and he leaps on August biting him on the shoulder. August briefly stops playing the pipe and the plague rats begin to stir angrily. Then Alrix kills the last wererat with his dancing sword. August again gains control of the rats and he sends them after the wererat priest.
Alrix walks over to the censer lying on the floor and smashes it twice with the sword. The poison billowing out of the censer stops. As the gas clears, they see that the priest was killed a while ago – probably by magic missiles. The plague rats just sit on his on-moving body. August then dismisses the rats back into the sewers.
Under the table, Alrix finds a locked iron chest that he is able to break open. Inside is a pile of coins, gems, and jewelry. The group looks at the mess. Eathwund searches the bodies, which have reverted to their human form in death, and finds a few coins. On the rat priest, he finds a gold holy symbol of a rat and they find a wooden staff. But when Alrix checks they find that the staff is not magical.
“We don’t really know what happened here or what they were up to,” Eathwund asks.
August suggests taking the Rat priest’s corpse back to the Manor House and asking Domago to cast Speak with Dead on it. Eathwund and Aldus pick up the corpse and the group heads back to the cellar of the Inn.
They climb back up into the cellar and find Ian waiting for them. The cauldron has cooled down now so they roll it through the doorway and dump the contents in the sewer. Then they place it over the trap door.
“That will hold them,” Aldus says and gives the cauldron a few shakes.
The group climbs back up into the Inn’s Kitchen and tells Morton Bray what they found. As they pull the corpse of the rat priest up into the kitchen the cook and the maid scream and run away. Morton asks them to remove the corpse right away. The group carries the corpse back to the Inn having one brief encounter with the night watch. Domago checks August and Aldus for lycanthropy. He is only really concerned about the bite August received which is the more dangerous one. He casts cure disease on August and healing on both of them.
“Can you speak to this corpse?” August asks and points at the dead body.
Domago agrees and casts speak with dead. The angry shade they raise answers three questions. The only thing they learn is that at least one wererat got away. The next day Eathwund disposes of the corpse in an alley and then heads to the Town Watch and reports the wererats in the sewers.
“Wererats again?” Sergeant Frans is exasperated but says he will hand out silver daggers to the night watch and they will keep their eyes open for trouble.
A week passes with little to do for the adventurers. Lakima hears Aldus talking about courting some local ladies and he suggests they put on a ball or party at the Manor.
“My wife knows all of the eligible ladies in town,” Lakima says.
Lakima further suggests a ball in honor of a fertility goddess from the City of Veil where he was born. He makes plans to bring in some musicians from that City. As his stories become more salacious, his friends are unsure if he is joking or serious.
“That is not how I recall the Festival of Delaeth being celebrated,” a dry old voice says from the doorway.
They turn to see Elken the Dark standing in the doorway. Looking fitter since the last time they saw him fresh from the prison of Turania. Lakima offers Elken a seat. Elken tells Lakima, ignoring the rest of the group, that he plans to enter the Tower of Mikda-Err and he needs his student’s aid. He is lacking in funds and he needs a suitable bribe from the old blue dragon who guards the entrance. Elken admits that he needs gold and spells if he is to regain his position in the City of Veil as the preeminent wizard. He relates that he had to fight a duel with some pipsqueak of a mage who thought to take advantage of his weakened state.
“I killed him and thankfully he had a teleport spell in his spell book so I could come and visit you,” Elken says.
Lakima tells Elken that he can freely take spells from the Magic-users Guild he has set up in Edgerton. Despite his eagerness to gain spells, Elken is horrified by the thought of a Mages Guild, and of sharing spells.
“Mages should fight duels for their spells, just as we always have!” he declares.
Alrix finally draws Elken’s interest as he notes that Alrix does not have a human aura. Elken suggests Alrix is a demon child. Alrix quickly sets him right and explains some of his powers. Elken listens with interest asking more questions while Lakima looks on with concern. When Elken retires to the guest room Lakima draws Alrix aside and warns him about his master.
“There is a reason why there are no elves in the Great Desert, the mages hunted them until all were gone,” Lakima says. When Alrix asks why Lakima tells him about the production of potions of longevity.
Elken spends a few weeks in the Mages Guild transcribing spells into a new spell book. But he complains that none of the common dueling spells are in the Guild Library. He must enter Mikda-Err’s tower if he is to get the spells he needs. Finally, Lakima agrees to help him – but only after the party he has planned. Elken is annoyed by the wait but agrees. He will teleport on ahead to the City of Veil and await their arrival.
