Vecna: Eve of Ruin (#7) - The Mausoleum II

The holiday season disrupted our gaming a little, but we were all able to get back around the virtual table last night for another dive into the realms of Neverwinter...

Navda moved stealthily into the pool room to find something that he could throw into the large pool to see if anything would be disturbed. Gladreth and I moved up to support him, but as soon as we entered the room, a large water elemental suddenly erupted from the pool and grabbed her. Navda manged to loose an arrow at the being but it ignored the harm done and slammed Gadreth into the floor with great force. Dharion also loosed an arrow at it from over my shoulder and entered the fray.

Water Elemental - by Fantasy Grounds

Two smaller water weirds then arose from the pool and attacked Navda and Dharion just as the rest of the party joined the combat. Dharion and Druss were engulfed within the flailing watery limbs of the elementals but luckily Gladreth was dropped. I Blessed the fighters to aid them in their battle and used a Sacred Flame to deal some damage to the otherworldly creatures. This caused the weird attacking Navda to pause in its attack and he dispersed it with a well-aimed shot. Unfortunately, the main water elemental was enraged by my magic and battered Gladreth into a near death state. Druss and Drakkon managed to defeat the large elemental, and its death caused the other, smaller weird to disperse and give me room to aid Gladreth. My Lord's magic brought her back from near-death and a Healing Word salved the wounds of the rest of the party.

After the combat, we checked out our surroundings. There was a crudely cut corridor set into the north wall and three exits to the south, one on the southern wall and one each towards the end of the eastern and western walls. Whilst searching the exits we discovered and picked up a diamond encrusted silver bracelet from the floor.

Most of us decided to head north to see if the corridor met up with one of the rooms we had entered earlier, and found that it did. The room had a huge pile of debris in the south-eastern corner and a set of steps on the western wall leading up to a balcony and a door with a painted eye upon it. The northern wall contained three doors, with evidence of foot traffic to the central door which had a brand new padlock. Drakkon, meanwhile, had remained behind for a while to investigate the doors in the pool chamber. He found that the southern door had brand new hinges and a padlock, the western passageway ended after a short while at another door, and the stairs led up to yet another door.

When Drakkon had caught up, Navda attempted to open the lock but was unable to. Drakkon had a go using brute strength but he also failed. Druss smashed the lock off the door in the manner of a barbarian. When the dust had settled, we could make out a north-leading corridor beyond the door we had just opened. As we approached the end of the corridor, a slight puff of cold air from the room ahead ran chills down our spines. Contained within the small chamber at the end was a stone crypt with a wooden lid. Many dark items of cloth were strewn about the chamber and spilled from the gap made between the partially removed coffin lid and the sarcophagus.

As Navda approached the coffin, he noticed that he could hear a very slight breathing sound. I made light that it was most likely a vampire contained within which made everyone back off slightly. Navda kept his nerve and between us we pushed the coffin lid off to reveal a mass of black shrouds that covered a humanoid shape. I leaned over to check out the incumbent and suddenly my arm was held in a grip of iron. A woman with black hair and black and white robes emerged from the shrouds. Due to her firm grip on my arm, I was easily able to pull her from the sarcophagus where she greeted us with thanks and told us her name was Sharselle. I offered her food and water, and whilst she ate she narrated that she had been kidnapped by cultists a few weeks ago and that they had stolen her magic.

Navda perceived that something was not quite right with her story and that she seemed to be holding something back from us. With a little gentle persuasion she told us that she had had a recurring dream for the last week or so about a levitating desecrated man who suddenly screamed and exploded. Due to its intensity and recurrence, she told her local priest. The very next day she was kidnapped by cultists wearing tattoos of an eye and a hand. She was brought to this dungeon and her magic was stolen from her. Her explanation sat heavily with all of us - it almost seemed like some external power had made this information very important.

As Sharselle was too weak to move, we said that we would leave her there temporarily and then escort her from the dungeon when it was safe to do so. We gave her some more food and water and details of the way out just in case she recovered her strength.

Due to the success we had with rescuing someone from behind a padlocked door, we decided to head back to the pool room and investigated the southern door which Drakkon had found with another new lock and hinges.

Navda picked this lock easily, and inside the damp, musky cell we found a gnome who introduced himself as Umberto Noblin; one of the four people we had been asked to find.

Umberto Noblin - gnome historian and author

He was very talkative and self-promoting but between blurting out details from his new book about the outer worlds and gods and so on, we managed to gather a lot more information about what was going on. We asked him about the relevance of the eye and hand symbols and he waxed lyrical about them all being signs of Vecna the Lich Lord, used by his followers to return him to this plane. Apparently, one hundred years ago a man named Vecna became a lich lord and conquered the realm of Oerth. In his lust for power, all he wanted to do was destroy. He had a very cruel close associate named Kas, a person who had turned into a vampire lord, to whom he gave a power magical sword. The two fell out and battled one another. Vecna now wants to conquer this world and it only needs one more spell to be cast by his cultists before he is returned. He is currently in the realm of Shadowfell, and Umberto asked us to stop this from happening by defeating him in the shadow realm so that he cannot make it to this realm. As with the details Shaselle told us we all had a feeling that these details were significant.

We mentioned Sharselle to Umberto and he said that he knew of her. All that he said of her confirmed what she had told us. We ushered Umberto to Sharselle's crypt and then escorted them both out of the mausoleum with strict instructions to go to the town council and report themselves to have been found by us.

We then returned to where we had left off and decided to take a look at the door at the end of the western corridor. We could find no tracks that headed this way and could only hear a dripping sound coming from within. We decided to leave it for later and climbed the well-used stairs in the east wall to a wooden door with a handle. Before we opened it, Navda listened and could just make out some fumbling and a tinkering noise.

Navda popped the door open a crack and espied in the candlelit room a pile of rubble to the south-east corner (with a slight gap above it), a large cluttered desk with lots of clockwork items on it, and a being with a very fish-like look sat at the table tinkering with the objects upon it.

Shanzezim - a being out of time

Just as we were about to say "Hello" and enter the room, the being within, named Shanzezim, beat us to it. He asked after the health of his elemental helpers and we had to admit that after being attacked we had to subdue two of them. He seemed nonchalant but rued their loss as they were useful for maintaining the pipes. He then asked us if we were members of the Water Clock Guild. We replied in the negative. He sighed and said "They have all died out. I am the last. I need to finish my clock."

We managed to piece together that he was an elemental of Neverwinter and a member of the Water Clock Guild, and that his job was to protect the pipes that fed the town its water. He explained that the eight valves turn in sequence and control the water flow in the fountains and basins in Neverwinter and then he gave us a small document that detailed how they worked. He had been there over one hundred years by his reckoning and that the clock he was crafting should be finished in three years. The guildmaster, Quicksilver or Jake Slight Bobhand, had bound him in this dungeon. He also mentioned that the cultists pretty much left him to his own work and therefore he didn't bother them. A bit of cross-questioning revealed that he had been there closer to six hundred years; from when the settlement had its beginnings. It seemed that he had no concept of time as it affected mortals.

As we said our goodbyes, he handed us a solid gold flywheel and mentioned that it did not belong in his clock.

The Helix Mausoleum - in Shanzezim's room