The Heroes:
Eric as Balto the Warrior-Scholar
Dai and Aldan the Righteous Deliverer
Beau as Markk the Seeker
Derek as Foliage the Warped
Many miniatures expertly painted by Giovanni
Recovery
The session opened with the last session's heroes having captured the pleasure-slave barge and its human cargo, en route to the Slavers' hideout, said to be in a warehouse on the fork of the canal , on a tiny island by a gas light. That was where Tulia was said to be held. Aldan was badly hurt in last session's fight, so as the others (without players to guide their hands) freed the cargo, the Paladin caught up with Markk and Balto emerging from the Broken Cup, rendezvoused with Foliage, and set out to see Doc, one of Balto's contacts and a halfling-sized street surgeon with a reputation.
Aldan did not wince from the treatment, which should keep him alive to trudge through the spring rain to the Chamber of the Blistering Sun of his rival sect. In the delirium from his injuries, Aldan found himself growing closer to the madness and self-flagellation of the Chamber. Markk assisted a priest with whip techniques in flogging the acolytes.
With the new stricture not to speak to any woman save his fair Tulia, Aldan was brought back to health with his holiness restored.
Lars, Again, At The Chamber Of The Blistering Sun
Also at the Temple they met with a platinum-haired young Paladin -- indeed it was Lars, the very would-be hero whose remains the heroes had discovered in a pile of bones in the Lair of the Rat Cult after slaying its filth-mad priest only days before. Lars' claim to only then be suiting up and heading out to defeat the Rat Cult was incongruous to say the least. Not cogniscent of the heroes' dreadful find only hours before, the hopeful cavalier pushed out the door, with the triumphant declarations of the Head Priest Zar exhorting the lad to seek his doom in heroic fatalism. Out the door, apparently uncomfortable in his harness, Lars went. The wrong way.
When the players followed, they found strewn in the street Lars' sword, armor, tunic, and even Holy Symbol of the Blistering Sun. The canal rabble had already recovered the gear; Aldan donned the giant gold chain with the Sun around his neck; the holy force exuding from his spirit warmed the amulet enough to scorch non-believers' flesh. No sign of the lad.
Against The Slavers
The next night, now a day late with hired human faux-cargo as cover, the heroes returned the barge to the canal island, under cover of night, and fell upon and defeated a handful of Slavers who were alert to trouble as the last weekly barge had not arrived on time.
Then to the warehouse they went, finding what appeared to be a now-abandoned underworld meeting place, with a steep stairwell deep under the island and even the canal bottom itself.
The heroes quickly overwhelmed and subdued a lone guard huddling in the corner by a stale barrel of beer, who before losing consciousness expressed honest terror at what lie beyond in the Slavers' Den.
But the heroes pushed on regardless. The way lit by Aldan's Holy Symbol (and Balto's lantern), around a corner in a low cavernous passage with canal water dripping down from above, they passed by a downward grade to under the water table, turning down a narrow passage bolstered by waterlogged rotten posts and wooden supports.
And then, with the shouts and calls of pleasure slaves from a pen around the corner, bore down a half-dozen giant lizard-man hybrid Slavers, slathering and hissing, scimitars in hand, hunched down and splashing in the ground water as they charged, a small army of giant rats, spiders, and snakes joining in the blood-fury.
The heroes plied their usual expertises, with Aldan's Back Talker claiming its due, Balto expertly working the foes against each other, and Markk freeing the slaves to retreat.
Tulia was not among them.
During the fight, writhing wrestling forms and limp bodies crashed into the pillars, weakening the structure, water starting to pour down from above as the passage began to cave in. And then from below the water table, blocking the way out to safety, stomped forth a giant snapping turtle, fed from the filthy depths under the canals and hungry for flesh.
Aldan tried his hand against the reptilian horror to open the route, but it was Balto who hurled an unlucky lizard-men into its maw, granting just enough time for the heroes to escape before the ceiling opened over their heads.
No Rest For The Weary
Upon returning to the surface, exhausted and victorious, another canal boat appeared from the rainy night, this one with a party of The Skull's men coming to clean up the weakened heroes and reclaim the Bronze Armband for their mysterious master.
The battle about to begin, the lead Assassin recognized Markk, again, after having previously run across him while The Seeker and Gurgrock were pursued by the same thug some weeks back, while sneaking into a merchant's house to steal the Compendium of the Old Ways for Ekk the Fence (it was a bloodbath, with a foreign emissary slain by said assassins and the book having to be re-stolen from a merchant ship by means of Markk's enchanting music and Gurgrock's disguise-work).
Honor among thieves (and a fear of an early grave) trumping mere orders, the Assassin halted his men and the two parties paused to parley instead. Indeed, the Skull demanded the Bronze Armband -- still around the bicep of Foliage -- for its restorative and resurrectory powers for those slain by the Iron-Shafted Spear. As for Tulia, well, she'd been sold already and reportedly fetched a good price. Who could afford her but one of the rich merchants in Hill District?
The two parties agreed to fabricate a bloodbath and part ways without actual violence. After all, Back Talker had tasted enough flesh.
A Riot
After stopping to see Ekk the Fence, who confirmed that Tulia had in fact been sold to Van Grimes, in fact the very corpulent and lust-crazed merchant whom the heroes abused only days earlier at The Beetle. The caution to protect the Bronze Armband was such that Balto looked into commissioning a metalsmith to create decoy copies to confound The Skull's men.
Meanwhile, Markk, who in his aforementioned earlier quest for The Compendium, had learned from Gurgrock to rally the Children of Canal Town, again called on his adolescent minions to create a distraction much like they had when the two last assaulted a merchant in his home.
Mission in hand and with Aldan in the lead, Holy Symbol granting the mismatched heroes some legitimacy in passing the Hill District's guard corp, they arrived to Van Grimes' house.
With a whistle the children started the riot several blocks away, granting enough of a distraction to enter Van Grimes' house. He was easily subdued, cowardly as he is, and in the basement they found the locked room where Tulia's scent lingered. But no Tulia, despite Van Grimes swearing by dagger-point that she had been there, unsatisfyingly non-submissive and not worth the price he paid.
With this, Foliage, as is his way, spoke to Van Grimes' terrier pet. The dog, speaking to The Druid, claimed that the human woman from the basement had in fact been gone for days, and that she had an awful smell, not fragrant like the Tulia of Aldan's heart.
The Rescue, Something Missing
And then, as the City Guard eventually responded to the heroes' assaulting an honored member of Gar's urban elite, in the front door walked Tulia, unfettered and seemingly unstressed.
The chaos unfolding around them, Balto subduing the Guard and Van Grimes shrinking into his chair from the point of Markk's dagger, Aldan and his Tulia raced to each other and embraced, the Paladin fully knowing that a woman's touch would contradict his teaching and sully his newly-restored holiness. Nonetheless, he met her embrace...
... but instead of shriveling and guilt, he felt nothing. Tulia looked up in the embrace, but her scent was absent and the glitter was missing from her eyes....
