The One Where.. Uhh.. What Were We Doing Again?

The day began with SevFi going out their business in the guild hall. Still being under investigation, they had all of their weapons and gear confiscated and only were allowed basic guild access for the time. They discovered that they were not allowed to stray too far from the guild hall itself. If they started to get too far away, glowing blue manicals would appear around their wrists and ankles, and would start dragging them back towards the guild hall. They decided sending Linzu, the only member not magically bound, to the marketplace. His mission was simple: gather information on the strange happenings around town. Confident in his skills as a rogue, Linzu strode into the market, only to find that the goblins he was told to find were nowhere to be found. In their place stood a half-orc woman, running the stall with an air of authority. Linzu, trying to keep his composure, approached her, but he quickly found that he was out of his depths and the interaction quickly spiraled out of his control.

Despite his best efforts to remain smooth and cunning, Linzu fumbled through the conversation, his usual charm lost in the chaos of the moment. The half-orc, watching him struggle to form coherent sentences, seemed more amused than annoyed. She realized that she could get more information out of him without returning much information at all. Finally, after several awkward exchanges, she cut through the confusion and asked him directly what information he was trying to find. Relieved but flustered, Linzu shared what little he knew, hoping it would lead to something useful.

Satisfied with the bare minimum of information she provided, Linzu turned to leave. However, as he made his way out of the market, he felt a strange tug at his belt but didn’t give it much thought. It wasn’t until he was far from the stall that he realized the half-orc had stolen 700 gold from him—his confidence shattered, and his purse considerably lighter.

As Linzu rejoined the rest of SevFI, a group of thugs, cloaked and dangerous-looking, approached with ill intent. Yet, instead of attacking, they surrounded the party and forced them to follow, leading them deep into the underbelly of Termina.

The thugs brought SevFi to the King of Trash, a figure none of them knew anything about. The King of Trash greeted them with a mix of suspicion and curiosity. The King of Trash, seated atop a makeshift throne of discarded junk, eyed SevFi with a mix of curiosity and calculation. His domain was the underworld, both literally and figuratively, ruling over the city’s thieves and miscreants. His ragtag throne room reflected his kingdom—a realm of waste and ruin, but one filled with secrets and power. The party stood before him, unsure of how to proceed, but the King had questions of his own. He demanded to know why they were in his city, poking their noses into places they didn’t belong.

Amid this tense standoff, Good Boy, the last remaining kobold of Iliana’s charmed group, was summoned to explain their actions in the sewers. The kobolds, as it turns out, were originally working for the King of Trash. The little kobold, ever loyal and eager to please, nervously recounted what had happened in the sewers, from explosions to dangerous creatures lurking in the dark. The King listened carefully, his piercing gaze betraying little emotion as he processed the information.

The King of Trash wanted some way to verify this information. He asked who out of the party was actually down in the sewers at the time. Quill stated that he was, and the King of Trash produced a Jade Egg from his pocket. The egg was magical in nature, but required being inserted into someone’s ass to gather memories. Quill, being a believer in the fact that everything should be experienced at least once, was not phased by this, and still agreed to help. The egg confirmed to the King of Trash that Good Boy’s story was accurate. The King of Trash, amused by all this, started to consider that this group of idiots in front of him might still prove to be useful at some point, decided to offer some information to Linzu. The catch was, Linzu had to join “The Trash Pile”. Linzu agreed, and was branded with a mark, and given a map. The King of Trash pointed to an area on the map and said to go there after midnight.

Meanwhile, Garian woke up in a cold, dimly lit cage, his body sore and aching. Outside the cage stood the dragonborn who had captured him, a figure Garian recognized all too well. The dragonborn’s voice was cruel and mocking as he taunted Garian, shocking him twice with painful bursts of magic. Though weakened, Garian refused to show defeat, meeting the dragonborn’s eyes with defiance even as his body trembled from the pain. Inside the cage there are two other corpses. One appears to have been beaten to death, with half its face caved in, the other one appears to have been cut in half.

SevFI returned to the guild hall. They needed to pass some time until sneaking out to the area marked on the map. Quill went to the library and decided to start learning the Dwarven language. Thaskagh returned to his room to work out. Linzu found a small group of people playing Knucklebones, and joined them.

As the bells tolled for midnight, the group set out to the area marked on the map. In this area there were four warehouses, with the fourth one being the only one with guards stationed at the door. SevFI was able to get into the warehouse opposite of the guarded one and started planning. Linzu studied the guard’s actions and noticed the timing of their patrols. He left the group and snuck onto a raised area of the warehouse that had a door, picked the lock, and snuck inside, all without being spotted by a single guard. Inside, he saw people moving boxes around, a large jar like container in the center of the warehouse that had a group of people around it channeling energy into it. Inside the jar was a toad like looking creature. Linzu overheard some of the people saying to “keep that thing under control, the hydroloth needs to be able to see the guild hall”. Linzu, realizing that there wasn’t much else he could do in here alone, decided to head back to the group. He described everything that he saw and heard inside the warehouse, and when Quill heard the word “Hyrdoloth”, he immediately stated that we needed to head back to the guild hall and report these findings.

Once back to the guild hall, the party came across Bobera, who was reading a romance novel in his shop. Annoyed at being disturbed, he didn’t fully believe SevFI at first, but due to their persistance, he sent Pip-pip to wake up Bahbahra. SevFI recounts the same information to Bahbahra and pleads with her that they be allowed to see BasBo to let him see this information from their memories. Bahbahra says that BasBo is not currently here, but she will send word to him. SevFI decided to get some rest while they wait for BasBo’s return.

Around 4am, Pip-pip gathered up the member of SevFI and brought them to BasBo’s chamber, however only Bahbahra was present. She stated that BasBo would not be able to return just yet, but if the party agrees, she can use the same orb that BasBo used to share their memories before. The group allows this to happen, and everyone is able to see Linzu’s memories of being inside the warehouse. Bahbahra is taken aback by what she sees, and tells Pip-pip something that the party does not understand. Pip-pip summons a group of smaller versions of himself, each carrying small purple pouches. Bahbahra tells the group that their belongings are in those pouches and to suit up, as she is going to personally lead us back to the warehouse to investigate this more.

Bahbahra led the party to Warehouse 4, her hammer at the ready for whatever lay ahead. Linzu took point once again, his rogue instincts kicking in as he slipped into the darkened warehouse. The place was eerily quiet, but in the center of the room, the jar like container starts shaking and shatters open. A terrifying figure—the hydroloth, a creature of nightmare proportions, stands up amid the broken glass of the container.

The battle with the hydroloth erupted in chaos as Bahbahra charged in and took a swing at it. The hrydoloth used magic to fill the warehouse with water. The creature lunged at the party, its monstrous form crashing through their defenses. Bahbahra’s hammer struck true, while Iliana summoned nature’s fury to aid them. Thaskagh, in his rage, tore through the battlefield with reckless abandon, and Mitsuku fired arrow after arrow. Yet the hydroloth fought back with unrelenting strength, dragging the battle on.

While the battle rages on, the dragonborn guarding the cage Garian is trapped in, takes Garians hand and cuts it with a dagger. He uses a cloth to soak up some of the blood. He turns to a pile of boxes and barrels and kicks over one of the barrels. As it tips on its side, something that looks to be snow starts pouring from it. The dragonborn commands some of the other workers in this area to start digging holes in front of the cage. He shoves some of the snow into these holes, and in the center hole he places the cloth with Garian’s blood on it. He starts concentrating and chanting while staring at this hole. After some time, something starts to crawl out of the hole and it starts to take the form of Garian. Garian, starting to realize what is happening, says “You’ll never get away with this”. The creature, now in the form of Garian, repeats this over and over until it sounds exactly like Garian. The dragonborn grabs parts of the other corpses in the cage and tosses them into the other two holes. Two more creatures crawl out of those holes, one does not appear to stablize and falls apart back into a pile of snow, while the other one starts to take the form of Grizclark “Brass-Eye”.

In the end, it was Linzu who struck the final blow against the hydroloth. Dodging the creature’s deadly strikes, he found his opening and drove his dagger deep into the hydroloth’s eye, asking it “Have you seen my dagger?” The hyrdoloth, making a sound that earily sounds like laughter, disolves into a pile of goo, revealing just a small reddish purple orb. The orb starts to levitate and shoots towards the back of the warehouse, where the portal tears open again slightly and it passes through it. Before the portal closes again, the group sees hands grab it and stretch it open wider. Through it stepped Officer Grizclark Brass-eye, his cold, calculating gaze sweeping over the scene. He looks around at SevFI and asks “Where am I?”