Session 5--Petala

After rallying the survivors of the bloody fight in the brigands’ den, the magician Lo Fe discovered that the Lamarahki villains had been holding a captive. This unfortunate man was a seaborne nomad named Yazo, a priest of Pendeva the Wise, who had just come out of a coma with no memory of how he fell into captivity. The party, now somewhat reinforced, soon thereafter came upon a scared young boy who had been exploring the caverns on a dare. Taking pity on the boy, they took him under their wing and endeavored to find a way to the surface.

Alas, Yazo’s bid for freedom was cut short by an attack from foul axolotl-men, degenerate abominations who, the party surmised, were associated with the demonic Cult of Garaskis. After cutting down the salamanderi, the party left Yazo in the bloody pool in which he fell, but soon lost another when the slug-man Yog So-Thoth was cut down by a roaming band of reptilian cave-dwellers known as the penghuni gua. With only Lo Fe and his crab-man companion, Glek, still alive from this ill-fate expedition, the three decided their best course of action was to exit the way the boy had come; through the tunnels leading up into the city’s sewers that, perilously, interconnected with the warrens of the penghuni gua. Just as they found those dangerous warrens, however, they came across a blind Dark Troll named Dhruv. In return for their company, some rations, and the promise of opium upon their return, Dhruv told Lo Fe a bit about the penghuni gua, the golden wormlings that lived within the same warrens, Dhruv’s home of Dagendreng deep beneath the earth, and the means of activating the “Shadowed Gate” that would allow them to return through the portal they had entered the day before.

Lo Fe and Glek are thus prepared to return to Kusavati with the boy, seek out healing and reinforcements, and return to this ebon realm which Dhruv refers to as “Petala.” Will they fare better in their second expedition into the dark caverns beneath the city? We’ll find out in session five!