Cast opened dialogue with the Dredge King, declaring in veiled threats of the danger of ceasing an established trade between the Kashtal clan and the Empire fo the Sun. The King's response was one of indignation, and demanded that they kneel and submit to the judgement of treason. This was a spell of fealty, and only Cast actually suffered from it, stepping aside from the combat while the dwarf guards attempted to subdue the party.
It was a drawn-out process, and the dwarves were brutally drained dry of life by X37 along with an overall wearing down of the spellcasting king until he begged for mercy. Upon closer inspection, they discovered that the king was a dretch in disguise; a dretch being among the lowest form of demon (or tanar'ri amongst true nerds) in the hierarchy of the fiends.
In its mewling, it revealed that it was brought to the world by a summoning circle, but it never saw the summoner (the circle was broken, so it could leave). It found a book nearby that it learned from to cast spells as a true practitioner, which revealed that it was much smarter than the average dretch (but was still average by human standards). From there, it found the Kashtal clan and decided to take advantage of its newfound knowledge.
The book was written in simplified demon script, and was expertly designed for best understanding by a fiend such as the dretch to learn the magic within.
The party forced the dretch to show it the location it was called to, and from there, they used their excellent tracking skills to find footprints left by a humanoid that either flew off or teleported away after summoning the dretch; further proving that this was the work of a powerful wizard that went out of his/her way to leave little trace and deal maximum damage to either the Empire or the Kashtals.
Not wanting to deal with a rampant mind-controlling fiend, the party killed the dretch and told the dwarves the truth (slight twisting to say the fiend actually did the killing of those guards below). Once trade was agreed to resume after mourning, the party returned to the Empire of the Sun.
There, they looked around for general work, also attempting to find out if anyone in the city is powerful enough to perform a scrying. While they were at it, they put their ear to the ground to find other jobs, and heard about the following...
* The Linguist, a Decipher Script specialist, was seeking aid in getting a tablet translated/decoded (basically help in convincing a powerful priest to perform a divination)
* Chantico, the head Imperial wizard, had an open call for anyone willing to go on a will-o-wisp hunting expedition (running low on essence for the secret page spell)
* One of the Empire's farther out towns was holding a major swordsman tournament soon = caravan guards, exhibitionists, & contestants all being viable jobs to go near the event
The party split up for the Linguist and wizard.
Tow attempted to use comprehend languages on the tablet, a remnant from the ruins of a wizard-oriented culture, but couldn't make any headway compared to what the Linguist had done so far. To Tow's knowledge, only Netzahual (head cleric & 2nd-in-command of the Empire) had a chance of being able to perform a divination, but he figured the cost would be inconveniently large. So, he went to the Small Gods Ghetto to see if a priest of the owl goddess Oxom (portfolio: curiosity/knowledge, death, wisdom) would be able to perform the rites more cheaply. The priest didn't have the skill, but was willing to pay for a message to be delivered swiftly to his high priest to see if he was willing to do this favor.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party sought Chantico to see what he offered for their services. Chantico told them that will-o'-wisps can be found at the Fetid Moor, near the border to the Blackened Grove. He was willing to craft a single magic item for the party (or requisition one) in exchange for a wisp corpse. After some extensive haggling, the party convinced him to attempt to scry on the author of the dretch's book as well (with the expectation they would be near him as added guards for the attempt due to the danger).
The Fetid Moor was close, and by the time a response could be heard from the High Priest of Oxom, they figured they could get a will-o'-wisp and return in time. They heard of the banshee mushrooms (shriekers that make listeners shaken), and how they attract will-o'-wisps and decided to use it as bait.
The fight was long and drawn out, as the wisp was incredibly dodgy and so was the one character that could actually get enough bonuses to hit back (X37, who did alot of damage). Eventually, they were victorious and when they saw the glimmer of what seemed like more on the way, they high-tailed it home.
They got their payment, a magic item would begin to be crafted, and they decided to have the Marshall receive it. As for the scrying attempt, it turned out that the target has access to a dungeon due to the 404 error received; much to Chantico's relief, as he worried about Detect Scrying on someone powerful enough to bind a dretch out of hell (assuming the author and summoner are the one and the same).
We closed this session with a level-up for everybody. The next level-up should likely occur as soon as a major plot hook begins and is completed.
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