Poop is Life

July 6, 2020

We skip ahead to spring as they finished defeating the giants and take a well deserved rest.  They do speak with Seth about purchasing some things.  Drewgan is frequently gone from the city and says he visited fey and Silverymoon and offers to take others.  Raz decides to help the people of the Outer Moors in their repairs of their houses to even rebuilding after a bad storm.  He meets Will, Albert, and Leanna, kids of the parents he is helping.  At first, they are wary of him but when they find out he's gruff but is helping, they come around more and hang out with him.  Volhoric kept the tavern in business by staying at one table all winter and having them just keep bringing food and drink.  Dakxer recharged and made some wands of healing.  

The snows melted down to less than a few inches and the town is slowly coming out from hibernation.  Now there is more work as the caravans need to repair wagons, which some couldn't do without a lot of indoor space.  The guards kept the walls up but more repairs and additions are needed.  Raz gets up, having decided to live in the Outer Moors, and gets ready to go help with repairs.  This day, Will and Albert don't show up.  He wonders about that and goes to ask the mom.  She is also surprised, as they left early, and she thought they were with Raz.  Raz says it's no big deal, trying to help, but Anette is worried and starts asking other parents.  Raz whistles Wuffie over to see if he can pick up the scent.  Wuffie finds it immediately and starts following it.  It heads into the town.  Raz is surprised by that.  The kids usually don't go into the town.  

Wuffie leads them to a warehouse that Raz almost thinks is abandoned.  Wuffie goes around to the side and Raz sees a hole under the wall that the kids could have used to get inside.  Raz walks back to the door, looks around, then breaks into the building.  After looking around, he finds a hole that goes down to something stone.  He thinks he hears someone, well more like something, crying in pain.  At this point, he knows he needs help so he gets rest of the group together.  

The group wonders at how to get down.  It's a bit tight, but Raz can shimmy down it.  Dakxer activates his ring and just slides through the ground.  Will appears and tells them they hear someone in pain.  They follow to find Albert and Leanna also down here.  When they have time, they look around and realize its a sewer.  They had no idea Nesme had a sewer system.  It's far enough from the river that there is no place to put the waste.  However, it's obviously being used as there is a sludge in the middle area of the passageways.  The kids camped at a junction room where there is a crack in the wall.  Not even the kids could slip through it.  Drewgan turns into a rat and easily goes in there, seeing another shaft going down to someplace.  

Raz asks how they found this place and Will pulls out a wand!  Will makes spark appear, much to Leanna's glee, and the group look at each other.  Raz asks for the wand and has Marcus look at it.  Will reluctantly hands it over.  Marcus can't completely figure out the wand.  It's definitely a wand, made from hawthorn wood and well constructed.  The energy swirling around it though is of many times, including transmutation, abjuration, and even necrotic energy.  Marcus isn't sure what to make of it but is curious.  When he says this, Raz insists that the kids leave before they go forward.  Will says he used the want to get in and out and the group wants to see this.  They have to head back to the entry point and then with Albert and Leanna around him, Will says some words.  With a showering of colors, they are taken up to the warehouse.  Raz was happy he had the foresight to go there first.  Raz questions the kids on how they got the wand but gets conflicting reports of who gave it to them.  Marcus looks at them and sees they might have been influenced by mental magic.  Not fey but something.  Raz gets the wand back, paying them a silver each, and tells them to head home.  They go.  

Raz suggests they talk to Tess about this.  The group climbs up and goes to speak with Tess.  Upon being told there is a sewer, Tess is surprised.  She didn't know.  She takes the groups to the hall of records and finds an old map that does show the sewers.  And something about otyughs and cubes in there for maintenance.  Tess gratefully accepts their help to look into it.  She tells them to be careful.  

Going back to the junction room, they aren't sure how to get down.  Marcus has the wand from Will and activates that.  

Whoosh!

With a splash, they find themselves at the bottom of the shaft off the junction room and drop into two feet of raw sewage and sludge.  Shyrrik loses his breakfast, last nights supper, and a few meals he was thinking about having.  Then the giant creature starts coming toward them.  

"Hurt," it says to them from a huge maw filled with teeth.  Tentacles with claws reach out and Drewgan leads the group into a small passage he found.  Dakxer, though, thinks he might be able to help the creature.  As it gets close, but not too close, he uses a heal spell on it.  It seems to be better but not enough.  Staring at this otyugh?  Dakxer can't figure it out.  It's all new to him and he isn't sure what they look like normally to know if this is off.  Shyrrik keeps puking.  

The tunnel leads to another cave with another otyugh but this one looks different to Drewgan.  Not as mottled and more yellow than green in its coloration.  When Dakxer doesn't come down the passage and the creature doesn't attack, the group slowly goes back.  Shyrrik can't take it anymore and climbs up the shaft, only to find that there is no way to leave.  However, as he still dry heaves, he resolves himself to stay up there rather than go back down.  

"Poop is life," says the creature, and scoops up some poop to give to Dakxer.  Dakxer declines as politely as he can.  "Poop is good, share poop."  

"Dakxer made a friend," comments Volhoric as the creature finds some new poop, freshly falling from a smaller pipe that leads to the cave, and again offers it to Dakxer.  When he refuses the refuse, the creature eats it.  The group holds it together at that but barely.  

Drewgan finds another passage that leads to another cavern with another creature.  Again, it looks different in the shades of green and brown that it has.  

"Friend," says the creature and drapes it's tentacle on Dakxer.  Dakxer just barely moves his face in time from the tentacle patting him and flinging poop into his mouth.  "Uh, yeah, friend," stammers Dakxer.  "Guys, maybe it's diseased?  But if so, I can't help it until I pray for that type of spell."  

"I say we go," echoes Shyrrik's voice from up the shaft.  

The group gathers around Marcus and he activates the wand the way Will did.  Necrotic energy explodes out, missing Shyrrik but damaging most of the others.  

"What happened?"  

"I don't know.  I said it as Will said it," replies Marcus.  Then Marcus trudges the sludge and tosses the wand down a passage.  Another blast of necrotic energy.  

"Ow, friend.  Poop is life," and the otyugh comes forward with more poop for Dakxen, who again avoids it going into his mouth.  The rest try and hide their smirks.  Well, not Volhoric.  

Dakxer uses his ring to go up then hands it through to Shyrrik.  Shyrrik dons it and while it pushes him through the wall, he catches edges that cut, scrape, and bruise him.  He will survive, though.  Soon, the others use the ring, with one more incident of scrapes, and then they are in the sewer.  With one final, "poop is life," their friend says good bye as they head up.  There is a rain barrel that they use to clean up as best they can.  They know they have to tell Tess and find out more.  

Tess is happy to see them and that they did not have to destroy anything or defend themselves.  They did see a cube but it didn't come near them.  They go look at the sewer plans and the caves weren't mentioned but did have pipes in them.  They ponder the one that looked diseased and if they should help it.  They also need to know more about the wand.  As they are about to talk to others, an acolyte of Tempus arrives to tell Tess that Marik has been treating more diseased people than normal.  When asked, it's all people in town, not out in the Outer Moors.  Tess says she will talk to Marik if they talk to Marko.

Raz goes to check on Will first and finds he has another wand!  Or the first one still?  And again, Will's memory is fuzzy.  Raz again commandeers the wand and tells them to avoid strangers.  Then they go to Marko's place.  

Marko recognizes that the wand was used as an implement probably by a wizard.  In a surprisingly quick move, he grabs a wand and grounds it, discharging another build up of energy.  Then apologizes for not asking but there wasn't time.  He says it's more probable that someone was watching them and doing spells instead of Will being able to do magic but he will check on that.  He will also try and find out more about the wand.  To make things better, well, worse actually, Marko says there is a demon to disease because of course there is.  It could also be Talona causing this but the demon tracks with the other things they have seen.  It's going to take some time to learn about the wands.  He does give the two diseased individuals a potion that cures them and the damage they had taken.  

They met up with Tess and she confirms that Marik has a dozen cases of Filth Fever on his hands.  Normally he sees one or two a year.  He thinks he can contain it unless it turns out to be more than he thought or worse.  He would let her know.  They update her on what Marko said.  

"Figures.  On top of everything else, some scouts didn't return and the ones I sent to look after say they saw flashes of light, orange and purple, in the sky in the moors.  Now I need to find someone to look into that," Tess remarks, not expecting a reply.  

"We can do that," says Raz, a bit too hurriedly and excitedly.  "That will give Marko time to look at the wand."  

"Um, okay, sure," stutters Tess, taken aback.  "Um, come to my office tomorrow morning and I can show you a map of where it was." 

The group agrees.

2500 xp

GM Notes

• I like finding new ways to look at old monsters and what to do with them. 
• "I like poop" is a great line.   
• Not as much action this time but it was an in between as I set up the next steps.  I think I hit the high points. 
• I also appreciate players willing to roll with the obvious hooks and go looking for the adventure.  That was very nice. 
• Tess' reaction is my own on the guys looking to get out of town!  Okay.  I will go with it.   
• Accents were blah.  I didn't differentiate between Tess and the Mayor well enough.  I need to work on that.   

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