#6 - Marksman Diplomacy

The PCs had the ship. It was theirs.

Problem was, they still had no way to control it. Sure, all opposition had been slain, and at least one opponent had evidently jumped ship somehow. And with the next day dawning, control of the ship was a problem yet to be solved. For the time being, the Sky Talon didn't look like it would fly into a mountain face, but one never knew....

To appease the restless displacer beasts trapped in the hold, Xoma chopped up one of the dead cultists and Halbazar, dangling fearlessly from a rope, pushed limbs through one of the portholes in the stern-side hull. This seemed to appease them for now.

A thorough search of the airship yielded a hidden chest which contained, aside from some coins and potions, a canister similar to the one that had incapacitated them the night before in the Bookmark Inn (courtesy of Jag, the bardic gnome). Which gave them a new plan: gas the displacer beasts with the same "knock-out juice." In another daring feat, Halbazar was dangled over the edge with a series of ropes and managed to first close the open hatch and squeeze the canister  through the cargo hull porthole.

It worked. The displacer cats were out cold, along with the caged Aundairian nobleman who was believed to be the owner of the Sky Talon. Before succumbing to the vapors, he called out, "Please do not harm the beasts!"

But by this time a new visitor had appeared on the horizon, and he shortly closed the distance: A heavily-armored half-orc riding a wyvern. Older and more grizzled-looking than Rendar, he also looked competent and dangerous with both his composite bow, sword, and wicked-looking maul. The wyvern perched above the wheelhouse and the half-orc parleyed with Rendar and Cyzicus. Seeming amused by their success in taking the ship, he then demanded "the emperor's key" and said that if they gave it up, there would be no more trouble.

Above, Cyzicus, shifter of the Eldeen, seemed not to accept this trade and decided on a new diplomatic tact: an arrow. It sank into the shoulder of the man's banded mail, but the half-orc only let out a sigh. "I guess this does have to get messy," he growled and attacked.

The fight was brief, and was largely one-sided. The wyvern failed to grasp Cyzicus in its claws and the half-orc himself didn't manage to feather anyone with his own bow. The wyvern was worn down with crossbow bolts, arrows, and spells, and so the rider and his beast retreated. But not before the "Infernal" Halbazar used a grease spell and made the half-orc drop his bow to the ground hundreds of feet below.


In the hold, Cypher and Doongul pushed into the cargo hold and dragged the loose but unconscious displacer beast back into its cage. Sealing up the door would be another matter to deal with.


Wenrick, still in the wheelhouse, pointed the PCs out to what appeared to be a worked cave entrance jutting out on a wide rocky shelf in the the mountain, just to the north. According to the maps, it was the Deep Mine, some sort of permanent mining operation affiliated with House Kundarak.

#5 - Melee Amidships (Part 2)

The struggle to take the Sky Talon on the upper deck was brutal. Both Halbazar and Magnus were knocked out early in the fight, both done in with the thrashing tentacles of the pale eyeless horror known as a dolgaunt. Efforts to simply shove the creature over the side, to plummet into the darkness, proved fruitless—it was much too nimble and had an advantageous number of limbs.

The bald cult leader, with his scabrous armor and disturbing necklace of tongues, appeared and used magic to keep his enemies from attacking him—a trick that seriously irked Rendar d'Tharashk. Calling blessings upon his allies, and even healing the dolgaunt at one point, he proved to be a nuisance. Meanwhile, two crossbow-wielding cult warriors continued to harry the PCs.

With the constant help of Xoma, the drow making good use of his Xen'drik boomerang, they eventually outlasted their foes. Cypher occupied one warrior, while Doongul allowed his armor (and sometimes his flesh) to be pin-cushioned with crossbow bolts. Rendar, Cyzicus, and Doongul stormed into the wheelhouse to take out the cult leader once and for all. The half-elf from the Bookmark Inn was there, at the helm, but he soon fled and left the Dragon Below priest to fend for himself.

In short order, (1) the cultist was slain, (2) the PCs' weapons were recovered, (3) some new treasure was found, (4) Doongul revived his two fallen comrades, and (5) the Lyrandar half-elf pilot, after initially escaping elsewhere on the ship, was found dead with his throat stabbed. Evidently, there was yet one more enemy lurking about the ship. Or perhaps not. There was evidence that something had been removed from a storage room and this missing crewman had managed to free one of the displacer beasts in the hold.

But the PCs now had "control," such as it was, of the Sky Talon. Their captors were slain. But weren't there supposed to be more of them? Xoma was fairly sure he'd seen more soldiers than this handful when the airship first descended from the docking tower in Korranberg.

Meanwhile, Cyzicus attempted to communicate with the bound fire elemental by taking the wheel, seeing if he could direct the ship in a more favorable direction (it was still northbound). He managed some minimal success—but only enough to ensure the airship wouldn't crash into the mountain before morning.

Regardless, it was time to rest up and see about dealing with the displacer beasts, which the gnome captives managed to barricade into the cargo.

#4 - Melee Amidships (Part 1)

After the previous fight, the PCs spent some time looking around on the lower deck, which they now had a free run of (maybe?) since Magnus broke open a door. Meanwhile, Rendar d'Tharashk had already used his Mark of Finding to locate one of his weapons: straight up above on one of the decks above.

Halbazar chose this moment to try speaking with the lone human prisoner, deciding he must be Aundairian, aristocratic, and mentally unhinged. He deduced that the airship itself belonged to this man, and was named the Sky Talon. He was also able to coax out the rest of the man's "rhyme":

While the Kingly Eye glares

And the Sentinel hides

Blood from the secret folk

Of the Elder Court is given

Five the count of three

And with the emperor's key offered

The first of the seven opens

The PCs guessed that the Kingly Eye referred to Nymm, the yellow moon (that was even now full in the sky), and that the Sentinel referred to Olarune (which they did not see). Cypher knew that the "secret folk" probably referred to gnomes.


Wenrick, his tongue removed by the cultists and deeply anguished, was yet able to communicate—with Doongul's help—with gestures and written words. The PCs asked some questions about what he saw above. He conveyed that whether the amulet, the "emperor's key" had any true power or not, what mattered was that the cultists believed it was vital in some prophecy. He recommend that the PCs used the decoy amulet that Halbazar had swiped from the Bookmark Inn.


While exploring the lower deck, the PCs also discovered crew-members' cabins (empty), storage rooms (half empty), a magically warded door that Cypher believed to be the elemental binding room for the ship, and a swiveling ballista-and-seat at the bow side of the cargo deck. But it wasn't long before conflict was renewed as a canister of sleep gas was tossed down another flight of stairs. The PCs brought the battle up to the middle deck. Although still wounded from their trials, they had not found the cultists to be overwhelming in number; while certainly dangerous, the warriors were no match for them. Either their captors were not numerous, or simply not powerful enough to simply storm down the stairs and quell the defiance coming up from the cargo hold.


But in the concealing smoke of another alchemical trick, Magnus was the first to face off against another aberrant creature: a dolgaunt! Pale-skinned, hairless, eyeless, its body covered with writhing celia and a pair of massive tentacles at the shoulder, the dolgaunt moved silently, swiftly, and gracefully. It pummeled both Magnus and Halbazar with both hands and tentacles before slipping away....


Resting only briefly in the "safety" of one of the empty passenger cabins on the middle deck of the ship, the PCs then readied themselves for a final fight against their captors. Interrupted by a dolgrim who demanded "the key," they slew the monster, then split into three groups. It was time to ventured at last to the top deck for a possible final showdown with the men who shanghaied them on this night sky voyage....

#3 - Adrift and Adjucated

Unquestionably resourceful, the PCs freed themselves from their bonds in relatively short order. Perhaps in part due to the sloppy work of their captors, they were not watched over, and plenty of their gear was still with them (though not weapons). Still, they'd been spared from death—why? Did their captors have plans for them, or were they mere curiosities? Wild cards?

In one corner of the hold, they saw a smaller cage housed a disheveled young human in fine but shredded clothing. He seemed in a constant trance, muttering to himself. Some words they could make out:

While the Kingly Eye glares

And the Sentinel hides

Theorizing that these were referring to some of Eberron's moons, Cyzicus speculated that the man might be a lycanthrope in human form.

Meanwhile, the drow, Xoma, clung to the outside of the airship a mere fifteen feet from a porthole. One he could perhaps squeeze through if he could reach and open it. Secured by rope to the fin-like protrusion he'd first latched onto, the black-skinned stowaway attempted to climb to the window....

The PCs idled for a time, speaking only a little, assessing their confinement and hoping to recover enough strength for another, and surely inevitable fight. Halfway through their rest, three men came down one of the two flights of stairs: two scarred warriors, a human and a dwarf, and a strange, bald-headed man in disturbing, scabrous armor. His attitude was smug and he spoke only a few vague words to the PCs before ordering his men to remove the gnome Wenrick from his cage.

One of many symbols of the Dragon Below.

Indignant, Wenrick looked the warriors up and down then spoke to the PCs quickly—first in the Elven tongue (which none of them understood) then the Goblin (which some could), hoping his captors wouldn't understand. "They serve the Dragon Below," he said with disgust.

The Dragon Below. The name given to the mythic dragon Khyber, and thereby the entire underworld beneath Eberron. Followers of the Dragon Below run the spectrum from crazed hermits who worship lone monsters from the depths to organized cults who serve any of a number of powerful fiends. But it's generally accepted that all are malevolent, willing to kill or destroy all who walk under the sun.

"They must not get emperor's key!" Wenrick hissed as the cultists dragged him away. They shook him to silence him, but still he spoke in Goblin: "If  you save my people, the Trust will reward you!"

Then he was gone.

A displacer beast, as depicted in 2nd Edition.

Angry and determined to escape, the PCs finished their rest and then strategized. In the end it came down to brute strength: Magnus, the Seren barbarian, merely wrenched open the locked iron door. Cyzicus, in turn, managed to break open the other captors' cage to free them. Many of the gnomes were still unconscious from the poisonous fumes, but the trio of humans and the goblin Dursha were conscious.

Xoma finally succeeded in reaching the porthole, even succeeding in cracking the glass, but it was Cyzicus who discovered the drow and helped him inside. The defiant heroes of the Bookmark Inn were now reunited. And the drow still had his weapons. Xoma also confirmed for them that they were indeed in the hold of an airship, flying northward alongside the Seawall Mountains.

In another couple of cages, the PCs discovered that a pair of large black cats had been chained inside. Thing, six-legged, sleek, and sporting a pair of thorny tentacles, these were displacer beasts—deadly, fey predators with illusionary powers of misdirection. These two merely looked quietly back at them, issuing only low growls when they ventured close to the bars.

While the PCs debated their next move—and perhaps because of the noise they'd made breaking out of their cages—one of the doors at the top of the stairs opened. Readying for the inevitable fight, the PCs moved into position. Halbazar used a spell to grease the bottom of one flight of the steps, just in time for a pair of scarred human soldiers to come down...one immediately slipped, and the warriors of the party fell upon them. From the other flight of stairs came a dwarf and a pair of hideous, gibbering, double-mouthed monsters with four arms, pallid gray skin, and fearless motion. Aberrations on the airship!

A face only a dolgrim mother could love.

The ranger Cyzicus knew them by name, though most had never heard of such things. They were dolgrims, mutants of the Dragon Below, aberrations allegedly fashioned from warped goblin flesh. With spells, stolen weapons, and even a fire-infused mace (courtesy of Cypher's artifice), the enemies were all eventually slain—but not before Cyzicus fell to one of the dolgrim's morningstars. The cleric Doongul intervened, stabilizing the shifter with a silent prayer.

The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, and the PCs saw that Wenrick had been tossed down the stairs toward them, relinquished from the captors' immediate custody. The aging gnome had clearly been beaten, and now clutched at his face, blood leaking between his fingers. He was alive, but anguished. And his tongue had been torn out.

#2 - Battered and Bound

The symbol of Onatar, the
Sovereign of Forge and Flame.

• The seventh adventurer, the middle-aged dwarven priest Doongul was just returning from a sojourn to the city's temple of Onatar. Bearing a peg leg, and a very fine warhammer, he was returning to the inn to join his travel companion, Magnus.

Outside the Bookmark Inn, an older human pushed past Doongul. Rudely. Doongul then went inside, only to find a room in chaos: A battle had erupted between the human mercenaries and the human strangers! Spells and illusions were cast, chairs were broken, hammers were swung, and the four men were quickly defeated. Amid the chaos, Halbazar used a spell of invisibility and some unseen acrobatics to break the glass of the display case and pocket the bronze necklace. While Cypher tended to the spellbound Wenrick and the whimpering goblin Dursha, the others worked to free their weapons from the webbed-up rack. Cyzicus began to interrogate the only conscious mercenary.

Then the lyre-playing gnome minstrel, Jag, who'd been quietly observing from his corner, introduced a new development just as things started to calm down. With an apologetic but irritated sigh, Jag dropped a ceramic jug of some kind in the center of the room. From admidst the broken shards, a poisonous vapor expanded outward across the room like a spell. The PCs struggled to escape, only to find out that both the front door and every window had been webbed. Worse, even the stairwell up to the second floor had been filled with sticky strands.

Magnus, Halbazar, Doongul, Cyzicus, and Xoma all managed to break through one window, burning away the webs with spellfire, and even jumped through. But more mercenaries awaited outside, led by the elder human in the cloak. Crossbow bolts and deadly spells were unleashed—and the PCs put up a valiant fight with spells and attacks of their own, even going so far as wounding the old man and killing one of the mercenaries with divine magic. But they were still outnumbered and outmatched. One by one, they fell. None were killed, but all were defeated.

All but one. Only the drow elf, Xoma, managed to escape into the night. Using a potion of flying—one of the prized possessions he'd carried since leaving Xen'drik—he easily eluded pursuit and rose up into the night, his ebon-black skin camouflaged against the night.

An airship from the nearby Lyrandar docking tower descended to the park across from the Bookmark Inn, and more mercenaries—or whoever they were—descended. No help came. No opposition from any Korranberg watchmen. Just an organized round-up of all victims in a quiet and darker corner of the city. The sleepy little inn had been unprepared for this strange assault. And most of its occupants had not been killed, merely subdued. The PCs were taken aboard the airship, alive, along with all the gnomes and even a trio of humans from inside the inn.

Still wounded, Xoma was inclined to simply fly off and seek healing at the Jorasco enclave elsewhere in the city. But when the airship began to rise up again, he knew he had only moments to decide. The drow wizard flew up and latched onto one of the back-flung fins of the unknown airship. He bound himself there with rope, knowing the effects of his fly potion would eventually expire. With Nymm, the pale yellow moon, full overhead and the Ring of Siberys visible on the southern skyline, Xoma bundled up and waited. His fate was now affixed to this ship and its villainous crew.

Inside the cargo hold of the airship, the rest of the PCs eventually awoke, battered, caged, bound, stripped of weapons and much of their gear—and angry. Seeing the other survivors from the Bookmark Inn—about ten gnomes and three humans— locked up in cages across the hold, they worked to free themselves. The human Halbazar and the warforged Cypher freed the rest in short order. But they were still weakened, without weapons, and without many answers.

Wenrick, the proprietor of the inn, was conscious. He whispered across the way, telling them that they (their captors) now had "the emperor's key"—the bronze Dhakaani necklace. Evidently the one in the display case, the one that had been swiped by Halbazar, had been a decoy. The real one, according to Wenrick, the gnome had worn around his neck.

According to the old proprietor, the necklace was referred to in several prophecies. To do what, he couldn't say. He also said that they had "creatures" with them. Aberrations.