Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Imperious, a cambion adolescent with a big sword
Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest
Events
The party woke up in darkness with no memory of where they were and how they got there. They quickly determined that they were locked within three iron cages, and that their gear was missing. Varro, in particular felt the loss of his magical sword--which he has a dependance on. Whoever had imprisoned them had missed a bottle of perfume in Johanna's pocket; she had a memory of Raenessa giving her the perfume for the upcoming dinner with Wyatt and his "friend."
Varro was able to bend the bars of his cage enough for him and Anastasia to slip out. However, he couldn't break the bars of the other two cages. A woman's voice came out of the darkness; it was somewhat familiar, but none of them could quite place her. She offered to fetch the keys for the cages for the price of a kiss. Varro very reluctantly agreed. After the kiss, a few moments passed and then they heard high-pitched screams. A few moments more and the mysterious woman in the darkness returned and pressed the key into Varro's hand.
Hugging the wall, the group found a room lit by torches. Four dead gobkin lay on the floor. At first, they assumed the woman had killed them, but on further examination it was determined that the gobkin had slain one another. The group took the gobkins' daggers and torches, then left to explore.
Following a curving circular tunnel, they found a cavern where twelve gobkin stood chanting around a large, thorny flower that was giving off a pulsating crimson light. A goat-headed fey creature stood watching, an axe in his hands. A sickly sweet smell hung in the air. The group decided they wanted no part of whatever was happening in that cavern and moved along without drawing attention to themselves.
As they continued along the curving corridor, they began to smell rotten meat. Anastasia had a sudden flashback of finding a murdered miner in an another cave, and then a cannister hissing with gas rolling into their midst. Now they had a sense of how they had been knocked out and had come to be imprisoned in the iron cages.
Johanna scouted ahead into the next cavern and saw that the floor was dominated by a shallow depression filled with syrupy viscera and other gore. At the center of the pool stood a totemic pillar made of bone and rotting meat. Several gobkin cavorted within the grotesque muck, gorging themselves on the rotten filth. She also spotted their weapons, armor, and other belongings leaning against the totem.
Varro and Dario entered the cavern and drew the gobkin out of the pool to the back of the cave wall, while the others snuck in to retrieve their equipment. The knife-wielding gobkin managed to score some pretty grievous wounds on Dario and Varro, but Imp flew their swords to them, which helped even the score. The group managed to slay the gobkins, but Varro and Dario both required medical attention after the fight.
Imp attempted to sneak into the next cavernous chamber they found, but was noticed by its occupants--not that it mattered, as they were all in the throes of madness anyway. A well surrounded by slick-looking cobblestones was encircled by three goat-headed statues. A cacophony of voices came from the depths of the well. A number of gobkin stared into the well, drooling mindlessly. One of them bashed its head over and over on the stones of the well. The party decided to avoid this chamber as well.
In the next chamber along the path, they saw that the gobkin had crafted an enclosed arena from wooden pallets and ladders stolen from the mines above. A platform stood overlooking the arena; atop the platform were six gobkin onlookers. Another gobkin in a strange conglomeration of hats was climbing up the ladder. Within the arena, two large, furry gobkin squared off against each other; they wore cobbled-together gladiator armor and wielded swords. Above the arena was hung a cage containing a scared-looking miner.
The group waited until after one of the furry gobkin had killed the other and the hat-wearing gobkin began to lower the cage into the arena before striking. An attempt to knock the gobkin from the platform failed, but good, old-fashioned violence carried the day. The miner was released from the cage and given a dagger for protection. He followed the party to a central chamber within the mine--where an enclosed stone stairway lead up to the silver mines above.
Inside the chamber was a stone ziggurat. Upon it was an altar, its cracked surface emitting a purple glow. Upon the altar lay a human man who was--inexplicably pregnant and quite possibly in the process of giving birth. Beside the altar stood a fey creature with moth wings and a scorpion tail; the fey was playing an eerie melody on a set of wooden pipes.
As he stared at the scene before him, Imp had a vague memory of his sister Embrelle telling him to be careful, but if things got weird "he knew what to do." If only he could remember that part!
Anastasia immediately shot the man on the altar from the base of the ziggurat. The dead man "gave birth" to an oily shadow monster. Imp attacked the shadow thing, wounding it, but it also latched onto him and crept up his arm, sapping his strength. Varro and Anastasia teamed up to kill the thing.
Meanwhile, Dario and Johanna joined forces to fight the fey creature, who drew its rapier and unleashed a flurry of deadly attacks. Johanna was badly wounded and went into a berserk rage. Dario was actually felled by the fey, but as he lay bleeding out on atop the ziggurat a strange voice offered him the "gift" of continued life. When he accepted, his blood turned black and--retracted into his body. Staggering forward, he impaled the fey with a sharp-tipped shadow tentacle that sprang from his palm. Johanna carved into the fey as well. Varro joined them and was able to pin the fey through its center like a mounted butterfly.
After a bit more recuperation, they looted the scene and escorted the miner out of the mines. At the mine's entrance, they were met by the Thorn--who had initially hired them to clear the mines of whatever was killing the miners. They informed her that a few gobkin still remained below, but that their ritual had been stopped--which is what she was most concerned with. It seems that the Thorn may have been employing them to thwart a rival cult dedicated to Krusikal. In any event, she paid them very well and said that she hoped they could do further business in the future.