At the end of Game 14, Reinhardt offered to send his man Stapleton with the party through the Shear Pass complex. Now the party and Stapleton set out.
As the characters navigate the rooms, there are signs of centuries of necaratu habitation in them: feces and urine, scraps of leather shed from their wings, and tufts of coarse black hair. The rooms smell like the necaratu and their feces.
After going through the maze the characters end in a cathedral room. At the far end is a locked wrought iron gate, ingrained with age-old dust. If you shine a light through the door, you can see an array of dozens of rectangular caskets/sarcophagi on the floor, receding into the distance past the range of your light. The caskets are in different styles - some coarsely cut gray stone, others carefully crafted metal like the gate, with elaborate decoration. Many caskets have effigies of their occupants lying in repose on top of the casket's lid, most don't. They all seem to have been opened.
As the party looked at the caskets through the iron gate, they heard a sudden scuffling behind them. Necaratu on the room's high ceiling - far above the range of the party's light - had dropped a gossamer noose around Stapleton's neck. When Stapleton noticed and tried to get away, he was pulled up toward the ceiling by the neck, where a bunch of necaratu flew onto him and started attacking. And, other necaratu flew down to attack the party.
The necaratu had these stats and the additional powers Flyby, Smothering Embrace, Blood Meal, and Unclean Injection.
The party defeated the necaratu but couldn't save Stapleton.
Kasskar opened the iron gate, and going through into the casket room, they could see the sarcophagi and effigies more closely. The effigies differed in style - some expressionless, some proud, some with expressions of horror; some had crowns, others plain robes, others warrior outfits. All of the caskets in this room had been opened, and the bodies had decayed.
Above their heads, they saw walkways connecting three exits high above, with no apparent way up. Four locked arcades lined the room. Kasskar unlocked one, and they found more caskets, this time unopened with unspoiled loot - regalia and jewelry:
In a second arcade, they found a stair to a second level. Navigating the second level, they came out of one of the doors on the high walkways they'd seen from below.
Going through the middle walkway door, they come to a larger room with many more tombs and a dome. This room again had a variety of sarcophagus and effigy types, but one sarcophagus, which sat directly under the dome surrounded by a lot of empty space, attracted their attention. Still, the party passed through the room without disturbing any of the caskets.
Continuing west, the eventually reached a massive cavern under the complex's tower. There, there saw a chasm in the ground with a huge flock of perched necaratu lining it. High above, a swarm of necaratu was flying in a vortex-like circle rallying to migrate into the crevice; an occasional necaratu came through a hole in the ceiling and joined the swarm. On the far side of the cavern, on the other side of the chasm, the party could see a stone stair leading up to a door - presumably their escape from the complex.
A stone bridge crossed the chasm. In the middle of the bridge, a necaratu - Damadara - crouched over the body of an Admiralty soldier, gnawing on it. When Damadara saw the party, he forgot about the body and let it slide off the bridge into the chasm.
Damadara challenged Ord to single combat with a mental command, and paralyzed the other party members. Drawing his weapon and going to the bridge, Ord saw:
When Ord steps up onto the bridge, he looks down briefly and sees the vacuum of space or nonexistence, matte black and featureless except for a few necaratu taking off the from ledge down into it. He can feel the lifeless cold coming up from the crevice. He has to roll against vertigo to avoid falling from the bridge.
Ord dominated Damadara, paralyzing him at times, but initially doing little damage. Ultimately Ord charged Damadara and sent him into the chasm with a blow. With Damadara defeated, Ord's sword Isra gained the new power Challenge to Single Combat.
Isra gains the power "Challenge to Single Combat." This is the same as the Paladin Divine Challenge power, except that the damage is 3 + [max of your ability modifiers] if the creature attacks someone else.
Now released, the party rushed across the bridge, up the stone stair. They escaped the complex through the door, into Renhannes. Finally arriving in Renhannes, they met the Kirsi, or fairies.
After they cross the bridge and exit the pass, they come onto the side of the mountain where they can see a Yosemite-like valley stretching out below them. They can see multiple tall waterfalls coming down from the sides of the valley, and Bruhl (their Kirsi guide) says that's Renhannes. If they follow the valley floor, they see quickly flying lights around them like fireflies - it's not clear if the fireflies are following the party or maybe vice-versa. They soon come to a spot surrounded by three tall, roaring waterfalls. There, to their surprise, the find an assembly of fantastic creatures of various types - the Kirsi court, or fairy court. The court has been told that the party is coming, and welcoming fairies bow to them as they make their way into the court.
At the court they find the two rulers, the male Alvar and the female Mirabel sitting relatively close but opposite. Alvar has a few attendants, but Mirabel is surrounded by a few dozen attendants. When they see the party they suddenly stand and come towards the party, bowing low. When they bow the rest of the court also bows to them. The court includes many types of fairies - human-like fairies like Bruhl, Alvar, and Mirabel; "browny" fairies that are more like garden gnomes; and tiny, flying, Tinkerbell-like fairies.
Alvar and Mirabel welcome the party gladly as if they know them. After bowing many times they look closely at them and their faces. They welcome Bruhl, saying they've seen him in Hollin many times, from afar, and now welcome him home. They hope that soon Bruhl will tell them all about the city - about machines, cemeteries and prisons, shiny things, work animals and the wonderful equipment they wear, how does alcohol work, and where is there a blond-haired child they could steal as a henchman?
Mirabel embraces Bruhl, but then pulls away still keeping her hand on his arm, and says that now they must know which is Aeris? Then the entire assembly crowds around Aeris while Alvar and Mirabel seem to study him with affection. They say they bow to him for freeing their friend Ivy from her 400-year imprisonment by the lich Ishild, and they say they hope Aeris will allow them to lavish some kindness on him.
The Kirsi also told the party explicitly that Bruhl was a changeling who they'd secretly exchanged with a human baby in Hollin many years ago.
After welcoming the party, the fairies asked why they had come to Renhannes. The party said that their friend Prosper was kidnapped; that Ord had come from his own country looking for Prosper; and that they'd been told the Kirsi could help find him.
The Kirsi were fascinated to hear that the party knew a Prosper, and that he'd been kidnapped. They explained that Prosper was their friend and protector during an age long past, when they were driven from Hollin, and had helped protect the Kirsi and Renhannes from outsiders. Recently Prosper's marks have begun to reappear and the Kirsi have searched as hard as they can for him. The Kirsi speculate that Prosper has returned to help them with their current problems.
In the next game we changed the king's name to Aurelien, or "golden," because my fairies mostly had names from nature.
