Adventure Log: The Blood Enclave

Recovering from the events of the encounter at Hag Hook, Goodwin thanks the party for helping to put Renda to rest by killing Renda/Jurga and informs the party that he intends to head south in order to take care of some additional business.

At Pappy Shankweed’s house, Pappy is ill adjusting to his new physical form as a kobold, with Sissy Shankweed moving back in to assist him, and accepting money from Porkins.

Porkins and Pat, via the Hear Rings, receive a surprise message from The Engineer in Tyn, who admits to being a long-time Dominion agent and spying on the party, but only occasionally via a special ‘Auditorium’ he has constructed for the purpose in the Citadel. He warns the party that he has been found out, that he has uncovered plots including the location of the Ivory Cudgel in the Shearwall Mountains, and the party hears him captured by Tyrese guards.

Deen, the Constable of Peckton and Porkin’s friend, arrives to inform Porkins that the Vineyard has been accepting Dominion marines as refugees and feeding them, but that a delegation is arriving from Tyn to take them away. Deen is conflicted as the halflings have no right to keep the marines and cannot feed them, but don’t want to hand them over it they will be tortured.

The delegation, led by Livinia Hillibrand, arrives and, with the party acting as negotiators, guarantees the Dominion marines will be treated safely at the capital. Deen hands them over, and the party escorts the delegation back to Tyn, as Livinia informs the party that the young Duke (who has come of age and accepted full control of the throne in the party’s abscence) wishes to question them regarding the invasion fleet.

The trip on the road is largely uneventful, with the delegation staying at waypoints and inns, and picking up more Dominion stragglers. At one point, the head chef at a Fort where the delegation is staying appears upset that her young son never returned from hunting. The party searches for the boy and gets a lead that he may have met a young girl for a tryst, but does not find him and eventually rejoins the delegation.

At Tyn, skeptical of the Duke’s motives, the party sends Peloquin to negotiate with the Duke. The Duke and his advisors treat Peloquin well but confine him to diplomatic apartments.

The party arrives as requested to parlay with the young Duke, who congratulates them on their successes, including the battle at Hag Hook, and questions them about the freak storm, the Dominion Fleet, and the Coral Crown. The party feins ignorance on most counts and asks to speak to the Engineer. The Duke agrees under the pretense that they may be able to get more information from the old man and allows the party into the highly protected dungeons under the Citadel, closed for 100 years but re-opened and recently expanded to accomodate Dominion prisoners.

The party, escorted by Livinia Hillibrand and Captain Stenwick, descend to the prisons via an elevator system and are greated by Warden Prinxler, who escorts them to an interrogation room where he will bring the Engineer. The room however is a trap, with strange gas that causes some of the party to attack each other, while guards enter the room with spears. In close combat, the guards are revealed to be Vampire Spawn.

In a series of close quarter combat, including an encounter where Livinia is revealed to be a Panallengan when her head separates from her body, attacking Porkins with her teeth and visceral lungs and organs, the party manages to fight off attacks by vampires, including Prinxler himself, several spawn, and an invisible vampire.

Exploring the tunnels, the party encounters several prisoners including a halfling named Penfold

The party eventually battles their way to Prinxler’s room where they discover a coffin after battling a cloaker and a Pat replicant from a mirror of opposition. Beyong the broken mirror, the party is able to kill Prinxler and destroy his coffin.

In deeper tunnels the party uses an invisibility purge to identify the invisible vampire sorceress who leads them on a chase through a room where Dominion sailors are being turned into Vampire spawn. With the help of an improsoned Tyrese librarian with expertise on vampires, the party is able to kill the vampiress Zija but Stenwick is killed by a fireball in the process.

After this encounter, an ancient, bald vampire with pointy ears and long fingernails appears and identifies himself as Phagius Rottli, claiming to be the uncle of the Baron from Verma. The party proceeds through tunnels, finding more Dominion prisoner allies and eventually a torture room with the Engineer, who confirms that Golden Boy escaped a similar trap, but Livinia is being held in the dungeons and is “the key”. Phagius attacks, summoning a locust swarm which eats the flesh off of the Engineer. Porkins unleashes a decanter of endless water against the locusts which visibly frightens Phagius. Turning the decanter onto Phagius seems to cause the vampyre significant damage, so Clinton summons water over the creature which further damages them. Phagius escapes as a bat swarm, trapping the party in the torture room while he sucks the life force from Dominion soldiers for strength.

The party, escaping the torture room, follows Phagius to a circular path leading upwards around a chimney like structure with holes in it. Phagius appears from the structure, summoning undead spawn to distract the party while he attacks using hit and run tactics, regaining strength when the party damages him. The party finds and rescued Livinia from this path, and attempts to proceed upward to escape, with Phagius inexorably following and attacking them. Trapped at a portcullis in front of heavy double doors, Pat gives Livinia the Golden Shield for protection, which magically activates in her possession and shines with the light of a bright sun onto Phagius, who is seemingly instantly destroyed before the shield returns to normal.

Past the portcullis, the party reaches a last portcullis into an open courtyard, where Tyrese soldiers are drilling under the direction of Kile the Unkillable, who orders the portcullis open to allow the party to escape.