After freeing themselves from the death trap beneath Parrot Island (and developing an even rosier opinion of Vanthus Vanderboren), the heroes were ready to use the clues they found on Penkus' bloated corpse to track down the nefarious Lotus Dragons Guild. The first of these leads pointed towards the Taxidermists' Guildhall in the Sunrise District.
Reggie and Erdos decided to go buy a big fish and take it to the guildhall to have it stuffed while they investigated the place (which they assumed to be a front of some kind for the Lotus Dragons). There they encountered a well-dressed fellow with a gold tooth who agreed to have the aquatic critter mounted for them. Meanwhile, Mez (Drogg's psi-crystal sidekick) sneaked into the back rooms trying to find something interesting and/or suspicious. When the two heroes left the premises, the taxidermist discovered Mez. Luckily the tiny construct was able to slip beneath a side door of the building and disappear into an alley before he was captured. Unfortunately, the espionage yielded little in the way of clues.
Later, the group split up and began exploring the various abandoned, boarded-up buildings around the vicinity of the guildhall. The taxidermy shop was one of the only structures that did not appear condemned surrounding a desolate court called Dead Dog Plaza. Drogg managed to find a hidden, locked trapdoor in the floor of one of the buildings, but he did not have much opportunity to investigate further since Thada had called out an alarm... her snooping had uncovered trouble!
Three thugs cornered her as she came out of one of the abandoned buildings (it does tend to raise quite a racket when she "opens" a door). She was doing quite well in fighting them off single-handedly for a while, but her friends arrived before the situation got too ugly. Erdos managed to bandage one of the wounded attackers before he bled to death and take the fellow prisoner. The heroes took him to the nearby church of Pelor. Kera, the canon of the church, called upon the divine power of The Sun Father to make it impossible to speak an untruth in the holy sanctuary. Then the party began to question the captured thug.
The interrogation revealed some useful bits of information including a description of the woman who was supposedly the head of the Lotus Dragons. They also found out that Vanthus indeed has been working with them and spending time now and then in the secret guild chambers beneath Dead Dog Plaza. When asked how to get into the secret chambers, the man told them, "down the well."
So back to the plaza the group went, and there they found the lonely, partially-crumbled old well that the thug had spoken of. The heroes secured a rope and descended into darkness. Down below they found a large cavern half-filled with water. But someone was watching them. Before they were able to swim for the nearby shore, they heard whistling through the air and realized that they were being fired upon!
Cosimo (the most able swimmer) reached the edge of the water first and tried to find refuge down a curving passage out of the cavern. But suddenly he was confronted by the next little trap of the well -- a ferocious crocodile. The heroes had to choose between being a pincushion for poisoned crossbow bolts or being lunch for a monstrous reptile. Soon the others made it out of the water and helped the swashbuckler dispatch the creature. Then they were able to escape the crossbows further down the passage. But the well had a third trap for them...
The cavern suddenly began to fill with water. Luckily, the prisoner was able to give them some instructions on how to escape the passage through a hidden panel about five feet up the wall. Quickly the companions found the secret door and exited the watery death pit. They then found themselves in a corridor of fitted stone blocks -- the halls of the Lotus Dragons' lair, no doubt. The corridor led to a circular domed chamber with a trapdoor in the ceiling. Climbing up the convenient ladder provided, Drogg realized that the trapdoor most likely opened into one of the old abandoned buildings around the plaza above.
After continuing their exploration, they discovered an observation room that had a one-way illusionary wall that looked out over the well cavern. Several more thugs were there and a bloody battle was fought. In the end, the heroes were victorious. The room was where the crossbows were being fired from and also where the mechanism was located for flooding the cavern. Clearly these were no ordinary thieves. This guild was powerful and well-funded to have such elaborate defenses. Funding which probably came from the Vanderboren family vault!
DM Notes: Very tough session. The players were quite clever throughout, however, and the results could have been much worse. The quote of the session had to be "go, go, celestial porpoise!"
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