Session 7

The Siri Desert
The adventurers arrived at the hut of Azus Khurin, outside of the walled City of Sardis. The aged potion-maker was expecting the travelers, having received word from his former protege that they were coming. He explained to them a bit about the history and current state of the city: When Azus was a young boy, he lived in the city with his family - at that time, it was a bustling oasis in the desert. However, about 60 years ago, a member of the cult of Zehir arrived and somehow, inexplicably, gained power. Sardis City was slowly lost to darkness. Azus fled the city before the worst of its problems, but stayed close to keep an eye on things and resume working on his potions. Tomas left the desert around the time the wall was being built. Since the wall went up, Azus has only been able to guess what has been happening within, but fears it isn't good. He cautioned that the group would not be allowed entry into Sardis through the main entrance, but told them of a weak spot in the wall that they could take advantage of, and enter the city unnoticed. He hoped they would be able to investigate the goings-on inside the city wall, and report back to him with their findings. Lady Caraga, feeling ill from the journey, decided to stay with Azus while the others explored the city, and the potion-maker set to work on a concoction to cure her. The rest of the group set off to exploit the weak spot in the Sardis City wall.



Taargus was able to vault the wall without drawing attention to himself, but the rest of the group were not stealthy enough to avoid being heard by guards. Fausto humiliated and subsequently defeated one after removing his pants, and Twitch was able to convince the other that the group had clearance to be in the city. However, that guard alerted his commander to the intruders, and three snaketongue initiates came by to investigate. Fortunately, they were easily dispatched, and the trespassers found their way inside the Sardis City wall. Once inside, they kept to the shadows, noticing that even in the daytime the city seemed to be shrouded in darkness. The buildings all seemed to be covered in serpentine decor, and most of the inhabitants seen had some minor but noticeable reptilian characteristics. They continued to investigate in secret, and as the sun fell, they found themselves watching as the entire town gathered outside of the giant Temple of Zehir for a religious ceremony.

The crowd grew excited as the head cultist, their leader, exited the temple, accompanied by a yuan-ti. He addressed the crowd: "My friends, we are fortunate today to be joined by a malison, a yuan-ti representative. Today we will honor Zehir and our guest with a sacrifice obtained by one of our most celebrated snaketongue assassins." At this point, the cult leader and the giant snake-creature approached an altar, where they were met by a man dragging out a blindfolded, restrained woman. The assassin led his victim to the altar and proceeded to stab her in the heart with a poisoned dagger while the crowd cheered. The yuan-ti, seeming satisfied, then spoke to the citizens: "Zehir accepts your sacrifice. I have come to select initiates to accompany me back to my land to be slaves for my people. Return to your homes and offer sacrifices to Zehir that you may be fortunate enough to be selected." The crowd then began to dissipate, seemingly happy about this news; the yuan-ti, head cultists, and assassin brought the sacrifice's body into the temple.

Wasting no time, the adventurers headed to the temple, determined to take down the cultist in charge. They split up, with Fausto and Twitch entering the temple through the front, while Taargus and Cora decided to try the side door. Fausto and Twitch made their way inside the high-ceilinged building without a problem, and were just able to see the cultists exit into a room on the left. They explored the main floor of the temple, noticing a stone altar and a statue of Zehir front and center. Fausto surmised that the statue might not have been bolted to the floor. He and Twitch spent some time attempting to push the statue, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Taargus smashed through the locked wooden side door, and he and Cora entered a room lined with serpent tanks. Taargus noticed a small statuette in one of the tanks and reached in to grab it, but received only a snake bite instead. After several tries (and several bites), Taargus gave up and Twitch, who had been watching the scene from the main temple room, came over to test his luck. He was able to grab the statue without getting bitten in one try.

Taargus, Twitch, and Cora then met up with Fausto in the main room of the temple. Fausto and Cora were the first to follow the cultists into the side room, which contained a spiral staircase going down. Taargus stayed in the temple and attempted to move the statue. Once down the stairs, Fausto and Cora found themselves in a hallway with two doors on the right (one locked, one unlocked), and one door straight ahead. Again, they decided to split up; Fausto took the open door to the right, and Cora went to the room in front of her.

The room Fausto entered at first seemed suspiciously empty. However, upon stepping foot inside, the floor fell out from under him, and he found himself in a pit full of snakes. Before he could be harmed by the snakes, he made use of his lightning-quick reflexes and acrobatic ability and flipped out of the pit. He cautiously entered the next room, staying in the shadows to avoid being seen. Luckily, there were not any cultists in the potion-making workshop. Looking around the room, Fausto noticed a cauldron in the center of the room, and shelves and workbenches filled with various potions. He found 90gp in the cauldron, and grabbed two of the mysterious potions from the shelves to bring back to Azus to identify.

Meanwhile, Cora had entered a snake breeding nursery, full of tanks of young snakes. Guarding the snakes, however, was a giant crushgrip constrictor, which did not appear to like being disturbed. Cora began to fight, but the giant snake soon grabbed her up and began to squeeze. Twitch arrived just in time to even the odds, and he was able to get Cora free, though not unscathed. He used his healing abilities to patch Cora up long enough for them to defeat the serpent and move on.

By this time, Taargus had given up on the statue and made his way downstairs to join the group. He met up with Fausto, who had silently entered a weapon storage area where two cultists were waiting. The cultists were taken down easily, before they even realized anyone else was in the room with them. Twitch and Cora passed through a room of empty holding cells and met up with the rest of their group. Together, they entered the large room in the middle of the temple basement, and saw the cult leader and the assassin throwing the body of the sacrifice onto a large pile of other bodies. The fact that the entire room was full of torture devices did not escape their notice. When the cult leader saw them, he immediately turned and fled out the back entrance. The assassin, however, stayed to fight. He was quickly bested by the group, but stopped them before they dealt their final blow.

The assassin identified himself as Samuel Crow. "If you kill me," he threatened, "you'll never be able to find my leader, Zane!" Fausto agreed not to kill him, but demanded he turn over his clothes and weapons. The group then interrogated the half-naked, unarmed assassin. Samuel explained that Zane had created a poison that allowed him to force his will on the townspeople and had added it to the town's water supply. He said that the only way to end the brainwashing was to kill Zane and create an antidote to put in the water. He also told the group that there was a secret tunnel underneath the statue of Zehir in the temple - and that this was likely where Zane had fled to. True to their word (though after much debate), the group spared Samuel's life and let him go free. A poison maker like the cult-leader, Samuel promised the group he would make them poisons to repay them for their kindness. He gave them a silver necklace as a token of his appreciation, and left.

The group then returned to the main floor of the temple and searched the statue of Zehir until they found a lever which, once pulled, caused the statue to rotate, revealing a stone staircase down into an underground tunnel. Taargus went into the right branch of the tunnel, where he waded through a shallow lake of water and found human remains. He was able to salvage an amulet of health before wading back to assist Twitch, who, after taking the left wing of the tunnel, had encountered a flame snake. Twitch, slightly singed, left Taargus to finish off the snake as he tried to find a place to heal; he investigated an abandoned fire pit, but soon ran into the two snaketongue initiates who had left it behind. Having killed the flame snake, Taargus met back up with Twitch - the two quickly eliminated the cultists. Meanwhile, Cora and Fausto and deftly navigated a corridor slick with cave slime, and had entered the lair of a crushgrip constrictor. Cora again had the misfortune of being constricted by the snake, but it proved no match for the two rangers. Taargus and Twitch clumsily made their way through the slime, and the group reunited and exited the tunnel system.

They found themselves above ground once again, in the ruins of a former yuan-ti monument. They maneuvered through the rubble to find Zane awaiting them. Though a formidable opponent, Zane was outnumbered and outmatched. Fausto recovered magic leather armor from the fallen foe, and the victors headed back to Azus to inform him of what had occurred. Back in Azus' hut, they told him of the poisoned water supply, and wondered if he could craft a potion that would counteract it. At this point, they also revealed to him the reason they traveled to the Siri Desert in the first place - the desert rose. Azus examined the yellow flower wonder, and determined it was exactly the ingredient he needed to undo the poison. "The enchantment on this flower is wondrous - it's as if it were perfectly designed to negate Zane's poison!" he declared.

Soon, the antidote was completed, and the group took it down to the pond in the center of Sardis City. They poured the solution into the sludgy green water, and almost immediately it was transformed into water that was clean and clear. A piece of metal floated to the surface, and they fished it out, agreeing that it seemed to match the piece of metal they had found in Mount Mali. Around them, the city began to return to its once great state.

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