Dunmari Frontier - Session 100
Descent into Omi: in which the party scouts an abandoned merfolk city
Featuring: Seeker, Delwath, Kenzo, Wellby, Riswynn
In Taelgar: May 11, 1749 DR
On Earth: Tuesday May 28, 2024
Merfolk city of Omi
The Dunmar Fellowship scouts the underwater city of Omi, locates a portal, and formulates a plan to bypass its guardian.
19 days until Apollyon’s escape
Session Info
Summary
- The party descends underwater using magical means to breathe and enters a protective cocoon of the Sentient Ocean.
- They receive visions from the Sentient Ocean, revealing histories about themselves and the ocean.
- The party scouts the merfolk city of Omi, noting its features and guarded prisoners.
- Using a Wand of Detect Magic, they locate a portal beneath a central civic building patrolled by a tentacled guardian.
- The party devises a plan involving spells and distractions to enter the building stealthily.
- They find signs of occupation and nearly alert the guardian while scouting the building.
Timeline
- May 11, 1749 DR, morning: Pass through the Sentient Ocean guarding the Merfolk city of Omi. Scout the city. Find a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water. Plan how to get past the guardian.
Narrative
The session begins underwater, as the party begins to sink, the water growing darker and more surreal as the party descends below the surface, using their magical gills from Kazuro’s potion to breath (except Kenzo, who has his cloak of the mantra ray).
As the party passes into the protective cocoon of the Sentient Ocean, a barrier keeping the merfolk city of Omi, below, sealed off from the rest of the ocean, they are presented with a series of visions, telling something of the history of the Sentient Ocean, and probing the history of Delwath, Seeker, Kenzo, Riswynn, and Wellby. As the ocean and the party trade stories of their pasts, the party slowly passes through the barrier and emerges above Omi.
Floating in the protection of the Sentient Ocean above the city, the party takes stock. The city has a long seafloor crack drawing a strong current, central ruins of some kind of communal building amongst waving kelp forests, some collapsed coral buildings, and a strange pool with mysterious ripples. Merfolk are moving about, but the guards seem mostly to be watching inward, observing what seem to be groups of merfolk prisoners moving on the sea floor, under watch from warriors with tridents.
Seeker takes out his Wand of Detect Magic, which can point to the nearest open extraplanar portal, and the party moves slowly following its compass, staying within the protection of the Sentient Ocean. Swimming over the city, Wellby notes that the merfolk prisoners – under guard – seem to be harvesting kelp, although none can see what is happening at the bottom of the chasm. When the party reaches the space above the large civic building in the center of the city, the wand begins to slowly spin, indicating the portal is directly below. There is a strong current of extremely hot water flowing above the building, which presents some difficulties for reaching the portal, as do the guards.
Above the portal, the party scouts. Wellby finds a fish swimming in the kelp below, and speaks to it; from the fish the party learns that the inside of the large building is a bad place, where the fish avoids because it might become food. Seeker, casting clairvoyance, sees the room with the portal, a large open space patrolled by a giant with squid-like tentacles sprouting from its head. Kenzo, using his commune with nature ritual, senses malevolence from the dead kelp and bleached coral, identifies the portal, and detects a dormant, hungry entity below the strange pool of water.
The party comes up with a plan of attack: Riswynn will use her control water spell to still the current, allowing Kenzo, Delwath, and Wellby to swim through, invisible. Meanwhile, Seeker will create, and then animate, a giant stone crab, and use it to create a distraction to draw the Merfolk guards away from the rear entrance to the civic building. The plan works perfectly.
Delwath, Wellby, and Kenzo land on the slimy, matted roof of the building, but the kelp is too thick to easily cut. Instead, they stealthily approach the building, entering from the rear door after the guards leave to investigate the stone crab. Beginning to scout the building, the party finds signs of occupation: a rack of spears in the entrance room, and a large, frequently used meeting room further into the building.
There are several archways leading into the central room, which contains the portal and the tentacled guardian, a herald of Gazankoa. While swimming, Delwath makes a noise, and the creature notices. Although the group is invisible and remains undetected, the sound is enough to alert the herald and it begins to block the doors with hanging kelp, preventing undetected entry.
The session ends as the party makes a plan of attack.