AD&D Session 20: The Deaf Cult

Preparing to return to Argento to further investigate the lighthouse, Kai, Archie and Ellea receive welcome news of more adventurers arriving to assist. The paladin Sir Goldborn has returned from his period of grieving after the death of his apprentice, Frieda. The villagers can tell that Goldborn is a man of unquestionable morals and welcome him into the village. The same cannot be said of Kleptos the thief, who is stopped by the guards at the gates. After some suspicion, Kleptos manages to convince the guards to let him in after mentioning that he knows Kai, who is now well known in the village. The guards escort Kleptos to the harbour where the find Kai who promises to take responsibility for Kleptos’ actions. Accompanying Kleptos are his mercenaries Shaggy and four crossbowmen.

The whole group now consists of Kai with his five mercenaries, Archie, Ellea, Sir Goldborn and Kleptos with his five mercenaries. This whole group travel to the island with the ship captain Russel. The journey goes without event and they arrive at the same beach and pontoon as last adventure. The Sheriff’s boat has disappeared and in its place is a small rowing boat. The group ask is Russel would like to join them, but he says his adventuring days are behind him and that he will wait with the boat off the coast. The group then starts up the path from the beach, through the forest towards the lighthouse.

At the end of the path the group begins to see the silver lighthouse through the trees and there are six people sitting outside it around a fire. All six are wearing some strange helmet which is particularly thick over the ears. So far the people seem to have not noticed the group. Goldborn tries to get their attention by shouting while Archie enters the forest to try to hide. The people don’t respond to Goldborn’s shouts and continue at their activities. The group notice a lack of talking from the people and they seem to be communicating using signs and gestures. Moving further up the path, one of the people eventually notices the group and waves his arms and points to get the attention of the others. They quickly grab their weapons (three spears, one sword and one stick set on fire) and stand in a defensive formation. However, this is no problem for our druid Kai in his natural habitat, who casts the spell entangle. Vines and roots shoot out of the forest towards the six people, grabbing five of them and holding them to the ground. The sixth is grabbed around the ankle, but manages to shake it off and stumbles towards the entrance to the lighthouse. However, both Archie and Shaggy react quickly, rushing towards the person and grappling him to the floor. All six now captured, the group tie them up and secure them to a near by tree. Meanwhile, Kleptos stealthily checks their pockets finding a few coins and trinkets. Realising that the helmets are stopping the people from hearing them, they remove one of the peoples helmets. On their face they notice some markings, possibly tattoos, similar to the cult symbols found last week. As soon as the helmet is removed, the man starts shouting and screaming. Goldborn tries to calm the person down but to no avail. During the screaming the only words the group can understand are ‘you will not hurt mother!’. Not wanting the draw any more attention, the helmet is put back on the person and he quiets down.

The group carries on, opening the door to the lighthouse. They arrive in a circular room with a central column rising the the ceiling. A staircase begins to the left of the room circling around the outside of the building towards the top of the tower. To the right there is a small separate room blocked by a door. On the floor is a wooden hatch. There is also a table with some papers with cult like symbols and writing. The small room is coated in dust and the group find and open a chest inside. In here are six small items in the shape of thimbles. The group are confused by these items and start experimenting. Kleptos sniffs them and identifies them as being made of beeswax. Archie cuts one of them open and finds that it is solid. Then Archie has the idea of putting them in his ears. Ellea likes this idea and quickly does it. Like an inverse clap, this world suddenly becomes completely silent for her. The sounds of the wind and sea against the cliffs disappear. She can see the others talking but hears nothing. They conclude that there are magical earplugs that block all sound. Goldborn, Archie and Kai take one pair each and put them in before climbing the stairs to the top of the lighthouse.

At the top of the stairs they arrive at a landing with the beacon, enclosed in a glass case, in the middle. A roof covers the landing and there is a large nest on the other side of the beacon. Goldborn, Archie, Kie and Ellea make it up to the roof with Kleptos, Shaggy and a mercenary still climbing the stairs. The glass case is locked with a padlock and the nest has three eggs inside. Goldborn approaches the nest and bends down to pick up one o the eggs. As he does so, another of the creatures with the body/wings of a vulture and head/torso of a woman jumps down from the roof onto the landing. The creature has a bolt sticking out of its shoulder with the wound seemingly a couple of weeks old and scabbed over. It seems quite angry, but as it opens its mouth a beautiful song appears which begins to enchant any that can hear. Of course Goldborn, Archie and Kai have their newly acquired earplugs in and so hear none of this and begin to attack. Goldborn begins by throwing the egg he has in his hand towards the floor of the landing before swinging with his sword. Archie also charges in with his sword, while Kai summons insects. Ellea attempts to case a phantasmal force, but with the creatures song going through her head she fines that she cannot concentrate enough on the spell to make it work. Involuntarily, her legs begin walking her forward towards where the creature stands.

Kleptos, still on the stairs behind Shaggy and the mercenary, sees the others lose focus and can just hear a few notes of the song in the air. Still unaffected by it, some quick thinking leads him to grab shaggy and the mercenary and pull them back down the stairs. After stumbling down a few steps, they are away from the sound of the song and Shaggy and the mercenary look a bit confused and dazed. Kleptos hatches a plan to return downstairs to the captured people and take one of their helmets to block the sound of the song. However, he doesn’t want the person to start screaming again, so he removes one of them from a tree and takes him to the forest. Slitting the persons throat, he takes the helmet and goes running back to the top of the lighthouse.

Meanwhile, on the lighthouse roof, the creature is distracted by its egg being thrown to the floor. It leaps to the side towards the egg, which fortuitously also leads it to avoid Goldborn’s swing of his sword, and grabs the egg before it hits the ground, all while continuing to sing - very impressive. It then follows this up with some less impressive scratches at Goldborn which bounce ineffectively off his armour.  Goldborn and Archie follow up with some more melee strikes which take the creature down before Kai’s insects can even arrive. Ellea snaps out of her trance and is confused how she walked from one side of the landing to the other. With the creature still breathing on the floor they put it out of its misery. At this moment, Kleptos comes running from the top of the stairs, dagger raised in the air and shouting, wearing one of the strange helmets. Seeing the dead creature on the floor, he stops and looks around at the others who are laughing at his late arrival. Archie investigates the nest further and finds some human remains and a badge of the crest of Porto Oro.

The group take the body of the harpy to the bottom of the lighthouse and present it to their captives. There is a range of reactions with some clearly distraught, others more quietly upset and two looking more relieved. However, Goldborn in particular is confused and worried about the disappearance of one of the captives. Kleptos suggests that Shaggy and one of his mercenaries might look for the escaped captive, and quietly instructs them to dispose of the body. Goldborn doesn’t question why Kleptos has one of the captives strange helmets.

The group open the hatch at in the floor of the lighthouse and find a ladder leading down to a small room. The room seems to be a kitchen and has a door on the south wall. They find some gold as well as two red potions (which, after tasting, they conclude are more healing potions). They also find the diary of the caretaker which talks about some strange scratching noises coming from the wall of his bedroom. Going through the door they find this bedroom which has a messy bed, a wardrobe and a big hole in the western side of the room where the wall has collapsed. Kai looks in the back of the wardrobe trying to find Narnia, but instead finds a trick panel which contains a stash of 200gp. After a brief discussion, in which Goldborn argues that this gold clearly belongs to the caretaker and so taking it would be stealing, they decide to take the gold but promise to give it back to the caretaker if they find him.

Looking through the collapsed wall, they see a cliff with a narrow walk way winding downwards towards the south. Following the path they reach a small cave like room. There is a bridge like passage leading further south with two crude wooden statues of a human like form with wings either side of the entrance to the bridge. In the corner of the small room there is a body. As they approach the body they see some things crawling over the body. They realise that they are giant centipedes eating the human remains. There are 11 centipedes in total, but they are quite focussed on their meal and don’t notice the adventurers. Ellea casts phantasmal force, producing an illusion of a fire engulfing the body and the centipedes. The centipedes are all completely fooled by the illusion and react as if it is a real fire, shrivelling up and dying. Approaching the human body, there is not much left to see, but they do find a set of keys. Continuing over the bridge they arrive to another cave like room, but this one larger. The room is well lit and there are quite a few people walking about, doing tasks, each of them wearing one of the strange helmets. There are a number of different doors and exits from the room. Still unnoticed, the group decides they are too fatigued and few in number to confront this room and so retreat.

On the way out the group returns to the top of the lighthouse, using the key to open the class case and relight the beacon. They also collect their five prisoners, as well as the body of the harpy and return to the beach. After hailing Russel, they get back on the boat and head to Porto Oro.