The Brother I Didn’t Know

Continuing on from last week, we begin our exploration of the city of Neruzavin in our game of Strange Aeons. There is a fight, and then we encounter some angels which seem to know more about us than we do about them. In particular, they know all about me.

15th Gozran, Fireday

The following morning we headed into the ruins of the city of Neruzavin, deciding to keep to the street level since there seems to be some activity higher up – a group of rift drakes fighting over the body of some sort of giant centipede creature can be seen up amongst the towers. Tezcatili is interested in going in to find its body, and mentions that there are places below the city which are probably full of unpleasant things. It can’t remember exactly where it’s body was left, and even if it could, it has probably been moved.

Though there seems to be a decided lack of entrances to the buildings at ground level, not everything here flies. There are tracks on the ground which Gregor is able to follow, though not accurately identify. There are some large clawed quadrupeds, as well as humanoid footprints that look a bit on the bony side.

We soon discovered what the quadrupeds were when several of them appear from amongst the ruins. They had the decaying bodies of lions, and the upper torsos of women, covered in a sort of fungus that almost looked like armour. They were lamia, though long since dead. We weren’t certain whether to treat them as friendly or enemies, but they soon made their intentions clear and we were forced to kill them.

On ‘death’, they exploded into a cloud of spores, which wasn’t at all pleasant, but fortunately no-one got infected. The undead lamia were not the only things here – a group of skeletons wielding crossbows also attacked us, springing out from the rubble. Finally there was a shaking of the ground as a colossal centipede burst from beneath things, positioned directly between Ray and Sheena. Ray was invisible at this point though, so as the centipede moved towards Sheena he stabbed it in the back several times, killing it.

Player’s Notes: I think the titan centipede was meant to be a bit more of a threat, and it did seem somewhat dangerous when it first appeared. Ray managed to kill it in a single round, un-delaying when it appeared, then hitting it with attacks of opportunity as it tried to move away. Sneak attacks from an invisible character can be deadly, and it died before it could do anything.

We decided not to search the bodies of the fungus infected creatures too closely, and headed further into the city towards the great basalt tower that we had spotted from outside. On approach, we saw that unlike the other towers, this one had a set of huge double doors at the ground. Standing either side of the doors were a pair of Archons.

It is good to see you sibling, the great library of harmonious scripture has been poorer without your presence.

–The Archons’ greeting

As we approach, they great their brother – which confuses us. They have heard of a vile book that has escaped, and they want the book to be disposed of in the “heresy ovens”. We ask them about the doors – but they deny that any doors exist, or at least that they can’t see them.

After some discussion they say that I am their brother – that a part of the keeper of the library in Katheer is in my head. With my sister already inhabiting it part of the time, I’m surprised that there’s room. When I possessed the angel just before it died, maybe something was left behind inside me. Given that the angel was fallen, and apparently insane, this is somewhat concerning.

Ray is keen on opening the doors, and gets Catiana to help him open them. Even with the doors open, the two Archons are unable to see inside. Apparently they don’t know the true name of this place, and are unable to see it clearly.

One of them gives me a crystalline heart, inlaid with fine writing of prayers which describe the glories of heaven and the usefulness of the heresy ovens. They ask us to find the book and bring it to them so that they may dispose of it – they don’t trust the library of Nethys to be able to keep things safe.

Heading into the tower we are confronted with a mess of twisting staircases, which seem to wind around themselves in ways which the normal laws of geometry don’t normally allow. Would could possibly go wrong?