S11E22 - The Nun That Got Away

The heroes start the session at their inn, the Tall Husband tavern. They take Sister Bianca out of the bag, tie her up securely and go to sleep instead of rescuing Klik and Klak. They arrange to meet Bernabette, the babysitter who lost Klik and Klak, the next morning. They plan to have her arrange an audience with Lord Yaggira and perhaps exchange Sister Bianca for the missing pair. Before leaving, Bernabette warns them that Lord Tacitus is friends with Sister Bianca.

During the night, Sister Bianca asks Lyra to take her to the outhouse. Lyra offers her a bedpan, but Bianca responds with a fart and a malicious smile. Disgusted, Lyra wakes Nemo and tells him to stay alert before escorting Bianca outside.

Sister Bianca enters the outhouse and, judging by the noises, is indeed answering nature’s call. Suddenly, Lyra hears a crack: Bianca bursts through the far wooden wall and runs off, still pulling up her pants. Lyra shouts for help, chases the assassin nun, and casts Hold Person, but Bianca succeeds on her saving throw and casts a spell that makes Lyra disappear. Then she flees. By the time Nemo reaches the inn’s courtyard, both Bianca and Lyra are gone. He asks two newly arrived hooded men whether they’ve seen a druid or a nun, but neither responds. He finds fresh tracks and follows them a few feet, only to lose the trail around the first corner. Soto arrives at the same time, soon followed by Brand, but there’s nothing to be done. Bianca has escaped and Lyra is gone. A minute later, Lyra pops back into the material plane. She describes a strange place filled with giant mushrooms, psychedelic colors, and a small green dinosaur.

The party goes back to sleep to finish resting.

The next morning, during breakfast, the party hears about a night raid at the Tall Husband inn by Lord Tacitus’s guards. They also hear that an aristocrat has been killed.

After breakfast, Brand and Paquito return to their rented forge to work on their new swords. The others head to the sewers to retrieve the two dead lions they dumped there the night before. When they arrive, the bodies are already starting to rot, so they stuff them into the bag of holding. This exceeds its weight limit, making the bag rupture and vanish, taking all their stored valuables with it. They had planned to explore the sewers after retrieving the lions, but Ike and Nemo are poisoned by the foul air as soon as they enter, forcing a return to Brand for healing. Next, they set off to ask Hjalmus about the ties among the city’s lords. Two guards stop them along the way, and a fight erupts. The heroes escape into the sewers without killing a single guard.

They explore the dim network of sewer tunnels and water conduits, following the older passages uphill in the hope of finding Lord Yaggira’s lair.

At one point they come across a dark side alley where they hear a female scream, a splash, and then silence. Later, while scouting in rat form, Lyra finds five frightened kobolds. She returns to her normal form and casts Thunderwave in pre-emptive self-defense, killing all five instantly. The party loots the bodies and continues on its merry way.

A few minutes later, they spot hooded humanoids carrying two sleeping figures on a stretcher. They follow quietly to a large municipal pumping station with grates overhead and several side tunnels. The hooded group climbs a spiral staircase and disappears into an upper corridor. Searching the pumping station, the heroes find eight freshly slain guards, several of them partially devoured. Ike examines the bodies and finds humanoid bite marks, including wounds on their necks. “Vampires!” Nemo whispers.

Feral vampire spawn pour out of the side tunnels. Before they can attack, Ike casts Fireball, incinerating half of them. Soto tackles another into the water, where the vampire cultist disintegrates as though submerged in acid. Seeing this, Lyra casts Elementalism on the remaining cultists, who instantly burst into flames under the water spray.

With the attackers defeated, the heroes resume their pursuit up the spiral staircase. A tunnel lined with intricately carved stone walls leads to a large stone door. To its left stands a basin, with an inscription above it.