Heading+to+Politzania

Heading to Politzania
We went to Politzania for three reasons. Raven had received a vision long ago that the Paladiness Gadda, fighting to reclaim the city from bandit warlords, would have success for many years, but when only two warlords remained, they would manage to defeat her and control the whole city. He wanted to go and change that fate and unite the city for good. Secondly, the Druids learned we were heading in that direction and asked Yuri to see if the Spirit Animals had returned. Finally, Lea was to head there for some reason involving her inheritance. Even she had no idea why.

First, we travelled to Politzania. It turns out that an annual meeting of the three remaining bandit lords and the Mayor of Gadda's area were all assassinated the day before we arrived. The city was tense. Gadda took us to where it all happened. It occurred in an abandoned building near the central fog that has covered the palace and mage's guild since Cometfall. No Man's Land. Anyone who enters that fog more than a few yards does not return. Anyway, the fog expanded out to cover the building, screams were heard, and when the guards arrived, each of the leaders and their personal bodyguards were not only dead, but torn to pieces with blood everywhere. Divination spells seemed to point to the Elemental Plane of Air, but that those elementals were summoned by someone here. As we were searching and divining, suddenly fog covered the building and rats began pouring into the building from all directions. We fought and killed a couple of nasty air elementals, but also saw, ever so briefly, a rat-like being hiding among the normal rats and throwing some nasty spells. Amid the chaos, fog, and zillions of rats, he got away. Under hypnosis, Raven remembered clearly seeing a fancy jewelled dagger on the Ratboy. It was engraved with the Wellington family crest.

Our presence in the city was generating concern and suspicion that we were the murderers. Lady Gadda decided to send us out to check out some nearby trouble spots, and we also went to the site where a "Spirit Wolf" supposedly called home. We found the location, fought some Eastern Empire baddies (see In the Ravine) also trying to find it for some reason, and when we cleaned up the site, we saw the Spirit Wolf appear and head out. That pretty much fulfilled Yuri's quest. In that same complex, though, was another shrine dating to the Age of Dragons. Lea did some kind of ritual there to summon the spirit of the Earth to commune with it. Well, three waves of Earth, water, and fire elementals popped up, and we had a nasty fight for a bit, but that pretty much said that the Earth was a bit pissed at Dragonkind for their last few thousand years of rulership. It seems they are even more unpopular than George Bush.

Anyway, we also stopped at a haunted graveyard outside Politzania (on our way out, actually, not back). Essentially, we found a minor vampire trapped in a crypt by lots of holy symbols. She wasn't too hard to kill, but a miss on a charm save and it could have been different. That young vampiress had died just a few years before Cometfall. showing that vampirism wasn't new to this area, but seemed to be on the rise again.

Lastly, we met the daughter of one of the warlords out on banditry patrol (taxation patrols, they called it). She didn't know her father was dead, but she knew he had recently become very afraid, and "the Wellington family" was all she had gotten out of him. He had sent messengers to Homeguard to learn more when he was killed.

It wasn't hard to put Wellington and vampire together, and decided to check out an old Wellington family estate a few days outside Politzania. The whole town was in ruins from the Chaos after Cometfall, but in a nearby town we got a guide. A young girl, she had amazing knowledge all about the Wellingtons and the ruins, knowledge she could not possibly have known. It turns out her family was an ancient one, always serving the Wellingtons, and she had learned so much from dreams. She was also the only one able to enter the ruins and get out alive. She could sense the presence of something there, and knew when to enter and when not to.

Anyway, we searched and ended up doing two things. We released the spirit of another legendary wolf who had been betrayed by the Wellingtons there and who had then cursed it's remains, taking control if it to do their will. We defeated it and its support, and then removed the curse to let it rest. We also tracked down a vampire butler of the Wellingtons that we found there and killed him. We learned that about 300-400 years ago, three Wellingtons, Father, mother, and son, had died and become vampires. They in fact had created the first vampire by necromantic magic gone wrong and were then it's first victims. We believe the parents to still be in Wellington today, but sonny (Ratboy) was active around Politzania.

We learned that Ratboy was hiding out in some secret organization's hidden storage rooms. We teleported in and slew him without mercy, though he was already dead. Using his "key", we entered his storage room and found the Blue Dragon Orb. After much heated discussion, seeking of new information, etc, we finally decided to give it to the lawful dragons to have it destroyed and the encased dragon released.

We searched the dock area outside Politzania, having heard that Ratboy frequented there also, and that he also had an ally there. We found an entrance to the city sewer system that looked locked but wasn't, and quite a ways within found a gong. Duh, we had to hit it, but nothing happened for quite awhile. We had some kind of response, but I don't remember what, which we didn't know how to respond to. Eventually we went back out of the sewers and found an undead kraken swimming around confused but suspicious. We attacked it, but it easily escaped in the water. The last we learned of it, it was heading downriver to the ocean. Good riddance. Also, we entered the dock town and told everyone about the dead leaders and that Gadda was uniting the town. Most cheered, but the leaders of the place packed up and shipped out downriver. They tried to do so, anyway, but were assassinated a few hours before leaving. A vampire? Someone they knew had arrived invisibly, poisoned them, hacked up the bodies, and flown away. We of course claimed their treasure, finding a fair amount hidden in furniture on one of the riverboats about to leave. It seemed that the secret society was also part of an assassins guild, and they knew too much and had failed. The Captain of the Guards, guilty of many crimes and feeling he was next on the list, confessed to us and sought our protection, giving us many missing details. We also took half his ill-gotten gains and gave them to Lady Gadda for her unification effort.