Jan 20, 2025
The elf was named Farrow and said their employer wanted to speak with the party. The Harmonium (the police) were after the party and would be back in greater numbers, so Farrow would lead the party through “UnderSigil”, sewers and forgotten tunnels. In hopes of avoiding suspicion, the party dumped the unconscious Harmonium guard in an alley, didn’t take their armor, and Farrow led the party into an abandoned basement with a storm drain. Beneath the drain’s grate was a ladder going down into the sewers.
The walls were stone-like, but the party wasn’t sure if they were actually stone. Farrow knew their way around and led the party through twists and turns, shifting between collapsed basements and sewers and what appeared to be naturally forming caves.
In a large cave, the party came across a large (but not giant) rat lying on its back on a porcelain plate. Its belly was hugely distended and its partially exposed brain glowed with a faint pink light. Farrow said it was a cranium rat, common in UnderSigil. Individually they were mostly harmless, but they were psychically linked with the others of their swarm. Swarms had a gestalt personality, separate from the individual rats, that grew rapidly in power and intelligence with the size of the swarm. The rat looked at the party, and everyone heard a low voice in their heads saying “Do what you must. It doesn’t matter, because we have already won.”
The party discussed what that might mean and inspected the rat carefully. It was surrounded by crumbs and had some pink frosting on its fur. Eventually, the party cajoled the rat into admitting it had come across a cake, abandoned its scouting mission, and ate the entire cake (and thus “won”). The party left the cave and shook their heads at the rat, which cryptically warned the party to “Beware the smell of strawberries”.
Farrow warned the party that many groups claimed space in UnderSigil and he was trying to steer around a particularly violent coterie, but he was now afraid their territory had expanded. They had bizarre beliefs about the multiverse and quickly enraged if contradicted. If the party came across them, stay on good behavior and humor the fanatics until they could escape.
Shortly after, the party came across a large rectangular room, perhaps a sewer exchange, which was wet and perhaps recently flooded. The room was lit with torches and conversation suggested a party was taking place. Four humans dressed like bakers sat at a heavily laden table and were eating a large strawberry cake while drinking tea. “Shit. Its them. Bakers. Be mindful of what you say.”
The Bakers’ leader, a large heavily made-up woman, stood and warmly welcomed the party to their celebration. Today was the multiverses’ birthday, and the Coterie of Cakes was celebrating. She offered everyone slices of strawberry cake, which the party accepted (paying no mind to the large, furry wings sticking out of the cake as decoration) as they sat at the table.
The Bakers explained cheerfully that the multiverse was an infinitely large multilayer cake, baked goods were the only true currency, and they had been banished from the surface by being overly aggressive in trying to convert people to their ways. With the benefit of hindsight, the Bakers should have been more diplomatic in their approach, letting the beauty of their baking (the cake was genuinely good, with a flavor no one could quite identify) speak for the righteousness of their beliefs. Now they were stuck in the sewers where good ingredients were sometimes hard to come by. Sandro cheerfully traded cooking tips with them but noted the Bakers, while cheerful and enthusiastic, did not seem entirely well.
After chatting for a while and eating cake (Farrow, Fulton, and Mario failed CON saves), the party departed. The sewers leading out of the room were actually warp tunnels, and the party went through one to get around some heavy iron bars on the far end of the room.
A couple hours of sewer navigation later, Fulton, Mario, and especially Farrow (rolled a “1” on the CON save) were rapidly getting sick. They were grumpy and felt ill, and their personalities were shifting slightly, becoming more abrasive and hostile. Also, small lumps were forming on top of their heads and their skin was taking on a reddish hue. They were also taking penalties to CHR.
Fortunately, the tunnel broaden into a large cave (in which the party heard the slap of waves against stone) and Farrow announced they were almost there. Ahead was a local reservoir (it had a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water and provided water for part of Sigil) and in the middle of it was a maintenance tower with stairs going up to Sigil. Their employer’s operation was just past the stairs. Sahuagin often did maintenance work on the reservoirs and sewers, and could be hostile to intruders.
The cave ahead was enormous with a 20’ ceiling, stretched far out of sight, and other than a short strip by the entrance, entirely full of water. A squat tower with an iron door sat in the water, ~80 away from the shore. Farrow said the door would be locked, but they knew how to pick it.
Six walked along the cave’s ceiling and the rest of the party discovered the water became deep very quickly and started swimming. Suddenly, the party noticed something large moving under the dark waters. A pair of Sahuagin surfaced, riding sharks! They yelled “Die polluters!” Fight!
Six cast Compelled Duel on on Sahaugin, forcing it to throw javelins (badly) at him. Meanwhile, Umbra and Mario quickly ran across the water to the tower, stood on a small ledge in front of the door, and began attacking the door to batter it down. Sandro, Fulton, Harvey and Farrow were still on land, attacking with ranged weapons and Fulton kept disabling the Sahaugin (and sharks!) with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and Harvey attacked them with illusions.
The party took some damage, but were able to batter the sharks and their riders. One shark (a mutated shark with 4 stubby legs) went after Farrow and hurt him badly, but he was able to escape. Soon, the monks had the door down but another Sahaugin/shark pair heard the fighting and came to investigate.
With the door down, the people on land swam for safety. Unfortunately, the new shark caught Farrow and killed him before the party was able to finish the shark off. In a shock for everyone involved, Farrow’s head began spasming and within seconds their ears grew into large bat-like wings. With a final wrench, the head separated completely from the body. Farrow’s head was still recognizable as Farrow, but it had grown more demonic. Curled horns grew out of the forehead, the teeth had grown into fangs, and the skin was now red and scaly.
The head locked eyes with Six (who had jumped onto the back of the shark eating Farrow), screamed, and rapidly shifted into a near copy of Six’s face, terrifying him and causing considerable psychic damage. The party, as one, shouted “What the f**k just happened?” “It was a Vargouille”, someone said (I forget who rolled super high on… Religion, I think). “Fiendish creatures spread by a curse-like disease, though I’ve never heard of them doing that face-change thing to look like someone they’re attacking. That’s probably what’s wrong with Fulton and Mario. The Bakers probably all had it, too. If we’d fought them, their heads would have attacked us afterwards.”
Fortunately, the Sahuagin and sharks were mostly dead or sinking as they laughed uncontrollably. The party took a few shots at the flying head, forcing it to flee back down the tunnel (“I guess it’s someone else’s problem now?”), and then fled up the stairway inside the maintenance tower back to the surface of Sigil.
Up the stairs was a shabby maintenance shed full of wheelbarrows and other building supplies, barred from the inside. Since the party was already inside it, they unbarred the door and entered the “Lady’s Quarter” of Sigil. An upscale area, it seemed. Wealthy merchants and nobles walked the streets finely dressed and often with servants in tow.
Across the street was a brightly lit and multicolored sign for a large, ornate building. “Fortune’s Wheel, games of chance and relaxation”, it said. Mario suggested the party find a cure for the Vargouille plague, and the party thought the expensive-looking casino might have medical staff on duty.
As the party staggered in the front door, a concierge met them with a greeting. The party was expected, and received a letter. Someone named “Shemeshkuh” wanted to speak with the party, but was busy for a bit. The letter instructed the concierge to give the party rooms and room service, on the house. Once the party had a chance to rest and freshen up, a gift awaited them at the casino cage.
The party asked if a cleric was available, and Velek the concierge grudgingly agreed medical attention was also covered and summoned a tiefling cleric able to cast Remove Curse. She cured Fulton and Mario, took her leave, and then Velek led the party upstairs to suite-like rooms, seemingly decorated for royal visitors. Each bed had a set of nicely tailored evening-wear for each party member, appropriately sized for everyone (the clothing did not particularly represent everyone’s style preferences. They seem to have simply known everyone’s size, and provided appropriate casino-wear in case party members were lacking it).
The party enjoyed an excellently prepared meal from room service, and had a peaceful night’s sleep recovering from the day. Also, everyone is now level 5.