Session 20 — Bandits, Bribes, and the Star-Touched
The road into the Greymere Fens narrows quickly, stone giving way to mud, reeds, and stagnant water. The air grows damp and heavy, carrying the smell of rot and slow-moving water. Sound behaves strangely here—swallowed by moss and mist, then returned distorted.
Cask Alder (Dead) leads from the front, his confidence evaporating with every step deeper into the bayou. His eyes dart constantly, his pace uneven. Whatever bravado he showed back in Stonewake Crossing is gone.
It is not long before the swamp answers.
The Ambush
Stones arc out of the reeds without warning.
They splash, strike armor, and rattle shields. Shapes move where solid ground should not exist. The attackers—highway bandits hardened to the fens—move with ease through water and muck that would bog down a trained soldier.
Cask panics.
He shouts, stumbles, and runs.
The bandits press the advantage, slinging stones and darting in and out of sight. Torvold Alric advances methodically, shield raised. Leda Gebhart answers the chaos with transformation, her magic reshaping her into something built for violence. Corwin Thorne’s arrows find their mark, dropping one bandit and sending another fleeing into the marsh, bleeding heavily.
Zel Cunningham ends the skirmish decisively, divine energy lancing through the fog to scare off the last attacker.
The Bandits’ Camp
The party searches what remains.
Crates of old trade goods sit half-submerged. A crude still bubbles quietly, producing foul-smelling moonshine. Nothing here suggests desperation—this is an operation, not a handful of starving criminals.
On one of the bodies, Corwin finds a note.
It is poorly written. Illiterate. But specific.
Descriptions of the party—mocking, blunt, and unmistakable.
- Leda — brown hair, red streak, rich parents
- Zel — too thin, black hair, dresses snooty
- Torvold — tall, dark, stoopid
- Mol — strange kid, green clothes
- Corwin — high standin’, over-dressed, smellin’ of his own cologne
The implication is clear.
They were not attacked at random.
The note instructs the bandits to bring proof to the boss as payment.
Cask says nothing.
Following the Blood
The wounded bandit left a trail, and the party follows it for hours. Leda takes control of the tracking, reading signs Corwin initially misjudges. At one point, Corwin plants an arrow in the water to test the current—only to realize he has pointed the party in the wrong direction entirely.
Eventually, the trail leads to another camp.
Voices carry through the reeds.
Cask Alder is there.
He is shouting at the bandits, furious, demanding money he was promised.
The truth snaps into place.
Cask is the leader of the bandits.
Cask Alder’s End
Leda does not hesitate.
Lightning erupts from her spell, ripping through the camp and killing one of the bandits instantly. Cask is caught in the blast, critically wounded and blinded. Combat erupts in earnest—steel, spell, and fury colliding in the mud.
There is brief talk of taking Cask alive.
That plan does not survive contact with reality.
Leda, transformed again, charges him down and kills him outright. Whatever explanations he might have offered die with him in the swamp.
The remaining bandits fall shortly after.
The Price of Deterrence
The camp yields far more than expected.
- A lockbox containing valuables worth roughly 50 gp
- A cache of weapons and armor, serviceable but heavy (≈ 30 gp)
- A formal writ, carefully preserved and wholly out of place
The document is official in tone, stamped and signed:
To the Royal Bank of Heterland, Fenreach Branch
Honor this writ as a limited draw against the undersigned account, not to exceed the agreed sum, contingent upon services rendered.
Purpose of Disbursement:
To discourage the pursuit by the Blades of StrangewaysTerms of Conduct:
– No pursuit beyond initial contact
– No fatal engagement
– Deterrence, not enforcementFailure to adhere to these terms nullifies further payment.
Authorized Signature: G. Chandler
(300 gp total)
The meaning is unmistakable.
Someone paid to scare them off.
Someone panicked.
A map is found alongside the writ—clear directions to the Sunken Observatory.
The party camps that night in cold, damp silence.
The Ruins of Heth Aeluin
Morning brings no comfort.
The air is colder here, the fog thicker. By noon, the ruins rise from the fen: collapsed stone, half-sunken walls, and a structure that once reached for the stars. The party discovers The Drowned Observatory.
Corwin determines there is only one viable entrance—the front.
The lower levels have caved in entirely.
Elven glyphs mark the entry hall, carved with deliberate care. Constellation imagery covers the stonework, including a recurring symbol of a flower. The glyphs translate to:
Life. Death. Binding. Witness.
The ground shifts subtly beneath Torvold’s feet.
Something below is aware of them.
Among the rubble, Corwin finds a collapsed sign bearing a name long forgotten:
Observatory of Heth Aeluin
Star-Touched Guardians
Tracks lead right into what was once a starmapping chamber, now ruined and unused. As the party advances, two figures rise from the debris—undead forms filled with cold, starlight brilliance.
Star-touched elven wights.
They move with purpose, striking without hesitation. Steel rings. Divine energy flashes. Leda’s magic claws and bites tear into glowing flesh. Torvold holds the line. Corwin studies their movements, realizing too late that they bear no simple weaknesses.
Eventually, the guardians fall but not before Corwin is deeply cursed. A curse he will carry for some days ahead. A curse of the elves…
But the room does not feel conquered—only quieted.
The Planetarium
After defeating the star-touched guardians the party realizes this was once a planetarium.
Arcane projections shimmer faintly, still active after all this time. They describe celestial bindings used as a power source. Diagrams show light captured, shaped, and willingly offered.
One conclusion becomes unavoidable.
The Crown of Iron draws its strength from willing light.
Powder-blue chalk notes scar the stone, written in a familiar hand:
- “The network didn’t fail. It was shut down.”
- “Whoever held the Crown panicked.”
- “Better blindness than release.”
Torvold recovers a magical lens—when identified, its purpose is horrifying. As noted by Corwin, when focused with sunlight, it disintegrates whatever lies in its path.
A death ray.
In another chamber mostly unmolested by the collapse, Corwin finds a damaged version of the same device—broken, but repairable with time and help.
Corwin also found a piece of paper covering a metallic object. Discarding it to Zel, he finds a flask which he believes is the same material as the death ray. The paper had elvish runes on a note surrounding a piece of star-touched metal (a ring). Realizing its true potential Zel quietly slips the ring on her finger.
To see is not to interfere. was written on the paper in an ancient elvish dialect.
Leda determines that the door is marked with constellations.
The Way Below
Beyond the door at the end of a sloping passage the party discovers a room where the stone has collapsed completely.
What remains is a jagged, circular void plunging straight down into darkness. Broken masonry clings to the edges, stones cracked as if torn inward rather than falling away. Cold air rises from below, carrying the faint scent of dust, old metal, and something far deeper that refuses to name itself.
Thick ropes have been anchored into the surrounding stone—newer than anything else here. The knots are tight, practical, and recently tested. They disappear into the black below, swaying slightly, though no air moves above. Geoffrey Chandler was here recently and he was undeterred to go below into the darkness.
A choice to be made whether to descend or stop.