Ed: DMing; Paul: Zoozeki (high elf wizard 10) and Godzilla "T-Hex" Hercules (dragonborn warlock 10); Scott: Smudge (shadar-kai rogue 8 / barbarian 2) and Martin (dwarf cleric 10); Dane W. (Tudoi, Dwarf Cleric 10).
Last time, the party returned to the city of the Apemen, met with Ootherion and dozens of his advisers, and decided to investigate a magical disturbance under the city.
Zoozeki exits the stage to gather intelligence and plan a future bastion. Godzilla Hercules (a.k.a., "T-Hex") steps in to fill his shoes.
Ootherion welcomes Godzilla Hercules at the palace. Zoozeki and T-Hex exchange an excessively elaborate handshake, which seems to impress the apemen.
Dragonborn are unusual in the apemen city. Reactions to T-Hex are mixed.
The group inspects a map of the city. Xeno the philosopher pinpoints the magical anomaly as somewhere in the lower half of the "regular people district".
T-Hex asks the learned men of the court what's known about the area below the city. The director of public works describes a network of sanitary and storm sewers that eventually drain into the harbor. A couple large sewer mains connect below the point Xeno has marked on the map. Under the sewer should be nothing, but the city is very ancient....
Metrodorus, however, points to an entirely different spot on the map, south of the Necromancer's Tower.
Based on Zoozeki's theory that Metrodorus is a quack, the party (minus Zoozeki) goes to the spot Xeno identified in the "regular people district". Four dowsers from each the philosophers, Xeno and Metrodorus, come along. And Bartus, the underground mapper, too.
The party climbs down a ladder into the sewer. Xeno's triangualtors point to a side tunnel. T-Hex steps into the darkness and becomes one with shadows (invisible). Tudo climbs into the side tunnel and slides down some ways. Everybody else follows.
A four-way intersection. The north-west direction has a smell of delicious pork and beans coming from it. T-Hex takes the lead in that direction. The tunnel soon turns into a more well-finished flagstone passage, rather than a rough sewer. The ceiling is twenty feet high.
Smudge notices that Metrodorus's dowsers have drawn their weapons.
The pork and beans smells reminds him of the Suggs brothers, the cowhands we freed from cells in the dungeon under the volcano.
T-Hex, having inched down the tunnel, thinks there's something odd with the floor but can't tell exactly what. He goes back and asks Smudge to take a look.
Smudge notices that the ceiling is odd too, like it opens. Smudge doesn't know what to make of the floor though (Investigation: 6).
Smudge teleports 30 feet down the passage, past the possible trap. He can't tell what's going on with the floor or ceiling from that side either. Smudge sneaks a little way down the passage and hears talking.
Smudge turns invisible and hides. Tudo starts banging his pots and pans together in the hope of luring whoever is cooking pork and beans into the (likely) trap.
The talking stops abruptly and the smell of pork and beans mixes sickeningly with doused campfire.
Tudo mutters about spoiled beans, then hears "is that Tudo, you cocksucker?" Tudo and the Suggs brothers exchange barbs about the quality of their pork and beans.
Smudge creeps towards the Suggs brothers. He sees the two brothers and two other humans with revolvers.
Though blind in the dark, one of the cowboys takes a pot shot at Smudge. Smudge teleports behind them and kills one. The remaining three open fire at Smudge but all miss.
T-Hex draconic flies toward the shooting, over the (likely) trap. Tudo does a running jump and clears the (likely) trap.
Smudge kills all but one of the gunmen — the last living Suggs brother, Eddie, who throws down his six-shooter an surrenders. ("Aw, shucks!")
Bartus borrows a ten-foot pole and probes the trap, releasing a huge steel pendulum blade slices across the corridor.
Under questioning, Eddie says: "we was trying to join some dang nab thing called a Bee Holder."
A chimney in the ceiling is the only other exit in the room. Godzilla Hercules inspects it.
Eddie Suggs acts like a jerk and pops off a shot from his concealed Derringer that narrowly misses Smudge. T-Hex kicks a gun across the floor to Eddie and tell him: "fill your hand!" Eddie grabs the revolver and gets off a shot (miss) before Godzilla Hercules cuts him in half (30 damage).
Godzilla Hercules gets back to investigating the chimney, and finds that it emerges from a house in the "regular People district" a block east of where the party entered the sewers. He hears High Apeish talk ("Who is this?" "What's that clatter?"). T-Hex walks out of the house, notes the street address, then climbs back down the chimney.
Enemies defeated: four cowpokes
Treasure: four revolvers, a Derringer, wet pork and beans
