Arden Vul Session 16
I Know the Way Out
Date: Aug 10, 2026
Party: Phlorian (bard), Lorez (wizard), Cedric (Fighter), Iohannes (cleric), Runner (Ranger)
See the whole thing on my Arden Vul campaign page.
The recaps are generated by AI from my session notes and edited for accuracy and voice. The facts and consequences are mine; the prose is collaborative.
Phlorian's player is out for a bit, but Phlorian is still there. Not very active, and wrapped in proverbial bubble-wrap. Since his player is gone, I thought Phlorian could narrate this session - as only a skald can.
There was a man called Cedric. He was strong, and he could hold a door. There was a man called Iohannes, who served the gods and had lately taken a dead man into his service. There was a man called Runner, who went ahead of the others, and a man called Lorez, who knew many things and said so. These four and Phlorian were called the Ardent Fools. This is the saga of how they fought the eighteen. Phlorian stood with them that day and took no hand in any of it, so he saw the whole thing, and he has improved nothing, or not much.
It is said that a dead man went before them, wearing a silver collar. He had been told to find treasure, and he was not a man to argue.
They came to a doorway, and Cedric held the dead man there and looked around the corner. Beside the door there was a stone ring set flush in the floor, and a raised block next to it, cut in six squares. They knew it at once. There was another like it outside the antechamber of Deino, where they had once been made to wait. Nobody could say what it meant. Cedric looked for more and saw nothing, and that is all that needs to be said about his looking.
Past the door was the nest. Eighteen stirges lived there in a heap of broken furniture and branches beneath the fireplace, and the floor was foul with them. In the heap lay gold, and a bow, and the corner of a book.
The Fools held a council. Some were for killing the stirges a few at a time. Lorez was for going in unseen. Runner said that being unseen does not stop a thing from smelling you, and this was thought a good saying.
Then they remembered the dead man.
They told him to bring the treasure, and they did not say which. He walked in along the east wall. The stirges rose and made threats, but they did not touch him, and he took the book from the nest and walked out again. Along that wall ran a line of brown stuff painted on the floor, and the stirges did not follow him back across.
Now this is what was written in the book. It was old and torn, in the speech of the Archonteans, and the man who wrote it is not named.
We have located the Obsidian Gate, but it is barred and we lack the proper key. We heard the drums, and retreated to the Chamber of Life.
He told how Gregor wished to brave the precincts of the Dead, and how Otto insisted on the Gates, and how a terrible hopping demon drove them back. Gog lent them aid, at a steep price. Gregor died fighting the slimy ones near the Troll Lift, and they buried him beside two fallen heroes. The fire took Otto's spellbook, and Otto fell. Jasmine heard the howls of the white ones, and Jasmine fell.
I am alone. But I know the way out. Ha ha ha.
No one could say whether he got out, or died laughing near the place where the book was found. People have different opinions about this.
Lorez studied the brown line and said that someone had painted it there on purpose, and that the stirges would not cross it. He could not say what it was made of. Runner said they might smear some on Lorez. Lorez is not recorded as answering.
There was still gold in the nest, and they sent the dead man in a second time.
It is a saying among bards that a stirge is patient once.
The eighteen came down on him. Cedric held the doorway, as he was known to do. Runner and Lorez shot and cast from where they stood. The dead man took great harm, and no one could reach him without giving up the door, and so he was destroyed. He had done everything he was told. Few living men can say as much.
Then the stirges in their fury crossed the painted line, and it no longer held them. Iohannes and Cedric waded in. The floor was slick, and men fought badly on it. Runner loosed five arrows at one drawing, and five stirges fell. The rest went down by ones and twos, and when it was done, all eighteen were dead, and that was thought a good day's work.
They took the dead man's silver collar and the book. The gold they left until morning, for it was not going anywhere.
Through a door on the far side, they saw a room with its east wall fallen in. A pair of legs lay under the rubble, and one of them wore a boot.
Nobody yet knows whose legs they are.
Someone painted that line. Someone knew the way out.
Now this saga is at an end for a while.
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