16 Lamashan 4709 AR
Absalom

We picked over the dead guards and their table— found a bit of coin and some more of those skull rings (these people have two modes of travel— skulking in shadows and teleporting). Moving on, we found a room containing purple robes and bronze masks. None of us have a clue what cult this is exactly. I am left wondering whatever happened to Lucinda— did she get taken back to her fiancé, or did she end up like her brother? I would assume she passed this way when the first time (okay, the second time) she was kidnapped, but we have not seen any evidence that she might be held here.

Of course, we need to rescue ourselves before even thinking of helping anyone else.

We found a staircase and wandered up to a torch-lit chamber with a circle of runes carved into the floor. Before we could stop her, Tythe wandered into it and twisted the ring she was wearing! I ran back to the previous circle, hoping to catch her there, but that room was empty. Worried that she’d get herself into trouble, the rest of us gathered in this new circle, all touching, and used one of the spare rings to send us to wherever Tythe had disappeared off to.

Staring off at the now-familiar decaying landscape, we realized that we were in the ruined Precipice Quarter above the Puddles. It is rumored to be haunted, but we were so tired that we opted to rest an hour or so till the sun came up. At least we were above ground!

We hadn’t even set up a place to wait for sunrise when we heard some ominous flapping sounds. Suddenly, a huge bat/mosquito creature had stabbed me in the side of the neck and was hanging on! My companions tried to pull it off with no success, and in fact soon found themselves in similar situations. I finally took a dagger to the neck of the stirge on me— that got it to let go! A mere minute later, all four of the attacking stirges had been vanquished, but we were all weak from blood loss and decided to brave the city streets in the dark rather than encounter anything else in the Precipice. As we headed back to the Golden Griffin, I noticed that two shadowy figures were watching us from an alley, but we were too filthy, tired and hungry to care. A quick bath and meal later, we had ourselves barricaded in a room, taking watches to allow each other time to rest.