Maintenance and Preservation - Session Four

The peg-legged maintenance superintendent of Clearmountain Central Services had a problem. The recent round of earthquakes was barely noticeable on the surface, but it had wreaked minor havoc on infrastructure in the undercity. Chemical sensors in an underground cistern showed contamination by an unknown and potentially dangerous source, presumably ruptured and leaking into the pond as a result of the seismic disturbance. Pollution of a subterranean graywater pond was not itself an issue, but if it were to flood and back up into the main stormwater system...

Pepper and John Benson were joined by new hires Eddie and Gary on their expedition to the undercity to fix the problem. The underworld map suggested two angles of attack to the previously unvisited node: entry through the defunct subway station below the railyard, or entry through the old bathhouse in the northeast of the city. They had heard rumors from the Exploration Project that the bathhouse entrance would take them to the cistern, though the exact route was obscure.

Peg Leg gave the team some useful tools before sending them out: a spray tank of sealing foam (somewhere between caulk and insulation) and a thermal lance (a cool and incredibly dangerous cutting torch that used pure oxygen and an acetylene torch to ignite a tube full of steel rods as fuel). Then they set off for the bathhouse, excited to scout a new dungeon entrance.

The bathhouse was originally a medieval pilgrimage site built over a spring (the one that fed the river which ran through the town). The exterior building was a small Dark Ages church, with narrow windows and images of pelicans on the exterior. 

 

The interior looked much as it did a thousand years ago, except the pulpit had been replaced with a modern front desk. Behind the desk was an androgynous man with a line of piercings leading down from his head to the open collar of his shirt, like a zipper. He saw the explorers' hard hats and hi-vis vests and told them it was about time they showed up. The bathhouse was all paid up with the Family, but what kind of protection did they get from all the things coming out of the backroom? Jack and shit. The water was all fucked up and that was a real issue considering this was supposed to be a health spa. The maintenance team could do whatever the hell they had to do, just fix it.

There was clearly something wrong with the water. The old medieval bathing pool was filled with a brackish ooze that indicated groundwater contamination. The door to the members-only bathing area was locked, but the front desk guy gladly handed over the key - with the admonishment that the crew lock the door behind them before anything came out into the public bathing area.

The locked door led into a private lounge, and the private lounge into a rustic log banya. The sauna was occupied by a tiny, bearded man, swearing in some Slavic language as he fended off a ravenous ghoul using buckets of scalding hot water. The crew rushed in and clobbered the ghoul with their tools, suffering only minor paralysis from its thrashing claws and allowing the little Bannik to finish it off with a pail of boiling water to the face.

Ivan Bilibin

With the monster slain, a handful of birch dryads emerged from beneath the log benches of the sauna. They excitedly swatted the dead ghoul with their wooden limbs, producing a wet slapping sound as they chopped the liquifying skin. The old spirit told the maintenance team that the bath complex was full of undead and the water was foul. As thanks for saving it from the ghoul, it would prophecy for them: they would be attacked by the Red Caps on their journey, and they would know when it was coming thanks to him.

The next room was full of sensory deprivation tanks and undead children, ranging from 0 to 10 years old. The babies were stuck in a cycle of crawling across the room to one of the tanks, banging on the side, being thrown across the chamber by an unknown force, and trying it again. Gary waded through the sea of zombie children and banged on the side of the vessel, shouting that he was from Central Services. The hatch flew open and the psychic inside nearly blew him away for violating her solitude, before she noticed the crawling corpses strewn across the floor and realized what was going on. She quickly disposed of the little zombies, wadding them up with telekinesis and crushing them. She said the plague pit under the old hospital had most likely been cracked open by the recent quake, loosing zombies and contamination into the underworld. Then she pulled the hatch shut and refused to talk with the crew any further.

A trio of skeletons in surcoats stood over a pool covered by a tarp. They were death knights like Hildegrin, and they would have happily accompanied John Benson to resurrect their lost leader if they were not busy with a more pressing matter: beneath the tarpaulin was a monster, in a pool of water that repelled the skeletons so they couldn't open it up and slay the beast. From beneath the tarpaulin, a watery voice protested that the undead trio were unjustly persecuting him. The players moderated a debate between the skeletons and the sunken creature, before Benson and Gary decided to pull back the tarp and verify whether the zombies' claim that the pool-dweller was enslaving travelers was true.

ibid

The Vodyanoy and his enslaved servants lurched out of the water and attacked, yanking John Benson into the drink. The three knights leaped into the pool and attacked the Vodyanoy with their daggers. The holy water in the pool rapidly dissolved them, but not before they gutted the nicotine stained frog-man. The second their master died, his servitors stopped moving.

 

With the knights and frog spirit dead, and the frog spirit's slaves insensate, the maintenance crew sifted the pool for anything worth looting. There were five jars at the bottom of the pool, one for each of the enslaved servitors. The jars had faces on the lids. Gary grabbed a rapier left by one of the dissolved skeletons. Eddie fished out a plastic toy phone that seemed to repel the muck, which he judged to be a magic item that could be activated with an unknown command word.

The group decided to open the jars. Each one emitted a shining bird that dissolved into bubbles and disappeared when it broke the surface of the pool. They filled the empty jars with holy water from the pool. The power of the holy water to dissolve the undead skeletons, who proclaimed themselves servants of Christ King of the Universe and believed themselves resurrected by His power, prompted a brief religious debate between the maintenance crew. They decided to postpone further Jesuitical exercises and proceeded through the unsealed door that led beyond the bathhouse. Slime trails along the floor indicated that this was how the undead were getting in, which suggested that this was also the path to the source of the breach.

Mignola

 

The zone beyond the bathhouse was a gang hideout, clearly used by the Ponda Ray family before a swarm of undead forced its evacuation. The maintenance crew pondered looting the contents of an illegal firearms workshop, but were interrupted by a trio of Urban Druids. One was clad in a cloak of kudzu, one in a cloak of hyena skin, and the third only in a codpiece made from a taxidermied bat. They told the maintenance team they were looting the gang base and everything there belonged to them now. They threatened to flay Eddie if he didn't hand over the magic phone. John Benson convinced them to at least pay for it, netting Eddie 250 dollars in stained bills. They also told the group how to get to the cistern, through the nearby sewer system. Gary figured the Druids wouldn't understand or care about the expensive CNC machines, so he'd wait for them to leave and then mess with them on the way out.

 

The back room of the mob hideout was filled with morgue trays. The trays were full of bodies and the bodies were full of the same pale glowing fungus John Benson encountered on his first job. The gang pulled on their respirators and went through the access hatch at the end of the grow-room, into the sewer cluster beyond.

The sewer system was damaged by the earthquake, forcing the group to shovel rubble out of a tunnel. Billowing gasses corroded some of their equipment into uselessness as they labored. They finished unblocking the passage in time for a a fat zombie wearing a hairnet and apron to squeeze into the room, carrying an enormous tuna knife and an ominous bloody sack. He asked if they knew where he could find some good meat. He was fed up with moochers taking things from him, and now it was time to get his. The crew informed him that there was a delicious looking trio in the old mob hideout, which satisfied his curiosity. He said they should stop by his cafeteria next time they were in town, and he'd whip them up something tasty. They hastily evacuated through the unblocked passage before he changed his mind.

Pepper edged around a whirlpool and clipped a rope onto the other side to get the rest of the team through without them being sucked into the unknown depths below. The room beyond was large enough to stand comfortably and the wide concrete ledges around the flooded channels gave the explorers plenty of breathing room. They could see light through the tunnel beyond, shining off the surface of the cistern.

 

They also saw an enormous shape swimming toward them, like a great moose of the underworld. It drew closer and it wasn't a moose, it was a giant horse, glowing eyes rolling in its emaciated skull. Eddie met its gaze and felt his mind tearing. Benson offered the beast a Cliff bar. It accepted the treat, then bit him on the arm. Gary stabbed it in the lung with his rapier before it could chew his whole arm off. Eddie cracked its skull with his wrench and killed it. Gary popped open his first aid kit and made sure John Benson's arm wasn't going to fall off, then cut open the Nightmare's belly in search of any goodies it might have swallowed. He found a little baggie of white claudia, a drug that let you commune with the gods but rendered you useless for anything else while you were tripping.

 

The cistern was large and full of water. There was a single catwalk across the room, leading to and from a platform in the center with a ladder that descended down to the water level. Zombies staggered out of a fissure in the far wall opposite the sewer entrance, bearing evidence of ancient plagues. A hulking flesh beast loped behind them. The maintenance team sloshed holy water on the walking corpses infesting the platform, then used the thermal lance to cut the supports on the catwalk leading to the plague pit. The remaining zombies were dumped in the water by the steep grade of the freshly severed walkway as one end dropped down into the water.

 

The maintenance crew had a premonition: this was the area where the Red Caps would attack. Thinking quickly, they severed the cables holding the walkway that led back to the sewer. That left them standing on the platform over the water, with only the ladder as a viable means of attack. And not a moment too soon. The fairy knight they met in the previous expedition watched them from the sewer chamber entrance, flanked by five surly fairies in red berets. The knight stood impassively, guarding the exit to the sewer in an implicit pass d'armes. The red caps talked among themselves, clearly unsure of what to do.

John Benson secured a rope to himself and leaped across to the sloped catwalk on the side with the plague pit, intent on closing up the breach. He slipped and fell head first, dangling from the rope above the water. The flesh hulk floating on the surface clobbered him, knocking him unconscious. The rest of the group hauled him up and revived him. Gary verified that he didn't have a concussion, and he unwisely attempted the jump again, succeeding this time. A floating zombie grabbed the slack rope, but the adventurers melted it by pouring their last jug of holy water on it.

Benson climbed up the steeply sloped catwalk to the crack in the wall, beyond which lay the plague put under the old hospital. He used the thermal lance to cut through the stonework above the cracked wall, collapsing the masonry and plugging the gap. He sprayed the sealing foam into the gaps, making it airtight. By the time he finished the Red Caps had fallen back, plotting an ambush in the sewer system.

 

 

 

The team used the climbing gear to get from the elevated platform to the collapsed catwalk dangling from the sewer entrance, going hand over hand up the railing. They made it to the whirlpool room before the Red Caps sprung their trap, hoping to catch the group spread out as they waded through the whirling water. A fierce melee broke out, with the Fairy Knight dealing serious damage with his piercing sword before being immobilized with sealing foam and knocked unconscious by a wrench blow. The Red Caps put in work, stabbing away and forcing Gary to plug up several of his comrades' deadly wounds. 

 

One of the horrible creatures lashed out with his goblin blade and decapitated John Benson. A roar came from the tunnel behind the fairies. The perpetrator was himself seized by the head in the jaws of an enormous cave bear, which pinned two more Red Caps in its claws and killed them. The remaining fey broke and ran, leaving the cave explorers to scoop up Benson's head and corpse and hastily retreat back to the surface. The bear settled down and ate the dead fairies, uninterested in further discourse with the adventurers.

 

The surviving maintenance workers hauled their burden back to the surface without incident. They noticed the eyes on the empty holy water jar were blinking at them in morse code. The empty vessel had captured John Benson's soul before it escaped to wherever souls go. Benson's mission to find the Angel Crypt below the Serpent Ruins and find a way to resurrect Hildegrin had acquired new urgency.

Mignola

Back at Central Services, the team explained the situation to Peg Leg. He wasn't thrilled about one of his guys dying, and suggested they pursue his resurrection quest as part of their next job. Bringing a dead employee back to life with underworld magic was preferable to reporting a work related casualty and dealing with a full audit of central services' safety practices. He could always get another team to clean out the old spider mansion. They chucked the body in refrigerated storage, and put the jar containing the soul in the atrium for now.

John Benson's trapped soul blinked out a request to Eddie, who went through Benson's magic tomes and used the Locate Object spell to find Saint Hildegrin's armor. The suit had been poached by someone from the Exploration Project.

Gary experimented with replacing Benson's head on his body, in hopes that he could simply take the soul out of the jar and put it back in the lifeless corpse. The dead man tried to strangle him before he could get the lid off the jar, and he hastily removed the head before it could deal any damage. Transferring souls was currently beyond his power, and in the meantime it seemed something else had taken up residence in the body.