# Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]



## prabe (Jul 11, 2020)

This is based on notes taken by a player in a 5E campaign I've been DMing for just over two years, as I start this thread. We game every two weeks; I'll be posting every week until I catch up with the campaign. I'll be attaching documents to the entries where they become relevant. You'll be finding out about Erkonin (the world) and Urnod (the continent) about the same pace as the players--it'll be cool, I promise.

Session 1: Embernook's Zombie Problem

Dramatis Personae:

Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)
Mo - Goliath Bard
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin

GM - Everyone Else


Third Day of Feast of Sky, 748 (Campaign day 1)

We started on the last day of the 3 day Summer Solstice Festival, the Feast of Sky. All of us were, for our various reasons and in our various individual capacities, on the streets on the edge between the Nook neighborhood of Embernook (not a nice part of town) and Pierton (where the shipyards for building and repairing boats are). We were on or around a street that ran along the river.

Joybell and Imaktis were together preaching the beauty of nature but the rest were sort of scattered in the crowd of revelers out drinking and enjoying the tail end of the festival. 

Then we heard screams and people were running away from the Pierton neighborhood up the road and down the side streets. *5 Zombies* were shuffling along the street. Interestingly they looked very fresh - like they hadn’t been dead long at all.

They attacked the nearest random bystanders -- so three stopped to attack civilians about as soon as we saw them and two more continued toward where the PCs were scattered around. 

One of the fleeing civilians bowled Joybell over as he fled, leaving her prone. 

One of the three zombies attacking civilians hit and dropped his right away. Instead of immediately starting to eat, it slung the person over its shoulder and prepared to shuffle away. 

Fiona was blasting at one of the more distant ones with Fire Bolts and Taman was able to sneak attack with his bow and got in some good licks. Orryk was the furthest away, so he was moving up as fast as he could at first, then throwing darts with disadvantage until he finally got into range. Mo was using Vicious Mockery to give one disadvantage on attacks, which was quite effective against the zombies. Imaktis cast Shillelagh and was able to get into combat right away with the one who was carrying a civilian. Joybell had to stand up and then move so she missed out on a round, but then she got right up on the ones who hadn’t yet found people to attack. 

The three zombies attacking civilians all killed their prey and began shuffling away with them slung over their shoulders, so Imaktis and Taman were following, while Mo and Fiona were staying within spell range. Joybell and Orryk took care of the two that hadn’t found civilians to attack. 

We had a couple of Iron Zombies Who Would Not Drop in this combat -- they lasted for ages and it took a while to get through them. The pursuit down the street went quite a long ways. Finally they all dropped and we were able to stabilize the three civilians.

Mo cast Prestidigitation to clean up the civilians, so they wouldn’t come to with zombie ick and blood all over them. 

Joybell and Imaktis and Taman tried to backtrack them. When we lost the track, we talked to a person on the street. He didn’t see anything, except he heard screams and ran inside. (Weenie.) He seemed so calm about everything both Imaktis and Taman thought he was hiding something or lying. Apparently he wasn’t though. 

Mo and Orryk and Fiona talked to the constables when they arrived. They took a look at the zombie bodies and found that they were blue collar/working class people with nothing valuable on them. They did have some tools, though. Orryk recognized them as tools for caulking a ship. 

Joybell talked to a rat on the street and got more information than she got from the person she spoke to -- the rat saw a person carrying a person and pointed us in a specific direction down toward where there are derricks and ship-making, erm, stuff visible. 

Mo looked around for anything like a union hall or a ship-builder bar - any place where people who work in this neighborhood go to drink and hang out together after working hours, but he didn’t find anything. Which seemed a little strange. 

Not having succeeded at finding any people on the streets or in bars, we talked to the night watchman at the first of the shipbuilding yards. He was not very helpful -- we asked if there were any new ships in for repairs and he said no. I believe the intent of our question was to ask about in the whole _area_ and he was answering about his specific yard. Which made this question and answer session less helpful than it might have been. Imaktis tried to bribe him to let us in to look around -- he refused the money and said we can go in and look around but “Just don’t get killed.” 

Huh-what? That was such a weird thing to say that there was some paranoia among the party as we looked around. But we found nothing interesting in the shipyard and didn’t die, which we reassured him about on the way out.

We didn’t want to go through conversations with obtuse security guards all the way down the line of eight shipyards, so we just walked along the riverfront looking for one without a night watchman. 

Finally, the last one had an empty watchman’s booth and we went into the yard, after some discussion with Imaktis about whether it was okay to break the law and trespass. (Joybell pointed out the exigent circumstance that we believed some people were brought there by zombies and we might still be able to rescue them. She also promised that the first thing she and Imaktis did on leaving would be to go to the constable.) 

We went in through the open gate and quickly saw some shuffling tracks in the dirt leading between a couple of 20’ tall buildings to the shipyard’s drydock. The buildings had derricks or cranes jutting out over the boat in the drydock. There was a long, low building immediately to the right of the gate that was shuttered and dark. 

As Fiona and Taman and Mo followed the tracks (not waiting for the results of Imaktis’ discussion with Joybell), Orryk checked to see if the door to the building near the gate was locked. As he did so a shadowy hand emerged from the wood and almost dropped him (he went down to 1 HP). When they all emerged there were *3 Shadows* attacking. One stayed on Orryk, one went after Mo and one went after Taman, almost dropping him as well. 

Mo used Healing Word on Taman and then proceeded with the Vicious Mockery to keep that one wearing the Ring of Shame (i.e. attacking with disadvantage). Imaktis healed Orryk some. 

As soon as Fiona and Joybell had two of the Shadows down, *3 Zombies* came shuffling off the ship. Orryk started advancing on the zombies on Fiona and Taman (who were nearest the boat) and kicked some butt with his darts, even at disadvantage because of range.

Imaktis Shillelagh’d and moved over to the Shadow on Mo with a nifty tumbling motion and a hefty blow -- he rushed right into the thick of things like a crazy turtle. Joybell followed him and dropped it. 

We got through all the zombies without any of them being quite as crazy durable as the ones on the streets.  

When we dropped all the zombies, Joybell took a look at them. Like the ones in the streets, they were all quite fresh. They were all attacked with a bladed weapon but had died from some sort of magical energy. Fiona looked at them as well and determined that the magic involved was some sort of life-draining magic. 

Taman went onto the deck of the ship to look around and didn’t see or hear anything. While he was there, Orryk climbed up to the roof of the nearest of the tall buildings -- he didn’t see anything on either rooftop, so he climbed back down and opened up those two buildings. They were just workshops with tools, nothing interesting. 

Taman came back from the boat and we all headed to the low building that the Shadows came out of. We looked around and found just an office building with office stuff. (Note: We should check this -- it will help confirm the last time any work was done at this shipyard.) It looked like the last work was done in the office two weeks ago.

Huh. 

So we all went back to the boat. There were two hatches on the deck of the ship. Joybell put a heavy barrel of nails on one of them, so nothing could come up through one hatch and attack us from behind while we were exploring the other. 

We all peered down one of the hatches, with the help of Fiona’s Dancing Lights, and saw a hint of movement, but no detail, and heard an angry hiss from the shadows. 

We decided to go down with a descent order of Imaktis, Taman, Joybell, Orryk, Fiona and Mo. (The party appears to have four people who want to be in front… )

As soon as Imaktis got down the ladder, he was surrounded by *4 Zombies* and something in the darkness yelled “Get ‘em!”  No one else had gotten down there before the thing shot an actual arrow at him out of the darkness. 

Imaktis ignored the four zombies and went straight toward the thing in the darkness. He saw something withered and undead -- it had been dead longer than the zombies we’d seen thus far and had glowing red eyes, as well as a sword and a longbow. 

Taman got down and Mo gave one of the zombies disadvantage on its attack with Vicious Mockery. Joybell jumped down and took a swing at one, but missed. Orryk came down and did good damage. 

Imaktis cast a light spell onto the big bad’s nose - “Boop!”. The Big Bad blew the save and was glowing. From his nose. 

Imaktis recognized the big bad as a *Wight* -- people who die from its life-drain effect come back as zombies under its control. Wights are resistant to non-silvered weapons, which was a pain because none of us have those. Apparently magical weapons (like Imaktis’ shillelagh) get through that resistance. 

About the same time Imaktis was remembering this about it, the wight hit Imaktis with his two attacks, critting on the life-drain, and very nearly killed him outright. (He was down with two failed death saves in one attack sequence.) Mo got him back up with Healing Word! 

Joybell and Fiona took out the last zombie while the others worked on the Wight. Mo viciously mocked it, repeatedly, to give it disadvantage on its attacks. Very helpful! 

Once the zombies were all down, everyone (including Joybell and Fiona) dogpiled on the Wight. Taman slipped around behind it and backstabbed it and Orryk was just pounding the crap out of it, while Mo kept it at disadvantage with vulgar insults (“prick tickler”, “ball dangler”, “dumb schlonghole”). Fiona was shooting fire bolts at it through the hatch. (Neither Fiona nor Mo ever felt a need to go down the hatch because they could do their things from on deck.) Finally Imaktis did it the final damage and it collapsed in on itself and dropped into a rotted husk of a corpse, still glowing where the nose was. 

Then we finally got to look around and found that the ship was under substantial renovation. This deck had all the interior structure removed (except such supports as are necessary to keep the top deck up and the ship together). It didn’t appear as though anyone had worked on it for a couple of weeks, though

We did find a great big pile of treasure.

Fiona identified the magic items while the rest of us were looking around. Imaktis wasn’t sure it was right to keep the money -- it belonged to someone before it belonged to the Wight and it should go back to those people -- but the others were pretty sure it was fine. Including Joybell, who wanted her share unless there were survivors who needed it.

Imaktis and Joybell went to find a constable hoping that someone official could help sort things out. And because Joybell promised him that they’d do that as soon as possible. They found Commander Mogree of the Night Watch. 

While they were gone, Fiona figured out that someone had made a Shadowpool, a crossing to the Shadowfell, in the deck of the ship. It was done by precise placement of items on the deck, so that there was an exact correspondence between this world and the Shadowfell in this place. The wight doesn’t seem to have made it, though it could have come through the Shadowpool once it was formed. The party broke the arrangement and closed the Shadowpool. 

Commander Mogree recognized some of the zombies here (there’s not enough of the wight left to recognize) -- they’re dock and shipyard workers. They should not have had anything like that much treasure and he couldn’t account at all for the magic items. He determined that while the treasure should probably belong to the city, because it was recovered without an owner having claim on it, we could keep it and divide it as we see fit. He said that we’d done good work for the city by stopping the zombies and killing the wight. 

We asked if we could become official deputies or something to continue to look into this -- who made the Shadowpool? Why? Are there other things that came through that are laying low? When was it made? Mogree said that he’s just the night watch commander and couldn’t answer that question without talking to others. We’re to go to the guardhouse before noon tomorrow to talk to the Chief. 

[Party advanced to Level Two]


----------



## prabe (Jul 18, 2020)

Session 2: Shadows and Stairs

Dramatis Personae:

Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)
Mo - Goliath Bard
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin

GM: - Everyone Else


Third Day of Feast of Sky, 748 (Campaign Day 1)

Before leaving the shipyard, we decided who got what of the treasure we found (which we decided was better done in the privacy of the empty boatyard rather than at a pub). Then we went to the nearest pub, the Pewter Oar, on the border of the Pierton & Nook neighborhoods.

Imaktis went off on his own for a bit while we were getting settled (and getting the first round with the one gold that was not easy to divide amongst us) but he knew where to come back to.

Some of the other people in the pub had seen us fighting the zombies, so we were treated to a few drinks by grateful people, in addition to buying a few on our own. Mo, Taman and Fiona make arrangements for rooms at the Pewter Oar.

Joybell asked someone who looked like a shipyard worker about that last yard down the line (where the wight and zombies were) -- have people been working there like normal? Have things been weird? The shipworker said that there were people walking around it and he’d assumed that they were the right people.

We introduced ourselves to each other, at least a little bit. It turns out that no one is from Embernook -- Taman has lived most of his life in the woods somewhere (but not near the druidic circle that Joybell grew up near). Joybell, who stayed in the city for a few nights here and there during her training at the Basalt Henge (about a day’s travel out on the Black Field) had spent more time in Embernook than anyone else. Most of the party arrived in town the day of the Incident.

We talked about continuing to work together, because that one evening’s work was very profitable. Joybell and Imaktis were both in as long as we were making a name for ourselves helping people and doing good. We don’t want to be just out for money or being random. But if we’re helping people, then yes, we’re for it.

Taman, who plays a flute, and Mo, who plays a pipe (instrument) that is also a pipe (smoking), had a small music contest for the price of a drink. Mo played a “light and jaunty dwarven song about killing duergar”. Taman played the song his dad taught him. Which is the song he knows. They were both good but Mo did win the contest.

Orryk and Fiona talked about elemental magic.

Eventually, when folks started getting too drunk. Joybell and Orryk went to the lodging house (run by a rock gnome named Queena) where Joybell stays in town. Orryk asked about where he could do research on the elemental planes and was pointed to the loose association of wizards in Centerkeep, who don’t really work together, but they are connected and pool resources. He should be able to find an archive or library there. He was also pointed to the Nook, where he can ask around about freelance wizards who aren’t joiners.

An important bit of local culture we learned from Queena is that people in Embernook, once bought, stay bought -- so you can count on someone not ratting out that you asked for information if you pay them not to.

Imaktis went to the temple district and talked to the clergy there (while he was also there getting a place to stay) about the Shadowfell. He learned: Wights make zombies and control a limited number of them directly. Wights and Shadows want to kill people, and will make other undead along the way,  but the main goal is killing. Wraiths make spectres. And Ghouls want to eat people. Some undead are more connected to Orcus (who is not a god, he’s a demon-lord and can’t grant spells, but can make havoc).

Shadows are especially bad because they make more shadows in an exponential progression sort of way. When Imaktis told them about the shadows we encountered in the shipyard they were more concerned about that than they were about the wight. Imaktis was fortunate to have survived.

Because of all of this some humanoid cultures burn corpses to prevent animation and undeath.


1 Sunnin 748 (Campaign Day 2)

The next morning, we all met up again at the Pewter Oar. Mo bought breakfast for everyone, including eye-opening breakfasts, meat and eggs.

Over breakfast we discussed our goals for our conversation with the Watch Chief, Ullar Truehammer, who Mogree referred us to the night before. We agreed that we wanted to find out what happened, we wanted to be authorized to look into it further, and we wanted some sort of a reward (though there was a bit of a difference of opinion as to whether we’d be satisfied with the knowledge of a job well done or we wanted living expenses (or more) in addition).

We went to the Watch House in Centerkeep -- a stone building a couple of stories tall. The person at the desk took us up to Chief Truehammer, who was clearly expecting us. As soon as we walked in, while Joybell was explaining what happened (at length) and the Commander Mogree had told us to come talk to him, Chief Truehammer pulled six pieces of paper out of one drawer of his desk and six arm-bands out of another. As he was handing us the papers, Joybell asked if he even knew our names and he rattled them right off. (I suppose it helps that we’re a pretty distinctive group -- two Gnomes, a Tortle, a skinny Goliath, a half-elf and a human. (In a largely human city.)

The arm-bands identify us as associated with the guard -- if there’s a scrap or a problem, the guards won’t attack people wearing the armbands, because they’re assumed to be helping. The Papers authorize us with the rights and responsibilities of the city guard -- we are deputized as members of the Watch, but it is an entirely at will arrangement on both sides. We can leave when we want or they can fire us.

We are going to be making the standard wages for a Guard -- 1 silver piece per day each. We are also allowed to keep what we find. Chief Truehammer wants us to report it (in case something that was specifically reported stolen turns up) but we can keep it.

Mo tried hard to negotiate for higher wages. Joybell “helped”.

Mo (to Truehammer): You’re asking us to fight this for one silver a day…
Joybell (to Mo): Oh, no, they’re not asking. We’re offering.

We also got some information from Chief Truehammer. Outbreaks of undead and people creating shadowpools in the city is not a normal thing in the city. Good to know. However, anyone who made one Shadowpool might make more, so this person needs to be stopped permanently. Orryk (I think) asked if there had been any fiends summoned into the city or incursions of fiends. That has happened in the past. (Joybell was completely shocked by this.)

Istin’s Yard, the shipyard, is a family business (owned by the Istin family, not surprisingly) that has been in the city for a long time. He gave us the address for the family residence, so we could go talk to them. He had some information for us -- the ship in the yard (where the shadowpool had been set up) had been there for about a month. Istin’s had been contracted to do restoration below the waterline, which is why the ship was in drydock. This was to be a very thorough refitting of the ship, so the owners have not been expecting or demanding updates or information.

The people who were turned into zombies had been largely identified. Most of them were workers at Istin’s, though not all of the workers are among the dead. There were a few who have not been identified but may have been revelers or visitors to the city. (The ones the rat saw carried away by the zombies.)

He also gave us the names of some of the wizards in Centerkeep to talk with about the creation of a shadowpool and if anyone has been publicly looking into that. He gave us a letter of introduction to two of the wizards.

Someone (maybe Taman or Fiona) asked if there was anyone in the city’s government, the Council who might be disgruntled. Or if the City Administrator might be somehow sabotaging the city. We were told that the City Administrator (who serves at the pleasure of the council and has been doing so for seventy years) was completely beside himself when he heard about the Incident. Chief Truehammer wasn’t aware of any infighting on the Council, though he said he wouldn’t be. But he could go to the Watch’s representative on the Council and ask there.

We told him that he could get a message to us either at the Pewter Oar or at Queena’s lodging house.

After leaving Chief Truehammer’s office, we went to the Istin family residence to talk to them. On the way, Mo used Prestidigitation to clean us all up and make us presentable. We decided to wear the guard armbands when we knocked on the door. (At least, some of us “decided”. Imaktis was wearing his all the time and Joybell was following Orryk’s lead on when to wear it or not.)

At the Istin house, a butler took us, after a moment’s wait, to see Ser Istin (“Ser” is a title, not a name) and were introduced by the butler as “guardsmen”. The armbands worked. Sort of. Ser Istin was a human gentleman in his 40s dressed nicely. He had been informed of the Incident at the shipyard and was aware that he’d lost most (nearly all) of his workers. Joybell and Mo felt like he was honestly upset about that, though it was hard to tell if he was more upset about the loss of life or because he needed to hire a new workforce.

Mo asked if this had happened before. We were told that it’s not unheard of for a worker to fall or have an accident and be injured or even killed. But never before had the entire shipyard been attacked like this.

He had not personally been to the shipyard in weeks -- he had a foreman for this lengthy refitting project (the foreman, Orn, was among the definitely dead) and his presence wasn’t required on a daily, or even weekly basis. He gave us the names and addresses of three workers who weren’t turned into zombies -- it’s not certain that they survived, but they at least haven’t been identified as dead. There were no third-party contractors hired for this project.

Mo asked if he had any enemies -- if this could have been an attack on his business (with the dead workers simply collateral damage) or on him personally. Ser Istin denied having any enemies. The other shipyards are rivals, but they’re not really enemies -- they charge about the same and have about the same expenses, and if he’s got a ship in his dry dock, it doesn’t hurt him to have work go to another yard.

Mo tried to get Istin to pay us extra to look into it, but because we were there as guards, Ser Istin wasn’t biting. “It would be worth every copper I pay in taxes…”

After we left the Istin house, the party separated for the afternoon. Mo and Joybell went to talk to the three workers who were not among the definitely dead. Everyone else (Taman, Fiona, Orryk, and Imaktis) went to talk to the wizards in the Centerkeep.

Mo and Joybell went first to talk to the nearest worker in Pierton, a Rock Gnome named Burlin. Burlin came out on crutches with a splint on his lower leg. Mo immediately offered healing, but Burlin said he’d gotten all the help that healing magic could give and it would just take time for the injury to fully heal at this point. He got hurt at the yard about two weeks ago, in just a normal sort of occupational accident. He hadn’t seen any weird people going on or off the ship -- but some of the other workers had seen someone who didn’t belong there and one of those was on our list of possible survivors. As they left, Mo slipped Burlin a gold coin to help him out until he was back on his feet.

They went from Burlin’s to the house of the person who might have survived who’d seen someone strange at the shipyard, a young human named Tarl. Tarl had heard about the stuff that happened at the yard, though he quit a couple of weeks before because he got a better offer (helping to run his brothers shop on Allacross bridge). He did remember seeing someone strange come off the ship one morning when he and a few others got there very early to stage some equipment and supplies for the rest of the work crew. They got there early in the morning (pre-dawn) and saw a tall, skinny human man wearing studded armor and a sword walk off the ship and out through the yard without stopping to acknowledge or talk to them. It was weird to him, because there’s not much worth stealing on a ship in drydock. Mo asked if he would believe that anyone who worked for Istin could have done something that would have killed so many people. Tarl said no, but he would believe it about that strange man. He smelled like dead meat. Apparently, the night watchman saw the man leave the shipyard, but hadn’t seen him enter in the middle of the night.

The final worker, visited mainly for completeness’ sake, was named Zenan. He was actually still an employee of the yard, if the yard was still a going concern, anyway. He’d missed work the day of the Incident because he’d called in sick with a stomach bug (Joybell thought that it was more likely he was hungover from too much revelry at the festival, but no matter). When asked if anything had seemed strange about the ship or what was going on at the shipyard he said that the first deck down near the bow (where the shadowpool formed) smelled a little funky and had been getting worse. Like something died there. And it was cold in that area and it just never warmed up. He hadn’t seen any strange people going on or off the ship. He also said there were no new workers.

The other team, Taman, Fiona, Orryk and Imaktis, went to Centerkeep to talk to some of the loosely organized wizards (not a freelance wizard). The two they were given an introduction to were Tulmor (a woman in her 50s) and Barnett (a man in his 30s), both humans, who share a tower in the city. Tulmor did most of the talking.

They had been informed about the shadowpool that was formed in the shipyard and gave some information about them. The tricky part of setting up a shadowpool is knowing what’s in the Shadowfell in order to make the correspondence. Once one has the knowledge of what is there, it’s just a matter of moving things around to make the correspondence. It is theoretically possible for it to have been made from the Shadowfell side, though she’d never heard of anyone doing so. It is also possible that it was made by accident, but that is very rare.

Taman asked if someone could have remade the shadowpool overnight because it only took us a few minutes to move things around enough to break it. Fortunately, it takes a bit of time (two weeks) for the shadowpool to form once the correspondences are set and during those two weeks there needs to be no sunlight in the area (including spells that specifically make sunlight).

Taman tried to get information about how one knows what’s on the Shadowfell side to make the correspondences -- would divination or scrying spells work, for example, but my notes don’t indicate that we got a satisfactory answer to that. But that knowledge is the hard part of making a shadowpool. Setting one up on a ship in drydock isn’t a bad choice for a long-term but not permanent pool -- as soon as the ship moved out of drydock it would have been broken in any case, but the ship wasn’t going anywhere until the repairs were complete.

We were told that if one sees enough shadowpools, one can start to recognize whether they were made by the same person. There becomes something almost like a style about it.

Taman asked if anyone had come around asking about shadowpools. Tulmor said that no one had paid them for that information, as a way of indicating that they had not been bought.

Orryk had some questions about the elemental planes and crossings to them and he and Fiona got an invitation to come back and look at the books in their personal library about it.

Also Taman hung back to ask a personal question and paid Tulmor and Barnett to look into it. And to not tell people they’d been paid to look into it.

The party met back up at the Pewter Oar to share the results of our conversations over dinner. When we were finishing up the main course, a guy in a guard uniform rushed in, sweaty and exhausted, breathing hard, and very spooked and said that Mogree had said to find us...things...human-like things were eating people in Fisher’s Walk (on the other side of the river).

We left him collapsed in a chair at the pub and went running toward Allacross bridge and the Fisher’s Walk district on the other side of the river. After we crossed the bridge, but before we got really into that neighborhood, we heard screaming from inside a building near the bridge.

There was a sign outside the building that said “Kell’s Boardinghouse.”

When we got there, it was late evening, but there were still a few hours of light left, we saw a person, screaming, run out through the door of the boardinghouse, slam the door shut behind himself, then fall on the stoop as his scream died away. As he lay there a flickering black form came out of his chest then went back into the building, passing through the door.

Looking around outside the building there’s a small yard and service alley in the back.

That was a Shadow -- which meant it was a higher priority than the “human-like things eating people” (maybe ghouls), because Shadows multiply.

The front door of the building was closed and all the ground floor windows we could see were  shuttered on the inside. We were reluctant to get too close (remembering what happened to Orryk at the shipyard office when he nearly got dropped by one) so Mo grabbed a rock to through through the window and shutter.

As he threw the first rock, Joybell cast Bless on herself, Orryk and Imaktis. Orryk readied a shot with his short bow.

When Mo threw the rock, the shutters got knocked open and we saw a dining room with a shadow in it. Orryk immediately fired his readied shot and hit it.

Mo threw a rock through the other front window and there was a shadow in there as well, which Orryk also shot at.

Taman then went and opened the door and saw a shadow immediately inside. Taman shot it with his short bow then Imaktis went in and killed it.

Imaktis: I have cleared the building. It is safe to come out.
Orryk: Imaktis, there are two
Imaktis: naughty word.

Fiona saw another shadow inside the house and cast fire bolt on it, but missed. It moved up on Imaktis and Taman, then another one did the same. Fortunately both of them missed with their attacks.

Joybell (who had the shittiest of all possible inits for a front-line fighter -- last after everyone, including the bad guys) finally was able to get up to Imaktis and Taman.

Taman took one down with his rapier, then Orryk and Imaktis hit the other one. Mo cast vicious mockery on it, but it saved. Another one came up through the floor to attack Taman while the one people had been hitting attacked Imaktis. Joybell used her new Protection fighting style to protect Taman, since Imaktis has that Tortle AC. Taman dropped one of those two and Imaktis hit the other one and then taunted it. The final blow on that one was delivered by Fiona.

That was *4 Shadows* killed at this point.

Looking around on this floor, we found two corpses in the parlor. There was also one in the dining room and one in the kitchen and the one on the front step. That meant that there were still more Shadows coming (there needed to be at least one more than the number of corpses because one had to make the first corpse). Looking around in the kitchen, Imaktis found stairs both up and down. We knew from the outside of the building that there were two upper floors; apparently there was at least one basement level as well.

Another Shadow came down from the ceiling right next to Mo. Taman and Imaktis killed it.

Fiona cast Dancing Lights and sent the lights down the stairs. Orryk went downstairs behind them and saw 3 more Shadows in the basement. Having used a double move to get down there he used a bonus move to Dodge. Mo dashed down after him and attacked.

One of the Shadows hit Mo and he used his Goliath resistance ability to reduce the hit point damage, but couldn’t affect the strength damage, so his strength was reduced to 4. Taman got into the combat in the basement with a dash and a sneak attack and did good damage, but we were piling up on the stairs and couldn’t get people into combat. Fiona couldn’t get a clear strike at all.

Mo did a Thunderwave, partly in an attempt to push them back and make some room for us to move in. Fortunately he killed one outright but the other two made their saves and didn’t get moved. Joybell managed to take advantage of being a little gnome to slip through the stair rails and get down into the basement and got a good hit. So did Taman and Imaktis, but the thing was still standing. Fiona shot it with her fire bolt. Orryk dropped one. Joybell tried to protect Mo with her shield during an attack, but it still managed to hit and did strength damage again. He dropped to 1 strength. (One more hit from these things and he was going to be dead and us with no way to bring him back.) Joybell laid on hands to heal the necrotic damage but couldn’t help with the strength drain. Fortunately, someone managed to drop that one.

Running total: *8 total Shadows* now killed.

Imaktis: This house is clear.

We looked around in the basement just a little bit -- there was a coal pile and some storage boxes.

Also two more corpses, bringing that total to 7.

We all started moving back up the stairs -- most of us moving and then dodging, to give them disadvantage on attacks. Imaktis and Fiona got to the stairs to the first floor and were attacked by another one. Fortunately, it only did one strength drain to Fiona. Imaktis hit it and Fiona retreated away from the front lines. And once again we were bottled up on the stairs.

Another one came out and attacked Imaktis, and he said “No” and raised his arms, and his AC went up against the attack. (Apparently our cleric cast a Shield spell, hmmmmm….)

Fiona managed to get out of combat, but Orryk couldn’t get into it and spent several rounds just dodging. Joybell used her Divine Smite ability for the first time to try and clear up a bit of the bottleneck -- it worked to the extent that one of the Shadows was killed (pretty much evaporated). Taman was able to move up and attack. Orryk hit one and killed it.

Imaktis, looking around: I have cleared the floor.
Mo: We should have just set the house on fire.

Fiona and Mo stayed at the bottom of the stairs, while Taman explored the rooms on this floor (bedrooms for the lodgers, with at least three more corpses) and Imaktis continued up to the second floor. Where he found another corpse and another Shadow. Only Imaktis was even on the second floor at that point.

Down on the first floor, Orryk was attacked by one that came out of the ceiling at him and suffered necrotic and strength damage. Joybell wasn’t able to get into melee, but she was in position to throw a javelin. Taman killed the one on Orryk, finally.

Fiona and Mo, both having suffered strength damage (and being low strength characters to begin with) spent a lot of time well behind the front line (such as it was) staying out of the bottlenecks, with Mo kind of hiding behind the wizard but still contributing with inspiration.

Mo inspired Joybell with a song and she managed to get a hit which opened up space and cleared a bottleneck. Imaktis hit it and then Fiona fire bolted it and it dropped at last.

Final tally: *12 Shadows* killed. 10 or 11 corpses found (an appropriate number, because there needed to be at least one more shadow than corpses).

Imaktis: This floor is clear.
Orryk: Imaktis may be right.

And he was.

We put on our guard armbands (because we didn’t want to be mistaken for marauders when the watch arrived) and went back down to the basement to look around.

In the basement we found:
1000 cp
600 sp
70 gp
2 silver ewers, each worth 25 gp
Wand of Magic Missiles (Mo)
Brooch of Shielding (Fiona)
Starburst Flail (when picked up, it emits dim light in a 5’ radius. When it hits a target, it emits bright light in a 20’ radius and dim light in another 20’ radius) (Joybell)


----------



## prabe (Jul 24, 2020)

Session 3: Ghasts, Ghouls, Zombies, And What Was That Thing?

Dramatis Personae:

Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Sorcerer (Shadow)
Mo - Goliath Bard
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin

GM: - Everyone Else


1 Sunnin 748 (evening of the same day) (Campaign day 2)

We started just after clearing Kell’s Boarding House of Shadows (so many Shadows!) and finding all the treasure (see above for how it got allocated). Fiona identified the items and the party took an hour to take a short rest.

Joybell and Taman went down to the basement while everyone else was resting -- in part to look for any sign of a shadowpool forming and to move things around just in case there were resonances and correspondences forming. Mostly so that Joybell could practice with her new flail. The first time she took a swing and hit something, the flail glowed bright like a torch.

Joybell, after bounding back upstairs: Guys, guys, guys!!! Look at what it does!
Fiona: I just told you it would do that. Like a minute ago.

After the others finished resting, we all went up to the upper level to look for a shadowpool and move things around some in the attic to be on the safe side. We spent some time looking around the owner’s room up on the third floor but didn’t find anything particularly useful or informative.

None of the bodies had tools or equipment of dockworkers on them and Kell’s was on the other side of the river (across Allacross bridge) from Pierton. Nothing at the boarding house connected this establishment or any of the people in it to Istin’s Yard or the Istin family.

We stepped outside and Joybell did her Divine Sense (detect undead) thing that would have been so terribly clever to have used during the fight in the house with all the shadows, but she totally forgot about it. There were no undead in her range (60’). As we were all out in front of the building, wearing our armbands, a group of 4 guards came by moving double time toward Fisher’s Walk. They told us that Commander Mogree had sent them to Fisher’s Walk because something was going on there. Mogree was back in headquarters -- he had sent them to find out what was going on and send a report back. He’d heard about ghouls eating people there.

We told the guards about the 12 dead people in the building and the whole bunch of shadows we’d killed in the house. One of them stayed at the boarding house to start dealing with identifying the dead. One went back to report to Commander Mogree. The last two went with us to lead us (well, “lead us” from sort of the middle of the pack, because they didn’t feel a need to run into the bad stuff before we did) to where things were going on.

We double-timed toward Fisher’s Walk -- initially at Joybell’s best pace, which was slowing everyone down. So Mo picked her up and she rode on his shoulders so the group could go faster.

We got to Fisher’s Walk and found four corpses scattered around an intersection with some guards keeping people out of the intersection. The corpses had been partially eaten. The guards told us that the monsters attacked people with their claws, then the victims stopped moving (though they were clearly still alive) and the ghouls would then start eating them, without waiting for them to actually die.

The ghouls that attacked these four victims took some bites out of them, then left, moving toward Upport. (They had come out of Upport and were returning there.)

We headed in that direction, then as we got into the Upport neighborhood, we saw 3 Ghouls, each with a non-moving victim. We weren’t sure if the victims were dead or not; they could have just been paralyzed. As we ran up, Taman shot at the one closest to us and Mo used his new Wand of Magic Missiles on it.

The two in the back took big bites out of their victims (one of which was clearly still alive -- we could see arterial spray) but didn’t move toward us. The one in the front of the group moved into a position of cover around a corner of a building from us. So we diverted our fire to the ones in the back that we had clear shots on -- Orryk shot an arrow and Fiona used her fire bolt. The Guards moved up, but not too far up. They didn’t want to really engage these things.

Imaktis surprised at least some of the party by casting Magic Missile (Joybell was shocked) -- spreading the damage between the two wounded ones. Taman moved into position to shoot the closest one. Mo used the Wand of Magic Missiles again, to great effect. Joybell did pretty well with her Javelins, despite throwing them at long range.

When all of the ghouls had dropped, we tried to stabilize the victims. One of them was still alive and we were able to save that one. The other two were already dead before we were able to get to them. We searched the bodies of the ghouls looking for anything in pockets or on their persons or if they had any sign of being shipwrights. The ghouls were about the height of humans but emaciated-looking (not freshly dead like the zombies on the ship). They were all  basically wearing tattered pants (“Bruce Banner pants”) with a symbol of a stylized ram’s head carved on their chests. Joybell and Imaktis recognized it as a symbol of Orcus, the demon-lord of undead who wants to make everything undead.

Joybell: That doesn’t even make sense...

As we were searching the ghouls, some of the windows along the street opened and heads started peeking out. We asked the people about what they saw -- they told us that the ghouls were heading toward Upport, where they had originally come from.

Taman and Imaktis found three sets of tracks coming out of Upport, just as the witnesses said. The guards decided not to come with us -- one of them stayed with the stabilized but still unconscious survivor and the other went back to HQ and reported about this to Commander Mogree.

We headed on toward Upport with Taman and Imaktis back-tracking the ghouls. As we were heading along three ghouls came out from around a corner toward us. At least we thought at first that it was three ghouls -- but as one came toward us very aggressively, we noticed that it smelled very very especially bad, so it appeared to be something different. (The players recognized it as a Ghast, but Joybell at least thought of it as a stinky-ghoul.) (2 Ghouls, 1 Ghast.)

The ghast dropped Taman right off with one blow, which made Orryk nervous and Joybell really unhappy. She moved up next to Imaktis and tried to protect him with her shield but the thing got a hit anyway. Then Imaktis hit with his Shillelagh.

Fiona cast Thunderwave on the two ghouls -- she pushed one back 10’ but the other one saved. Taman was healed by Mo with a Healing Word -- when he got to his feet he moved around to take cover behind tiny little Joybell.

Mo played a Thunderwave on his flute and pushed back the same one -- he was back almost to where he started, then the ghoul dropped in that spot -- but the other one saved.

Orryk was visibly shaken by seeing Taman dropped in a single hit by the ghast. He backed off to attack with his bow. He dropped the ghast. At that, the remaining ghoul tried to run away. Fiona cast a firebolt on it.

Taman ran to the corner behind the fleeing ghoul -- to follow behind as the ghoul went to wherever it was going. Joybell did a double move to try and catch up to him.

Orryk took a look at the defeated ghoul and ghast -- they were both wearing the Bruce Banner pants with the symbol of Orcus carved on their chests, but the ghast had a more ornate version of that symbol. There were no runes or anything resembling language associated with either of the Orcus symbols carved on the chests of the monsters.

Imaktis moved right up behind the fleeing ghoul, to see how motivated it really was to run away. The answer was not that much, because it turned around to attack Imaktis. Orryk shot it and Taman moved around to the side to take a shot at it from across the street. Joybell got a hit with her glowing flail. The ghoul was killed.

Taman resumed backtracking the ghouls and ghasts, following the path back toward Upport.

We came up on four monsters -- three of them looked like ghouls and the fourth looked different, like one of the stinky-ghouls with the more ornate symbol on its chest (3 Ghouls, 1 Ghast). Orryk was still shaken from Taman being dropped so easily in the previous combat. The three ghouls closed distance with us, but the different one, the ghast, stayed back.

Fiona shot it with a Fire Bolt and Imaktis cast a Guiding Bolt on it. With the four of them pretty well clustered together, Orryk, still shaking with fear from the previous combat, threw a bead from the Necklace of Fireballs into the group. The ghast and one of the ghouls were killed immediately. The other two ghouls moved up to attack Orryk. Mo viciously mocked one of the ghouls, giving it disadvantage on its attacks. Joybell dropped one of them with her flail, noting that it was softened up by the fireball.

After the last ghoul dropped, we took a short rest there, finding a quiet little alcove on the street. The path we’d been following from the first sighting of the victims in Fisher’s Walk was something of a random walk through this part of the city -- not a straight line at all.

After we rested, we continued following the tracks well into Upport. This is the area where logs come into the town on riverboats coming down from the inland forests. The logs go to lumber yards and sawmills and gets turned into lumber which is used in, among other places, the shipyards. We followed the tracks to a lumber yard -- an area defined not by a fence but by an area cleared of the grasses and plants that surround the area. There were 10’ high piles of logs and lumber around the yard and a building in the middle (approximately 60’x60’, ish) that appeared to be the sawmill.

We were able to take a bit of time to look around the yard when we got there. There were 12 Zombies spaced out around the central building.

Taman shot the nearest zombie -- it started making a low, moaning yell, which was taken up by the zombie next to it, then the zombie next to that, all the way around the line until all 12 were wailing. The nearest zombies started moving in our direction, but some of the more distant ones were moving in other directions. 4 Ghouls and  1 Ghast came out of the building and started moving toward us.

Orryk and Taman were advocating attacking at range and moving back -- staying out of melee with them, especially the ghouls with their paralyzing attack. Excellent advice, which we only sort of followed, at best.

One of the ghouls was completely evaporated when FIona critted it and did max damage with a fire bolt! Nice!

Orryk followed his own advice, shooting and falling back. Mo, who was well behind the front line, Viciously Mocked the nearest one but held his ground.

Imaktis moved up and cast Sacred Flame on the nearest zombie, saying “None shall pass”. Joybell moved up next to Imaktis, not wanting him to be facing all of the enemy on his own, and threw a javelin at the lead zombie, which killed it.

There really were quite a lot of opponents, with all those zombies (which can be tough as nails to actually drop) and the ghouls and the ghast.

Orryk told us again to fall back. Imaktis followed his suggestion -- attacking and then falling aback about 10 or 15 feet. Joybell did the same, moving back to stay within five feet of Imaktis so she could continue to protect him with her shield -- which was good because she was able to protect him from a ghoul’s paralyzing claw attack.

As we were dealing with all the monsters we had already, another Bad Thing came out of the sawmill. It looked similar to the Wight we fought on the ship at Istin’s Yard but it wasn’t wearing armor, or wielding a short sword and short bow. Fiona and Imaktis noticed that he had a Mage Armor spell up.

It shot two back beams out of its hands -- one at Joybell and one at Imaktis. It missed Imaktis but did necrotic damage to Joybell, bleaching and dessicating her skin where the beam touched her.

After that attack, Imaktis still didn’t fall back, so Joybell stayed with him, though Orryk was still urging us to fall back and stay out of range. With a couple of ghouls, the wight and several zombies coming up on Imaktis and Joybell, and Taman pretty close as well, Orryk moved up and threw another fireball bead from the Necklace of Fireballs. He got two zombies, the ghast, two ghouls and the wight.

Orryk: Next time, I’m letting you all die. Fall back!

The zombies were essentially evaporated and the ghouls and ghast were dropped. The wight took damage, but wasn’t dropped.

There was one zombie left right in front of Imaktis and Joybell. Imaktis took a swing at it, then picked Joybell up and moved back fifteen feet with her. Joybell moved up from that position to attack the zombie, then backed up to slightly behind Imaktis, but where she could still protect him with her shield, which she did. Then Taman dropped that one.

Through all of this the zombies were continuing their bellowing all around the yard as they were shuffling their way toward us.

The wight, after taking damage from the fireball, retreated back into the sawmill building.

Taman moved around to the side and took a position hiding behind one of the piles of logs where he could see anything coming out of the building and took a shot at one of the zombies, then fell back and hid again.

Imaktis and Joybell were the front line with Fiona and Mo about 10 or 15 feet behind (with Fiona throwing Fire Bolts and Mo using either Vicious Mockery to impose disadvantage or shooting things with the wand of Magic Missile). Taman was well around to the side behind the pile of logs and Orryk was circling around in that direction, shooting things with his bow (or moving up to throw darts). Orryk was still telling Joybell and Imaktis to fall back.

The zombies were getting up to Imaktis and Joybell one at a time, which seemed like it would work out just fine, except that zombies can be slow to kill which makes a defeat in detail more challenging.

While the main line of fighting was about 50 feet away from the building, Taman came out from his position of hiding behind the log pile and went to the door of the building and peeked inside to where the wight was. He saw the wight drinking something, but was not himself seen. Taman then backed around the corner and hid there.

Imaktis stayed in position with several (at least four or five) zombies getting very close to the front line. This left Joybell very torn -- Orryk was giving good advice to fall back, but she didn’t want Imaktis there on his own with three zombies right on him and more very close.

Joybell: I’m sorry, Orryk! But he’s up here and needs support!
Orryk: It’s his decision…

Taman went back to the door of the building and took a shot at the wight through the door then dropped back around the corner. It came back out of the building and could clearly see Taman, though Taman was trying to sneak. It cast Hold Person on him and Taman was paralyzed. Joybell could see Taman and that he was suddenly frozen -- she called out; “Oh, no! Taman!” -- then took a swing and dropped the zombie right in front of her.

Two more zombies immediately moved up (as expected) so Imaktis and Joybell had four zombies in a line in front of them.

Taman didn’t manage to shake off the Hold Person on his own turn but Fiona hit the wight with a Fire Bolt and broke its concentration on the Hold Person. Orryk came out from behind the pile of logs and took a shot at the wight, but wasn’t able to hit it. Mo tried and failed to Viciously Mock a zombie. Imaktis used Mo’s inspiration to hit with a Guiding Bolt.

Once again, the wight retreated, along the side of the building toward the driveway at the back. Taman took a shot at it as it retreated. Orryk missed the wight. Mo used the last charge on the Wand of Magic Missile to take down the wight -- and then the wand did not crumble to dust with its last charge expended. Yay!

Imaktis and Joybell, with their big line of zombies, were trying to focus fire on the zombies in turn, but had an iron zombie that survived many hits with only one hit point. Finally, Mo managed to drop the iron zombie with an attack with his rapier.

With all the worst monsters (the ghouls, ghast, and wight) gone, the end of the combat was a lengthy slug-fest against the few remaining zombies. Fiona moved around to where she could Fire Bolt to good effect. Orryk was throwing darts from off to the side, then moved up to attack with his quarterstaff and fists.. Taman moved up behind them and was attacking from there. Mo was around the side using his rapier.

Taman dropped another one. Orryk hit one twice, but it survived that. Mo finally dropped the last one.

Joybell moved to a corner of the building where her Divine Sense ability would cover the entire sawmill, and sensed for undead. None. Then she moved over to the driveway out into the night. None.

Good.

Taman went into the sawmill and looked for traps and found none that did damage -- there were some that were in the nature of alarms (like the Zombie Wail alarm outside). There was a shadowpool in the sawmill -- Fiona recognized it as the work of the same person who made the shadowpool on the ship. We moved things around to break the correspondences and stop it.

Orryk took a look at the body of the wight -- it had a pendant with a symbol of Orcus (like we’ve seen carved on the chests of the ghouls and ghasts). Joybell was completely grossed out by the evil symbol and said that it should be destroyed, but the others argued against it and she backed down. For now.

The ghouls and the ghasts were like the others we’d seen -- Bruce Banner pants and the symbol carved on their chests. The zombies were less fresh than the ones at the shipyard had been. By and large they weren’t wearing work-clothes or tool-belts or anything that would suggest that they were at work at the sawmill when they were killed.

Looking around the sawmill, especially the desk in the corner that passed for an “office” we found that no work had happened here for at least a month. Looking at the records, it appeared that the lumberyard had been having business problems and work may have stopped because it went into bankruptcy. The records indicate that they had sold wood to Istin’s Yard, but didn’t appear to have a deeper connection to Istin’s than to any of the other shipyards they sold wood to.

Imaktis (or maybe Mo) wondered if the shadowpools were perhaps connected to distressed businesses -- either because the buildings are empty and available or because people associated with the businesses were making deals with dark powers.

In the sawmill we found:

Potion of Stone Giant Strength (Joybell)
Potion of Clairvoyance (Fiona)
Potion of Fire Breath (Orryk, as it is relevant to his interests)
Oil of Etherealness (Taman, but he’s carrying it for the party)
Flute of Scribing (Mo)
70gp
900sp
2300cp
2 bloodstones (50gp each)
4 tiger eyes (50gp each)
4 zircons (50gp each)

(This came to 45 gp, 150sp and 383cp each, with 2cp left over.)

It appears that at least some of this treasure is coming out of the Shadowfell -- some of the coins are not locally minted (though they have the correct amount of the correct metals).

The first thing we want to do next session is report to Commander Mogree.



We all leveled up to Level 3.


----------



## prabe (Aug 1, 2020)

Session 4: Crazy Whispers


Dramatis Personae:

Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

GM: - Everyone Else


1 Sunnin 748 (night of the same day) (Campaign day 2)

Not listed among last session’s treasure was the (Un)holy symbol of Orcus that the Wight-spellcaster was wearing, because none of us wanted it. However, we thought it might be important, so Fiona wrapped it up in leather and put it in her satchel.

Commander Mogree showed up at the lumberyard after we took care of all the undead. He was disturbed when we reported that the shadowpool at the lumberyard was made by the same person as the one at Istin’s Yard. He said he would talk to Tulmor & Barnett -- they are good at planar stuff.

Mogree also told us that he had convinced Chief Ullar Truehammer to change our arrangement with the guard -- they will be paying for our lodging and food. It’s only fair -- they provide room and board for the regular guard. We can stay where we’re currently staying and they’ll cover room and board. We can also have people leave messages for us with the guard -- rather than telling possibly shady sorts where we’re staying.

Mogree said that he didn’t have any word of anything else happening in the city at the moment other than the ordinary sort of things that the guard are well equipped to handle.

We parted for the evening with plans to meet for breakfast the next morning.

Back at the lodging house, Joybell gave Queena one of the silver ewers found at the boarding house as a thank you gift. She also asked about how to get a letter or a package to someone in another city. Mail moves most inexpensively between cities along trade routes with caravans. That is not fast. More expensively a special courier can be hired -- that costs more, but how much depends on how long a trip.


2 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 3)

We met up for breakfast to talk about plans for the next few days. Joybell had to go to the Basalt Henge to take her final vows -- a three day trip (one there, one at the Henge, one back). The rest of the party had plans for doing various kinds of research, both personal and pertinent to the undead problem, in the city.

We agreed that we were going to continue working together -- this has been working out really well.


2-4 Sunnin 748 (Campaign days 3-5)

Mo spent the days working at the docks as a stevedore. He joined the stevedore’s guild and helped carrying crates at various shipyards and listening to the workers. He went with them to work and got to know their lives and struggles. He wrote and performed songs of their struggles in the stevedore’s guild taverns.

He learned that they get health care (curing magic) when they are injured without being stupidly at fault (coming to work drunk, for example) but the pay is very low. The guild assigns work out to workers who make themselves available for the day, but the Guild takes a percentage of the pay. Mo netted about 5cp per day working as a stevedore (about half the wages as a guard). So he heard some complaints about pay, but not about treatment otherwise. He also learned that the Stevedore’s Guild has a seat on the city council.

A few of the people he spoke to knew people who worked at Istin’s yard, but he didn’t get any insight into the skinny guy with the sword who was seen coming off the ship in the middle of the night.

He was reminded (as were we all) that the foreman at Istin’s Yard was, when we were talking to Ser Istin and Chief Truehammer, unaccounted for. He had not been seen and was not among the dead. One of the stevedores Mo worked with in Deepport knew him as an acquaintance to say hi to. The stevedore saw the Istin’s foreman in Deepport earlier in the day and said hello, as one does. The foreman didn’t seem to recognize or know him at all, was slow to respond to his own name, and seemed surprised to have been recognized. He clearly didn’t ‘have any idea who the acquaintance was. It wasn’t that he was scared or nervous about being recognized, he just had no idea. The stevedore told Mo that the foreman’s name was Alin, but didn’t know a last name. (Of course, Ser Istin knows the foreman’s name, so we could get it from him.)

Imaktis spent the time looking into official records of the town. He was looking into the Lumberyard and Istin’s Yard and looking for other businesses that may be failing. He did not have good luck looking through the city’s records (they are very poorly organized and the city doesn’t keep good records, according to Imaktis). The Lumberyard was in receivership, but Istin’s Yard was not struggling at all.

Joybell went to the Basalt Henge to take her Oath. There was a letter from her parents waiting for her at the Henge -- her mother (pregnant when Joybell left them) had given birth to a baby brother named Eulan!!

She also spoke with the person who trained her in combat, a tiefling named Green Hope -- she showed off her spiffy flail and talked to the him about undead and how to fight them. When she mentioned that the second Wight had a symbol of Orcus and was casting spells, Green Hope got very serious and said she needed to kill all such things she found. When Joybell asked if he had any advice about how to do that he said, “Hit them until they stop moving.”

Fiona and Orryk went to Tulmor and Barnett’s place to see about using their library, which they had been invited to do. When they got there, Tulmor and Barnett were already up and about and busy, though it was pretty early in the morning, and seemed surprised to see them.

Fiona showed them the wight’s Orcus symbol. They asked if anyone from the Guard saw that and Fiona said probably not, because it was wrapped up in her bag before Commander Mogree got there and we didn’t think to mention it. But he did see the Orcus symbols carved into the chests of the ghouls. Barnett re-wrapped the Orcus symbol and took it into another room and returned without it and Fiona and Orryk were happy to be rid of it.

Tulmor told them that Chief Truehammer had hired them to go out and map the planar instabilities in the city, throughout Embernook. This was going to entail walking around the city concentrating on a spell similar to locate object. All day. For several days.

They asked Fiona and Orryk to man the desk at their office -- taking messages and being there in case people came in to hire them. While there, they were free to use the research library without charge. For 50gp per day, Fiona could look through their spellbooks and learn any spells she could manage in the time she paid for. They even had the necessary inks and paper available, at the usual cost, for her, so she didn’t have to go hunting around.

Then Tulmor and Barnett headed out to start their survey and left Fiona and Orryk manning the desk at their office/home.

During the days of down-time, Orryk was doing research into Orcus, but had little success (possibly because Fiona had already snagged those books off the shelves) and the Elemental Planes. He had tremendous success with some research into the Elemental Planes. He also looked a bit into whether there was a Devil parallel to the demon Orcus, and found that there really isn’t one that’s as focused on undeath as Orcus is.

Fiona was researching Orcus as well and had tremendously more success than Orryk did. She learned that Orcus is the Demon Prince of Undead. He has the goal of turning everything in the multiverse into undead . During the time when the demons and devils were rampaging or stampeding on this continent, Orcus made several personal appearances, separated by hundreds of years. These didn’t go well for anyone and the last time he was on this world, sending him back to the Abyss involved two Solars (high-ranking Celestials).

Every time he showed up, those people who had made deals with him to become warlocks became undead wight-like creatures that could cast spells immediately upon his arrival on this plane...which sounds disturbingly familiar. (Note: Those people who made pacts with him to become warlocks during the hundreds of years when he was not on his plane, lived out their lives normally. It was only when he came to this plane that his warlocks immediately became undead spell-chucking wights. Which makes that guy in the lumber-yard even _more_ bad news.)

Fiona also did some research into a personal project of her own.

The only interesting visitor during the days they were watching the desk was Chief Ullar Truehammer who showed up and asked where Tulmor and Barnett were. When told they were out walking around the city doing their mapping, he grumbled and left.

Orryk also went to a shop to ask about how much it would cost to make a weapon magical -- no specific _power_, just a magical thing as opposed to a non-magical one. He learned that it costs 75gp and takes about a week to put a simple enchantment on an item. He didn’t pursue this idea at this time, but did make note of the information.

Joybell got back to town on the evening of 4 Sunnin (Campaign day 5). She stopped by Queena’s to drop off her pack and say hi, then headed off to the Pewter Oar to find people. No one was there at first, then Taman and Mo and Imaktis showed up. Tulmor and Barnett asked FIona and Orryk to go with them there (so Orryk didn’t go straight back to Queena’s himself), because they wanted to talk to all of us (or as many of all of us as possible). We all wound out gathering in a quiet corner of the Pewter Oar.

They told us that, based on their survey, there were no shadowpools currently forming in the city. There were some instabilities -- places where it would be easier to set up a standing gate. None of those instabilities appeared to go to the Shadowfell -- one went to the Feywild and one to the Elemental Plane of Water. There was also one in The Nook that was vague and indeterminate -- it seemed to them that someone could take some control over where that one became a portal to, if they were of a mind to. There was no sign, during those three days, of there being any undead problems in the city, but we still haven’t fully explored the tall, skinny, stinky guy who came off the ship at Istin’s Yard and we haven’t looked into Alin the foreman from Istin’s at all.

They did have a job for us, however, less than a day’s travel outside of Embernook, in a town called Kalmarn. They had a bookish friend, a research wizard, named Harl the Quiet -- he was Barnett’s mentor and teacher and he had collaborated with them on various projects. He had a huge library (setting the hook for Orryk and Fiona). They had not heard anything from him at all in a couple of weeks and the last riverboat that moored there (four days previous) had not seen any signs of life in the town. It looked deserted. Mo asked if the riverboat crew had seen any signs of flight from the town and there was no answer for that -- the riverboat had tied up, seen that it looked like no one was there, and then left. There was no fire and it didn’t look like the city was in shambles. There was just no one there.

We asked if he was researching anything that might have turned on him and they said that wasn’t likely. But he was definitely a research wizard -- “Anything he doesn’t know is not worth knowing” was his attitude. He had a very large library, but was very reclusive, which is why he lived in the small farming village of Kalmarn.

They wanted us to go first thing the next morning, so we weren’t going to have time to look for Alin, the Istin’s Yard foreman before we left. Fortunately, we weren’t expecting to be gone long.

We retired to our respective lodgings. At the temple, Imaktis tried to get a sense of what the local clergy were saying about the undead problems -- generally they’re pretty much against them. They do have some Inquisitors who are interested, but they have no information.


5 Sunnin 784 (Campaign day 6)

We met up at the Pewter Oar early in the morning. There were two letters waiting for us at the bar when we assembled there for breakfast. One was from Tulmor and Barnett and was addressed to Fiona. It had an envelope inside addressed to Harl and a note telling her not to open the other envelope. The other was from Chief Ullar Truehammer. Chief Truehammer’s note said that we were going to be going to Kalmarn by a boat called The Kelrose, which was waiting for us in Upport. The city had arranged for the boat and we would be paid our usual salary (such as it is) while on this mission.

The captain of the Kelrose, Whit (otherwise known as Captain), told us that we’d get to Kalmarn in the afternoon. The Kelrose had a crew of about 20 people, so it was a pretty big, but not huge. The river is about as wide as the Potomac at Embernook, narrower upstream.

Joybell had never been on a boat before, so she and Mo spent the river trip sitting up in the front of the ship watching everything. Mo was playing his flute and smoking his pipe. Taman spent the trip listening to the sailors’ scuttlebut -- the sailors were a bit baffled about this trip, because they had no cargo and were only going as far as Kalmarn. Apparently the whole purpose of the trip was to take us there.

About 2 in the afternoon, we got to Kalmarn and tied up at the moorings there. The Captain told us that they would stay until sundown, but no later. If we weren’t back to The Kelrose by then, they’d leave without us and go back to Embernook.The sailors were going to stay on the ship -- they had no intention of facing whatever was going on in the city.

From the boat, we could see that Kalmarn is a small village -- there was nothing moving, but we could see a couple of people lying on the ground looking inert.

Taman could hear some distant screaming and yelling in a language he didn’t know. As soon as he told everyone else about it, Joybell started running in that direction. The others took a moment then followed her. Strangely, Imaktis was the reluctant one, but he did come along.

By the time we got to the village proper we could all hear the screaming and shouting. None of us knew the language, though we have a lot of languages between us. When we got to the “main street” (such as it was), everyone had pretty much caught up to Joybell, who was looking around pretty wildly at first.

She was relieved to find that this was nothing like what she’d seen before.

Mo cast comprehend languages in an attempt to understand what the screams were saying -- but he found that the people (who we couldn’t see yet) weren’t making sense. The words could be translated but were put together without syntax or sense or grammar. So there was no possible translation of the phrases and sentences.

The inert people lying in the street were dead bodies -- they appeared have been beaten to death.

As we were examining the dead bodies in the streets, screaming people came out of the buildings, 8 undead bad guys (8 Mindghouls). They were moving toward us, so that the first two attacked in the first round and then more did double moves, to get to us or at least get close. They looked _mostly_ like people -- they looked ragged but not exactly rotted. They were gibbering and yelling with strings of spittle dried and caked on their faces. They didn’t have fangs, just normal human teeth, and they didn’t have any weapons. They didn’t look like anything we’ve seen before -- they looked filthy and smelled of rot, but weren’t normal ghouls or zombies.

Taman spent a moment studying one to get insight into it, then took a shot at it. Mo found that they could be Viciously Mocked, to an extent. Their minds were too badly broken, as manifested by the gibbering, to be susceptible to psychic damage, but they could be put at disadvantage on their next attack.

One of them hit Joybell and for a moment the babbling almost made sense to her. Then, still mentally scrambled, she missed with her attack.

Taman got a sneak attack crit on one for 32 points of damage. There were two on Orryk and Joybell and Orryk did 17 points of damage to one. Mo used the Magic Missile wand to hit one that had flanking on Imaktis, then Imaktis moved away from it (ignoring the attack of opportunity) to attack the one Orryk had just hit.

Another mind ghoul started coming up through the village from behind the houses in the main street (1 more mindghoul, total so far: 9). Joybell used her protection ability on the first attack against Imaktis but the second would have hit if not for Imaktis casting a Shield spell. Joybell was hit and wound out stunned -- unable to attack or move or take reactions and all attacks against her had advantage. While she was stunned, one came up and started whispering in her ear -- the gibbering almost made weird sense to her, but she saved against most of the damage. Then she was able to shake off the effect, but was unable to attack.

Taman made a good shot, then Orryk missed with his staff. Fortunately, he hit with the unarmed strike.

Mo blew a silent note on his flute which then exploded in a crash of thunder, which was a shatter spell. He was able to catch three of them. Imaktis cast Sacred Flame on one them that was in the Shatter Spell and Fiona Firebolted one and dropped it.

Another one started coming in from the end of the street (1 more mindghoul, total so far: 10).

They attacked Joybell and Imaktis and actually missed Joybell. Who was then able to get an actual hit against them. Taman then dropped the one she’d hit.

Orryk moved 15’ away from one then punched into the air, which then hit with all the force of his punches and his spiritual energy. Very cool! Mo used the wand of Magic Missile again. Fiona tried to firebolt one, but missed.

When they attacked, Joybell protected Imaktis from the first attack with her shield and then he used a Shield spell to protect against the second attack.

In the background we saw a different kind of creature coming up from a house at the end of the road -- it looked like a “vaguely humanoid frayed cloud” (1 Allip). It didn’t look like a shadow, which were the only other incorporeal beings we’d encountered. It came up from the end of the road then moved into a house, going right in through the wall.

Joybell missed with another attack, but Taman managed to get one with his rapier. Orryk did his air-fist attack, Fists of Unbroken Air, at one and then moved back further from the buildings -- because he didn’t want anything coming out through the walls at him. Mo dropped one and then hurt another one with a Magic Missile from the wand. Then Imaktis cast Magic Missile and dropped one and hurt another one. There were still a few mind ghouls around us and 1 more coming up from further away (1 more mindghoul, total: 11).

Fiona Magic Missiled one mindghoul, then the weird one (the allip) came out of the building and made a weird, babbling howl that stunned Joybell and Taman and did psychic damage to everyone. Orryk hit the allip with the same Fists of Unbroken Air attack, then backed around the corner of a building for cover. Mo used Vicious Mockery on it.

Imaktis moved Taman back out of range of the allip, then cast guiding bolt on it. He did a lot of damage, and left it limned with magical light so that the next attack against it had advantage. Fiona cast a Fire Bolt and killed another of the mind ghouls. As the mind ghouls dropped one by one, the screaming got to be less and less. As the last mind ghoul finally got to us, Fiona did a lot of damage to it with a firebolt.

The allip did its babbling howl again and once again Taman and Joybell failed the save. Both immediately dropped and _immediately_ failed death saves on their turns.

Orryk ran up and did a flurry of blows on the one last “normal” one and dropped it.

Mo healed Joybell and got her back on her feet with a Healing Word.

Then Imaktis hit it. In response, it tried to float away, but Imaktis dropped it with an attack of opportunity. (Also, Taman got healed, somehow.)

The Village was clear.

Orryk figured out that these creatures, the corporeal ones, had some sort of contagious, undead madness. Anyone that died to that gibbering, screaming attack from the incorporeal one was going to come back as one of the corporeal ones. So would anyone who died to their psychic attack (whispering in the ear).

The party looked through the whole village and all the buildings and found no living people in any of the buildings. We did find a few corpses in the buildings and it was clear that the corpses had been dragged into the houses to hide them from people. Like the ones on the street, they had been bludgeoned to death. Perhaps so that people would come to investigate. There was no sign that people were packing to leave or fleeing the village, so whatever happened happened quickly.

Harl’s house was the large one at the end of the main street -- the one that the allip had come out of. Before we went in there, though, we went back to a large open area between the village and the dock (so nothing could sneak up on us) and took a short rest, which Taman and Joybell were especially grateful for.

After our rest, we went to explore and investigate Harl’s house. Walking around the outside, we were able to look in through the windows (the curtains were open). The house was a mess, with a vibe of all-night-study-session as well. Joybell did her Divine Sense to check for undead in the house (while we were still outside) and detected none. We knocked on the door and got no response. The door was locked, so Taman opened it, while Imaktis and Fiona were both casting Detect Magic as ritual spells.

Inside the house, we found that things were torn up and torn apart. Inside the library, there were books and paper all over the library. The books had been disassembled, with the covers ripped off and pages ripped out. Orryk and Fiona both grieved the loss of the library. The detect magic spells found no magical books.

We did find Harl’s journal -- at the end it was randomly polyglot, changing languages within words and total word-salad even if they were in one language. Joybell went backwards through the journal, looking for a point when the journal still made sense to try and learn what Harl was researching when he went insane. He was working on reading a book, but he couldn’t figure out what language it was in. When he cast Comprehend Languages and tried to transcribe the translation, the transcription was in the same language as the book. He couldn’t translate it.

We figured out what book it was -- like every other book in Harl’s huge library, it had been torn apart with half the pages ripped out and the spine torn apart. The characters weren’t normal characters for any language that any of us knew, but they were distinctive. We found the rest of the pages in among the litter of the room. At least most of them. As we did so, we found that the more languages someone knew, the harder it was to look away from the crazy-writing because with greater knowledge the more nearly comprehensible it seemed.

The rest of Harl’s large library could possibly be restored with a lot of work by a bunch of apprentice wizards. An intern project.

Searching Harl’s house, we found some treasure including coin and some magic items. (See list at end.) We did not find anything like a shadowpool, which was a considerable relief.

We did find:

20gp
1100sp
1800cp
3 onyx gems (50gp each)
2 jasper gems (50gp each)

Bag of Holding (Orryk is carrying it for the party)
Potion of Force Resistance (in the Bag)
Potion of Greater Healing (Orryk)
Candle of the Deep (in the Bag)
Necklace of Prayer Beads (4 beads) (Imaktis)
Suit of Magical Studded Leather (Mariner’s Armor) (Taman)

We took Harl’s journal and as many pages as we could possibly find of the Crazy Book (so that they’re not a trap for said apprentice wizards) then headed back to the Kelrose for the sail back to town.

Once we were back in town, we went straight to Tulmor and Barnett’s to break to them the bad news of their friend (and Barnett’s mentor), getting there quite late at night. We told them that Harl had died and his library was destroyed. Barnett had heard of people being made mad by research -- their minds couldn’t handle what they were learning. Harl believed that the Crazy Book had some secret in it. We gave Harl’s journal and the Crazy Book to Barnett, with very strong warnings that he not open the Crazy Book before reading the journal. We warned him that the Crazy Book appears to be something of a trap for the unwary, so he should read the journal to know what he’s getting into. Hopefully, they’ll find that the journal also says where he found the book or who he bought it from. That might be worth investigating.

Harl had helped them with various matters in the past, but he was not at all an adventuring or combat mage. He was an academic/theoretical wizard. He was, however a friend and collaborator for them. We asked if he had other friends or other collaborators. Barnett said he didn’t know but it was entirely possible that Harl didn’t have any friends other than them.

We made a plan to give a report to Chief Truehammer first thing in the morning -- it smells too much like coincidence that suddenly in Embernook there are undead coming out of the woodwork.


----------



## prabe (Aug 7, 2020)

Session 5: Talking and Parlaying

Dramatis Personae:

Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

GM - Everyone Else


5 Sunnin 748 (later that night) (Campaign day 6)

After meeting with Tulmor and Barnett and passing off the Crazy Book (in pages) and Harl’s journal to them, we retired for the night.


6 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 7)

The next morning, Joybell woke up early so she could ask Orryk to do some research for her next time he was at Tulmor and Barnett’s library before they went to the Pewter Oar to gather with the others for breakfast. She asked him to find out what he could about humanoid figures, about the size of a troll or an ogre that took the children from a city. She knows they were wearing shiny armor like a breastplate with blank masks and carrying swords and shields and longbows. It was described to her that they fought as a coordinated unit, so when one was attacked the others seemed to know.

Orryk said he’d look into that at the library -- then everyone met up at the Pewter Oar. After breakfast we went to report to Chief Ullar Truehammer about what happened up in Kalmarn. We also asked if that was actually in his jurisdiction and were told that it is, in the sense that Embernook sort of controls some of the area around it (as a city-state, sort of) and Kalmarn is in Embernook’s protected area.

Imaktis had an idea about the Earth giving us some of the answers that we need -- and it sort of made sense to Joybell, but it was hard to convey to the others.

Chief Truehammer told us that nothing happened in Embernook while we were off in Kalmarn dealing with the Allip and the Whispering Ghouls (which seems a good name for them). At least nothing like undead or risen corpses. After a bit of figuring, we think that what happened in Kalmarn happened about 7 or 8 days ago, which would put it contemporaneous with the first Shadowpool and the first zombie outbreak in Embernook.

All the official people we have run into are telling us that this is all unrelated, but it still seems awfully coincidental that there was an undead outbreak in Kalmarn on the same day that the first shadowpool in Embernook ripened and went active. It’s like the Shadow of Orcus is over the city and its environs or something.

After reporting to Truehammer, we figured out what we wanted to do for the day. Fiona and Orryk, naturally, wanted to go to Tulmor and Barnett’s library. Of course. Taman, Mo, and Joybell wanted to try to find Alin, the former foreman at Istin’s Yard, who’d been seen acting strange by someone Mo talked to when he was working as a stevedore in Deepport. Imaktis wanted to talk to his special “contacts” in the Nook and Pierton (and then hook up with Taman, Mo and Joybell in Deepport).

Mo, Joybell and Taman (Team Deepport) planned to look for places where Alin might have found work -- anyone can do basic stevedoring (pick up box and move it as directed) but Alin also had shipwright skills and management skills.

Their first stop was at Ser Istin’s house (the owner of Istin’s Yard) to ask if he had an address for Alin. The Butler told them that Istin wasn’t there -- he was at the shipyard working on paperwork and getting the yard operating again. They still had that contract to do repairs on that ship, after all. So they went off to Istin’s Yard…

Orryk and Fiona (Team Library) went off to Tulmor and Barnett’s library. The first question they asked came out of an attempt to get at Imaktis’ idea about the Earth having the answers -- they asked about another library that might have more ancient history and folklore in it. They were told that the best library on Urnod (the continent) is in the city New Arvai, which is at the mouth of the river Embernook is on. It’s a couple of weeks travel away. It’s not a formal library, per se, (there isn’t an order of archivists or anything) but there is a collective of wizards in New Arvai that shares students and shares educational resources. Harl was from there.

As far as other libraries in (or near) Embernook, Harl had the best one. (There was a moment of silence for Harl’s library at this). They didn’t have any suggestions for where to look for histories of undead outbreaks (beyond what they’ve found regarding Orcus and his warlocks becoming wights when Orcus manifests in the Prime Material plane).

As far as Joybell’s research, Barnett (the more recent and extensive adventurer of the two of them) said that the masked figures rang a bell with him. He didn’t remember them going after kids, but he had personally run into them at some point in his adventuring past. He’d never figured out where they were from or what they were doing. He’d been part of a caravan up in the mountains and forests up north. They never communicated demands or asked for anything; they just attacked the caravan. He had the sense that if he and his compatriots hadn’t fought them, they would have taken what they wanted and left. He said they attacked as one -- fighting them was like being in a swarm of goliaths. He said they were hard to hurt and hard to kill -- not that they were exactly resistant to damage of various sorts, but they were like trolls. He saw one re-attach a severed limb just by sticking it back on. The spellcasters found that Necrotic damage seemed to stop them from healing in the middle of battle, but the beasts were resistant to it.

Barnett asked why Orryk and Fiona were asking about it -- Orryk said because Joybell had inquired. (When they were together again, presumably later, Joybell said that her experience was to the south, not the north, and only a few week’s travel away.)

Imaktis (alone by himself as Team Brothel) went to interact with the women in the fancy houses he’d been frequenting. Over the course of the morning, he asked around at several establishments and spoke to several women. He learned that Alin was an occasional customer but not a regular. He didn’t have a particular girl he’d seek out, he’d just take who was available. Imaktis managed to find the most recent girl he “visited” with and had a talk with her. Alin never said anything about where he went when he wanted to be alone -- she had the sense that when things were tense for him at home he’d come to the brothels. He never gave her a creepy vibe. And the last time she was him was about 4 weeks ago, so well before the troubles started.

Imaktis thanked her and proceeded to Deepport to hook up with that group.

Team Deepport (Mo, Taman and Joybell) went from Ser Istin’s house to Istin’s Yard. The ship looked much like it had when they left it after the zombie/wight incident (“The Incident”). Occasionally someone would go out of the office and onto the ship, then return minutes later, but it didn’t appear that there was any work being done on the ship.

In the office, Istin (and some other people) were doing a methodical examination of the files and records. He gave us Alin’s address (or at least directions to where Alin lives, since street numbers haven’t been invented yet) nearby.

Ser Istin told them that very little work had been happening in the yard from well before The Incident -- at least a couple of weeks before it seemed like Alin was winding things down. Some of the workers were just on call but not actually working, some were being paid for a day’s work and then sent home. Alin wasn’t assigning them other work, he was just sending them home. Taman and Mo didn’t think that Istin was lying to them or even holding anything back. He appeared to be open and honest. The only thing like work that seemed to be happening was that Alin was paying people to move things onto the ship then paying a different crew on a different time to move the same stuff back off the ship.

Ser Istin had been to Alin’s lodgings since The Incident, since he was not among the dead and is still not accounted for, and no one there had seen him since that night. Alin did not have any family that anyone knew about.

Before they left, they asked if they could go on the ship and were permitted to do so, with an escort to make sure they didn’t fall into the bilge and drown or any other fool thing. They found the hatches propped open and the ship’s interior being aired out. Lots of light was pouring in to where the shadowpool had been, so clearly no one was attempting to re-create it at that time.

The group went off to where Mo’s stevedore contact most recently saw Alin on the street in Deepport to look for him in that area. Their plan was for Taman to look for his face in the crowd while Mo talked to humans and Joybell talked to a few rats.

Meanwhile, Team Library was still at Tulmor and Barnett’s. Orryk was looking for older books on the Elemental Planes and asked for recommendations on where to go. Once again, the best information is in a fairly distant city -- Pelsoreen, at the mouth of the other river that goes through Urnod, has a lot of Elemental artifacts and elemental magic. (Tulmor and Barnett also pointed out that the Black Field is a potent elemental “resonator” as well, because of the confluence of fire and earth.)

Orryk asked where someone who had acquired things from the Elemental planes might sell them in town. Perhaps the Nook? Tulmor and Barnett said they’ve seen such things, but don’t know where they would be. Maybe not in Embernook.

Embernook is the city on Urnod with the _good_ reputation. Pelsoreen doesn’t have nearly so good a reputation, and New Arvai is only a little better, so one needs to be cautious when purchasing items from those cities. You may not get what you’re paying for or have newly purchased items stolen on the way out of town.

After that, Team Library turned into Team Window Shopping….eventually making their way to the Pewter Oar.

Team Deepport hooked up with Imaktis, who almost immediately raised the question about where someone would go who was acting crazy, or like they didn’t know who they were. Joybell asked someone on the street and was told that maybe they’d go to the clerics in Soul’s Rest . So Imaktis and Joybell headed off that way, becoming Team Temple.

Taman and Mo stayed in Deepport talking to people and looking for Alin. They found a person running a boarding house where Alin _didn’t_ rent a room. He refused to rent because the rooms were all too _bright_ in the house. The boarding house keeper didn’t know where he went after leaving her place, but did say that he seemed a little weird -- carried himself like he was more important than everyone else, talking down to everyone. And he smelled like death. They asked if there was a boarding house that might have darker rooms, perhaps basement rooms, but there aren’t really basements in the riverside parts of town (Pierton, Deepport, Upport). The boarding house keeper never saw the color of Alin’s coin, but he was dressed like a workman. And he smelled too bad to even be allowed into the Spans.

Taman and Mo went from the boarding house to the nearest, biggest bar just to look for Alin in the crowd, but didn’t find him.

So they headed to the house where he’d been living, the address that Ser Istin gave them. They weren’t wearing their guard armbands, so the boarding house owner wouldn’t let them into Alin’s room. She did give them enough information to figure out which room he lived in and on which floor. While Mo stayed in the parlor chatting with the owner, Taman snuck up there to take a look in the room. It looked like a guy’s room, but it was clear that there hasn’t been anything going on in here in a while, probably since two or three weeks ago (which would be a week to two weeks before The Incident at the shipyard). He looked for correspondence (or a journal) but didn’t find either.

He snuck his way back downstairs, while Mo was asking if Alin was still paying his rent. The owner said that Ser Istin had paid for an additional month, in case Alin showed back up. Which immediately made Mo suspicious about Ser Istin all over again. Taman returned to the parlor to hear Mo saying, “And that’s how I found out dwarven women don’t have beards…”

Then they headed off to the Pewter Oar.

Team Temple (Joybell and Imaktis) went first to Imaktis’ temple (of nature and life). They hadn’t had anyone that matched Alin’s description brought in because they were sick or because they were acting crazy. They went then to the druid grove, where they also hadn’t seen Alin. The druids, when asked about the undead issues, owned that they were glad the undead are being destroyed, but seemed to have a bit of a long view -- these things happen when someone gets it into their head to take over the city with undead.

Joybell and Imaktis then headed to the Pewter Oar as well to share notes with the others. One thing that was pointed out is that the Tall Slender Swordsman seen coming off the ship smelled like death. So did Alin.

We went after dinner to report to Commander Mogree and Chief Truehammer. We asked them to have someone in the guard looking for Alin, which they agreed to do. Mogree commented that we’ve had zombies, ghouls, ghasts, wights and a spell casting wight. And the shadows, which he saw as a side effect of the shadowpools. There seemed to be more going through his mind during the roll call, but he didn’t really unpack it.


While they agreed to have guard looking for Alin, Mogree said he didn’t think that Alin still existed as himself. He said that Alin might have been replaced by a powerful, spellcasting tool of Orcus that could shapeshift into Alin’s form. Perhaps someone casting a spell like create undead, which kind of alarmed us because someone would have to be a powerful spellcaster to do that. Or, perhaps, have a magic item that would do it.

We were told that dealing with Orcus is not illegal, per se, but killing people and animating their corpses is. They weren’t aware of a cabal working with/for Orcus in the city, until this all started up.

After that conversation, Mogree and Chief Truehammer said they had a task for us. Chief Truehammer had spent much of the day dealing with Tillaron Zun, a wealthy merchant who lives in the Spans. Tillaron Zun was insisting that the guard provide protection to him and his family, but wouldn’t say why until Truehammer showed up with his guards.

Zun would have liked to have had us earlier, but now is better than never.

So we headed over there. On the way to the Spans, Chief Truehammer told us that Tillaron Zun is not personally on the city council, but a member of his family is. His family moves and trades in a lot of dry foodstuffs (grains, beans) and fabrics (both fine fabrics and more common ones).

The houses in the Spans are built as bridges over the river -- there is no part of the estate on either side, but the houses have gardens on their bridges.

At the Zun estate, we met Tillaron Zun, a human man in his 40s built like he did a lot of physical work in his 20s. As soon as he saw Truehammer and the party, he said “Well, that took a while. I thought I was going to have to contact the Administrator.”

Once Truehammer smoothed the ruffled feathers, Tillaron explained to us that his son, Boludor, and his wife and their daughters, a toddler and a little six-year old girl named Kalona, were recently on a caravan trip up north past Auriqua and came back shaken in the past week. That morning a note had been thrown through the window in a snowball. The note said, “You haven’t kept your promise.” (At the mention of the snowball, Taman perked up like a dog on the hunt. “You have my attention.”)

It turned out that Boludar Zun had made a deal with the Tundra Queen. Fiona and Orryk both knew something about the Tundra Queen. The Tundra Queen is a fey noble from the Feywild. She is really into making and keeping bargains with mortals. Her agents, fey called Dilyarli, enforce the terms of her deals. Sometimes by turning people to solid ice. They also know that Dilyarli do not lie.

We asked what the promise was and, to Joybell’s surprise at least, Tillaron answered. The Tundra Queen gave Boludar money to deliver a package to the Administrator of Embernook, Aligheri. Unfortunately, the older daughter, Kalona, opened the package. When she did she started talking in a language they didn’t know and has been mute since. When they looked in the package, there was nothing there.

We went to speak with Kalona, except for Taman who was looking around at the perimeter of the building. While Mo was in the background taking 10 minutes to cast comprehend languages. Everyone in the party listened to the child while Joybell tried to talk with her. She was not speaking any language anyone in the party knows. When Mo got his spell off, we learned that she has a message for the Administrator. She couldn’t tell us what the message is, because we weren’t the Administrator.

We talked to Tillaron Zun and explain that Kalona needs to talk to the Administrator in order to deliver the message to him. He said that he’d draft a letter to the Administrator (which gives a bit of a lie to his bluster when we arrived about going to the Administrator because it took a while for Ullar Truehammer to get us there) to see about getting an audience for Kalona.

As night approached, we sent the family into an interior room on the second floor of the 3 story house, with an escape route for them so they wouldn’t be sitting ducks. And Imaktis would be able to cast a message spell to tell them to run if they needed to. Fiona set an alarm with a spell so we’d know if anyone went in there. We arranged ourselves watching the ends of the house and along the side with the river to the north.

Around midnight, we noticed, we thought, a fog cloud moving strangely on the river. It was coming downstream. It got closer and closer as we watched. Fiona and Orryk didn’t know whether or not the Dilyarli could turn into mist, but their natural form is humanoid. The dense fog kept getting closer. There was no noise beyond natural river -- a bit of water lapping at the pilings of the house was pretty much all. We continued watching the cloud approaching. Orryk and Fiona were hiding on the second floor. Joybell was standing openly in the middle of a room on the first floor (no point in trying to hide). The others were hiding on the first floor. There was some discussion of shooting into it, but we decided against.

The cloud came up over the the riverbank toward the end of the house with the garden and the gates, all also on the bridge. We all moved toward that end of the house, so we saw the cloud come over the wall at the end of the bridge and into the garden.

When it entered the garden, it turned into a tall, elegantly dressed, very pale-skinned fey man wearing leather armor in black with blue trim. He was carrying a rapier and had a longbow on his back, but didn’t have it out.

We stepped outside the door of the mansion. Mo was about to greet the figure, but Taman spoke first: “Do you know me?” “No.” Then Taman decided to charge.

Taman’s decision to charge was slow in coming (the player rolled at nat 1 for his initiative), so the party was able to talk to the dilyarli.

Orryk to the DIlyarli, Is there any way to end this night without bloodshed or death?
Dilyarli: Yes.
Orryk: What is the alternative?
Dilyarli: The package must be delivered.
Fiona said: The package has already been opened by the little girl.
Dilyarli: She’s speaking Sylvan?
Us (except Taman): Yes.
Dilyarli, after thinking for a moment: Then she is now the package.
Us: They didn’t know that. Can we have more time to get her in to the Administrator? She’s just a little girl.
Dilyarli: I can give you until tomorrow night.
Us (except Taman): Okay.

Mo tried to cast Hold Person on Taman, but Taman saved against it and charged the Dilyarli with sword out, ready to stab it. Except that thirty feet away from the Dilyarli he got turned to ice. Solid ice. An ice sculpture.

GM: He is wedding decor.

The Dilyarli turned back into a cloud and drifted away the way he’d come.

Imaktis used the Greater Restoration bead from the Prayer Bead Necklace and restored Taman to human. When restored, Taman ran after the cloud, flailing at any remaining drifts of mist in the garden.

When he was finally calm enough to talk, he told us that those things killed his entire family, his parents and his brother, just a few months ago. So the pain is fresh and raw. He said he was going to learn and train and get strong enough to kill them. Then he went into a corner to cry.

We went to talk to the family because we have 24 hours to get Kalona in to talk to the Administrator so she can deliver the package.

Joybell is concerned about what the package/message might do to the Administrator, since opening it had Kalona speaking in nothing but Sylvan. Mo thinks we need to give him some sort of cover story to get her in there (perhaps she “won” some sort of city-wide contest for children). Imaktis thinks we should tell the truth.

But we need to get her in to see him or the family will be turned to ice.


----------



## prabe (Aug 15, 2020)

Session 6: Administrator Alighieri


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

(Imaktis' player was at GenCon and Imaktis in the Fancy Houses.)

GM: - Everyone Else


6 Sunnin 748 (later that night) (Campaign day 7)

Drawing on their tremendous knowledge (and matching Nat20s the week before), Orryk and Fiona knew that dilyarli generally only kill their target, the person who actually violated the agreement with the Tundra Queen, and anyone who tries to get between them. They don’t go after anyone else -- typically not even someone who killed another dilyarli. This is good to know for when we go with Taman to get revenge for his family.

After the dilyarli left, we went to talk to the Zun family. Tillaron Zun had said earlier that he would write a letter to the Administrator asking for an audience for Kalona, but he hadn’t held much hope that the Administrator would respond. While we were in the garden and on the way to the room where the Zuns were taking shelter, we talked about what we wanted to learn.

Questions:

    Would this package harm the Administrator? The family did not know the answer for that.    
    What was the actual deal? What were the circumstances of the deal-making? How did Boludar Zun meet the fey? Why did Boludar make the deal? Why did the Tundra Queen? Did Boludar know who and what he was dealing with?
    What kind of person is the Administrator? (Does the Administrator need killing?)
    What is the Zun family’s relationship with the Administrator?

With our questions all sorted out we went in to the family.

This is what we were told (at that time): When he made the deal, Boludar had a strong feeling that he was dealing with the Tundra Queen. She contacted him while he was traveling up there with a caravan. She offered him a fair amount of gold (1300gp to be precise) to deliver the package to Administrator Alighieri.

Several in the party did not believe that Boludar was being entirely forthcoming about their payment for delivering the package.

With his usual directness, Orryk said: Tell us the truth or we can’t protect you.

Boludar then admitted that the payment was 1300gp, 2 magic items and competitive advantage for Zun caravans up north. The hazards of travel north would be more hazardous for other families’ caravans and less hazardous for the Zun families.

At that, we could tell that Tillaron was deeply disappointed in his son. Tillaron told us that Boludar’s idea of the dangers of travel up north was abstract and vague. Anyone who really knew them wouldn’t increase them for other merchants.

We asked why the Tundra Queen apparently sought Boludar out, but he didn’t have an answer for that. Our thought was that she had a sense he’d be willing to take the deal.

Mo and Orryk double-teamed intimidating Boludar - Mo by being big and loud, Orryk by talking openly about tying him up out in the garden and letting the dilyarli kill him. That way no one else would be put in danger. Under this pressure, Boludar looked openly unnerved and said he had told us the truth -- he got a Wand of Web, Eyes of Charming (magic goggles) and money.

Orryk asked Tillaron if he thought the Administrator would be intrigued by the Tundra Queen having a message for him or would he shelter and hide?

Tillaron wasn’t sure about that. He did say that the Zun family had been targeted by the Administrator for decades. They felt he’d been putting other merchant families ahead of theirs. He wasn’t sure what they could have done to offend him, but it was decades ago now.

We asked Boludar how he’d originally intended to get the package to the Administrator, when it was still a package and not Kalona. He didn’t seem to have really thought that through -- his plan, apparently, was to give it to someone else to deliver.

Around now is when we learned that Administrator Alighieri is a human. He’s been Administrator for something like 80 years. But he’s human.

Mo asked Tillaron what the Administrator is motivated by. Tillaron couldn’t answer that, but did say that he  couldn’t think of a time when the Administrator had done something for his own personal gain. His main motivation seems to be improving Embernook. The Administrator has an inner circle of one -- a Major Domo (but not an evil one, strangely). This is a halfling named Thalith. (Thalith is aging normally, apparently, for what that’s worth.)

We asked if people actually saw him, thinking that perhaps he _used_ to be a human and was now something rather less alive and more disturbing. But, no -- people do see him. And, no -- he’s not aging.

Mo had the thought that perhaps we could satisfy the deal by taking the now-empty box to the administrator. We asked to see the actual box that Boludar got from the Tundra Queen and, going back to the circumstances of the dealmaking, asked what were her actual words. Unfortunately, the words she used, to the best of Boludar’s ability to remember, were that she was giving him something and he was to give it to the Administrator of Embernook. Which doesn’t leave a lot of room for misinterpretation there.

We turned on Boludar again, because this whole situation was his doing. He admitted that most of the merchants know not to make deals with the fey. Mostly. In response to his father’s disappointment and anger, and Orryk’s occasionally repeated suggestion that we stake him out in the garden for the dilyarli, Boludar agreed to absent himself from the rest of his family. Rather than risk the dilyarli harming anyone else, even other citizens of Embernook, he would leave town alone. If we were able to get Kalona in to see the Administrator, we could tell Tillaron, who would be able to get word to him about coming home.

Mo persuaded Tillaron that the Eyes of Charming would potentially be helpful for us in working to save Kalona and Boludar. The Eyes of Charming might help us in persuading people as needed. We gave them to Mo. (As always with Charm Person, the target knows after the fact that they have been charmed.)

At that point, we figured we’d learned everything we could from the family in the middle of the night (it was about 1 am). So we left.

Before going to our various places of repose, we went to report to Commander Mogree at Centerkeep. We told him that Boludar Zun had made a deal with the fey and it was stupid and we had bought 24 hours but no more. When we told him that Boludar had specifically made a deal with the Tundra Queen, he agreed that was an error.

We warned him that the dilyarli had come into the city as a mist-cloud floating down the river from the north, so perhaps the guard should be looking for that to stay out of its way tomorrow night. And we told him that Boludar was going to be separating himself from his family.

He agreed with us about letting Boludar Zun go to his fate.

Mogree had heard of the dilyarli and said they’re nothing to mess with unless you’re really good or really careful. That said, they can be negotiated and avoided (if one is not their target) and they’re more than honest. He had also heard of the Tundra Queen making deals with people.

We asked him what the Tundra Queen might be after -- what’s in it for her to get a message to the Administrator. He said that she’s looking for more political influence. There are those who say that the founders of Auriqua made a deal with her, which is why that city has been able to thrive way up north. Auriqua should, by rights, have gotten attention from Frost Giants. The Tundra Queen, he told us, lives in the Feywild.

We then went to our respective homes to rest. Taman, when he got back to the Pewter Oar, asked the bartender for some salt to have in a pouch if he needs it.


7 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 8)

The next morning all of us except Imaktis met for breakfast at the Pewter Oar. We assumed he was, erm, tied up in the fancy houses he’s been visiting. Perhaps healing some wayward soul.

We made plans to go to talk to Chief Ullar Truehammer and Tulmor and Barnett. We were hoping that perhaps we’d develop a plan for getting in to see the Administrator.

While the party discussed various thoughts (going through the Guard’s representative to the council, seeing what Tulmor and Barnett know about the Administrator), Joybell trotted over to the bartender and asked what the procedure normally was for getting in to see the Administrator. (Being Joybell, there were a lot more words than that -- about being from small towns and getting to know the mayor and how it would make her parents happy if she went and introduced herself even though this is a big city and maybe it’s weird to do that here.) The bartender told her that the procedure is to go to Centerkeep and wait in line to talk to Thalith (the halfling major domo). The Administrator’s office is right near Thalith’s. If the Administrator isn’t the right person to help with a problem, Thalith sends petitioners to the right people. He warned Joybell that Thalith can be hard to get past. Also, he said that the lines get long, but Thalith is efficient.

Joybell went back to the others and told them what the bartender had told her.

Some of the party, including Orryk and Fiona and Mo, wanted to go back to the Zun house to see if Kalona was detecting as magical. We definitely wanted to get to talk to the Administrator -- in the past week and a bit the town has been dealing with multiple extra-planar intrusions. Even aside from the dilyarli situation, we wanted to introduce ourselves, offer our services to the Administrator, and see who we’ve been fighting for.

The plan developed that Joybell and Taman would go to Centerkeep and get in line to talk to Thalith while the rest of the party went to do various things including visiting Tulmor and Barnett, talking to Kalona Zun (and casting detect magic) and talking to Ullar Truehammer. And doing whatever else seemed necessary.

The first stop for Mo, Orryk, and Fiona (Team Doing Stuff) was Tulmor and Barnett’s place. Mo asked about the Tundra Queen and her dilyarli. He explained that someone was to deliver a package, but the deal was broken when someone else opened the package. (He did not mention who the package had been intended for.)

Barnett: And now they’re speaking Sylvan?

He went on to explain that the person who opens such a package is under a geas (a magically imposed quest). Generally what happens is that the person under this geas has a mostly harmless mental effect that the only language they can speak is Sylvan until the geas is satisfied. What has happened in the past is that when the person under the geas is ALONE with the recipient of the “package”, the geas’ed person gets taken over by something like a Magic Jar spell. The possessed person says or does something, then is released from their geas.

Mo asked what kinds of messages get delivered this way. Barnett said that up around Ariqua deals with the Tundra Queen are much more common than around here, which was him saying that he didn’t know. 

Mo asked if we could trick the geas’ed person into delivering the message and fulfilling the contract -- perhaps by disguising someone as the proper recipient, would the Tundra Queen know? Would the geas’ed person be able to be fooled by something like that or would the magic prevent it?

Barnett said that it would be possible to free the geas’ed person with something like that -- she could be freed of her compulsion. However, part of the message is usually an instruction to the recipient to do _something_ (something only the recipient can do) as a sign that the message has been received. If that is not done, then the Tundra Queen will know that the message was not given to the right person. In other words, we can free Kalona but can’t save Boludar with a trick like that.

Orryk asked if Barnett knew of any other deals people here in Embernook have made with the Tundra Queen. Barnett’s response was, “Not here.” But, he said that if the Tundra Queen doesn’t recognize a merchant in the north, she generally approaches to make a deal.

Barnett then said (in response to some further questions from Orryk) that if the Tundra Queen is trying to do _something_ in Embernook, then the Administrator will want to know. It could be urgent. However, Barnett said that we’ll need evidence that the Tundra Queen is trying to meddle in Embernook’s affairs. We need to take all the evidence we can muster to Thalith. And when we’re talking to him, we need to do it loudly -- Administrator Alighieri can hear conversations in Thalith’s office.

Mo asked what kind of man Administrator Alighieri is. Barnett said, “I cannot answer that.” So Mo asked if he knew anyone who could. Barnett said that he genuinely didn’t know anyone who could tell us about him.

But he did say that we definitely need to be honest when talking to the Administrator. He’ll respond to that much more favorably than he’ll respond to being lied to or tricked.

Mo then asked some questions about the Feywild, the Shadowfell and Orcus -- he wanted to know about creatures from other planes, what their relations with each other are like, and what their motives are. Tulmor and Barnett agreed to look into finding answers to those questions. Between them Tulmor and Barnett have been to several planes (including the Astral and the Ethereal). Barnett, for himself, expressed no desire to repeat the experience.

Immediately interested and on point, Orryk asked if Barnett had been to any of the Elemental Planes. Barnett said he hadn’t but Tulmor has been to the Plane of Air (the safe and comfortable one, relatively speaking).

Mo thanked them for being remarkably helpful and the party left. After they were out on the street, Mo said that after talking to Barnett he thought the party should be honest with the Administrator.

Meanwhile, in line at Thalith’s office, Taman and Joybell were listening. Or trying to. Taman was being subtle about it, while Joybell was not particularly attempting to hide the fact that she was listening to what people were saying. She also kept moving closer to Thalith’s office as seats and spaces opened up. So she could hear better. (None of it sounded very interesting to her so after a while she started praying and meditating.)

Taman didn’t hear much as far as content, but he did catch that when people got loud with Thalith he was good at calming them down. And most people were sent by Thalith, with letters, to the people who could actually help them. Taman also saw in Thalith’s office two 9’ tall suits of armor with glowing eyeslits -- which seemed like something not to mess with.

In other words, Team Queue was queueing.

Team Doing Stuff (Mo, Fiona and Orryk) went next to the Zun estate in The Spans. The first thing they learned was that Boludar was getting on a boat in Deepport and heading away out of the city. Mo immediately observed that the sailors were being put in harm’s way, but at least Boludar was away from his family and the city.

They went to talk to “TalDorei” as Mo called him (Tillaron) and Kalona. Fiona cast Identify on Kalona and found that she’s definitely under a geas with a pending magic jar. She’d also been polymorphed into herself who can only speak Sylvan. Mo cast Comprehend Languages so they could talk to her.

Orryk persuaded a somewhat reluctant Tillaron Zun that the Wand of Web might be useful to us in protecting Kalona, depending on how things go down when we take her to the Administrator.

Fiona asked to see the empty box -- the wrapping paper had been discarded, but the box itself was well made, about the size of a cigar box, with abstract inlays in the wood. But it is not magical. She also asked to see the note that the dilyarli threw in through the window (in a snowball). It was written in Common by someone for whom Common wasn’t a first language (or even a first alphabet).

Mo, with the Comprehend Languages, went to talk to Kalona. When he told her the group was going to take her to see Administrator Alighieri she cheerfully agreed. She also asked to ride on Mo’s shoulders. Which Mo agreed to.

So Team Doing Stuff headed off to Centerkeep and joined Team Queue at Thalith’s office.

When they got there, Joybell asked what she should say when her name was called and they’re taken into Thalit’s office, since she wasn’t privy to any of these meetings. She was told to say “There is evidence that the Tundra Queen has an interest in the city of Embernook.” And she was told to say it loudly.

Mo also pointed out, before we got called in, that we potentially had a chance to help with sorting out the Zun family’s problems with the Administrator.

About 10 minutes after Team Doing Stuff arrived in the queue, Joybell’s name was called.

Thalith recognized our group immediately, noting that we were missing our Tortle. We said Imaktis was taking the day off.

Thalith: You are a motley crew.

Joybell said what she was told to say, and said it loudly. We said that the message was in the little girl now and asked if the Administrator would want to know what the message is.

Thalith: Yes he will.

Then he started counting down on his fingers. The door to Administrator Alighieri’s office opened exactly when his count got to one.

Alighieri came out into the office -- he was a tall and slender gentleman (especially for a human), dressed nicely. He moved well and didn’t look a day over 55. Which was a little creepy.

Administrator: Thalith, you should stop giving these people any problems.
Joybell: He was very nice.
Administrator: Thalith, you’re slipping.

We told him that Kalona had the message, so he took her into his office and closed the door behind. We all tried to listen as well as we could, but only Taman heard their footsteps in the other room - until their footsteps suddenly cut off.

After a few minutes they returned, Alighieri looking both amused and irritated. “Thalith, please have the honor flag raised over the office.” (This was the signal to the Tundra Queen’s agents that he had received the message.)

Mo asked what the message was.

Surprisingly, Alighieri answered: The Tundra Queen persists in underestimating me. She has demands and insists on them. I persist in saying no.

We asked if we could help him or the city in any way and he said that there’s nothing at the moment.

Alighieri: So one of you tried to engage in a fight with a dilyarli?
Fiona: He didn’t get far.
Alighieri: Have you learned?
Taman: I have business with a dilyarli.
Alighieri: Your business is with the Tundra Queen, then.
Taman: In time. I want the one responsible first.
Alighieri: Tell me.

Taman then told Alighieri about the dilyarli brutally murdering his entire family. He wants revenge on their behalf.

Administrator Alighieri said that there is nothing bad that can happen to the Tundra Queen that he would mind, but he advised us to kill her here and not in the Feywild. Joybell asked why, and he said that if she’s killed here, she can’t come back.

Mo asked if there was any money in us killing the Tundra Queen and the Administrator said that he didn’t want her dead. He just wanted bad things to happen to her.

Mo then asked: What is your problem with the Kuns?
Everyone else in the party: Zuns.
Alighieri, indicating Kalona: Her family? My relationship with them is the same as every other merchant family in Embernook.
Mo and Orryk: They feel like they’re being squeezed.
Alighieri: I treat all families equally and all families would likely say the same thing. Merchants are people and people remember most what has gone against them.

He then told us that he suspected Boludar Zun would enjoy his adventures in New Arvai and Pelsoreen. (Apparently his one-day cruise to get out of town and protect his family is not going to go his way.)

We made our goodbyes and left the building. As we walked outside we noticed the windows to Thalith’s office and to the Administrator’s office next door. As we were looking, we saw a cloud flowing into the Administrator’s office.

We rushed back into Thalith’s office and told him what he saw.

Thalith: I miss the days when they were subtle.

He opened the door to Alighieri’s office -- there was a dilyarli in the office with its back to us. Aligheri was there as well - he was fine. Still amused but a lot angrier. (This was the same dilyarli that was interacting with the Zun family.)

Mo: Do we need to kill this thing?
Alighieri: He serves his Lady well. He’s going to tell his Lady that I refused his offer. He’s going to go back to the north and tell his Lady to kindly piss off.
Alighieri to Taman: It is possible I was mistaken about who your problem is with. There is a rogue dilyarli. His name is Ildna.
Joybell: He’s broken service with his Lady?
Alighieri: This one does not know the full story. Ildna has taken to chasing people who have fulfilled their deals with the Tundra Queen. She, however, hasn’t taken it into her head to stop him.
Taman: Where was he last?
Alighieri gestured to the dilyarli in the office, who said: The last few people he has attacked have been mostly around Auriqua.
Mo: Do you know why he went rogue?
Dilyarli: I can’t imagine. My Lady hasn’t enlightened me about that.
Taman: If I am going to be hunting down one of your brothers, is there a method to avoid the...unpleasantness?
Dilyarli: Alas, you are asking me to betray all of my kind, not just one.
Taman: It was worth a shot…
Dilyarli: <<laughed>>
Joybell: Would you or your brothers and sisters help us find this rogue?
Dilyarli: We are not free to…
Joybell: If we can help to take this one on, please contact us. We have a highly motivated colleague.
Taman: Can you control the eye thing?
Dilyarli: I can. But with my back turned, the lack of threat is overt.

We left again, heading to the Zun estate to return Kalona. On the way there, Joybell mentioned that she thought Thalith’s description of us as a “Motley Crew” might be a good group name. Mo made an excellent point -- What do we want to advertise ourselves as? What are we selling with the group name?

Good questions. We’re still pondering the group name question...

When we got to the Zun estate, the whole family was there, excluding Boludar, but including Boludar’s wife.

Mo was concerned, as was Joybell, that because Boludar’s deal with the Tundra Queen has been fulfilled, the fey are going to be screwing with other merchants up north. Tillaron didn’t know if we could call that off in any way. Orryk said that she’ll probably keep the letter, but not the spirit of the deal. Indeed, it’s possible that she’s made the exact same deal with other merchant families, so that the effects all even out.

We left and went to report to Chief Truehammer that the Zun family was no longer a threat or under threat -- but he may have already heard that from the Administrator. Ullar chuckled and said the he had an appointment with Alighieri in a few hours and that it would be nice to know what he’s going to say in advance.

We asked about Alin, the foreman at Istin’s Yard and suspected evil undead-making thing. He had made inquiries among the guard and learned that some time between the Lumberyard and when we dealt with the allip in Kalmarn a guard on the North Gateway saw him leave the city on a wagon of possessions. Well, naughty word.

We apparently have a lot of problems to the north.

Truehammer didn’t have anything else for us at the moment.

We flapped about a bit after that.

Mo and Taman went to the Pewter Oar to have some celebratory drinks. Joybell went to the druids in town, but they didn’t have any pressing problems. Then she joined Orryk and Fiona at Tulmor and Barnett’s, where Orryk was talking with Tulmor about her trip to the Plane of Air. Apparently she went to the Plane of Air to ransom a friend who wound out owned by a Djinni. She took a Lamp of Djinni Summoning to trade for her friend.

She got to the Plane of Air via the Ethereal plane, because the Ethereal connects to all the elemental planes. Which made Joybell wonder if the Oil of Etherealness would work -- but apparently not because that only gets you into the border ethereal, not deep into the Ethereal plane. To get to the Deep Ethereal, you need a gate or a Plane Shift spell, which is the same as what is necessary to get to any other plane. (The reason one doesn’t just go straight to the Plane of Air is because those gates tend to be deep in storms, Which doesn’t answer why one doesn’t just use the Plane Shift spell to go directly there rather than to the Ethereal plane.)

Tulmor brought back a pretty ring with a star sapphire in it from the Plane of AIr. After admiring it, Joybell then spent the rest of the afternoon asking for the stories to go with other things in their place.

And thus the rest of the day passed….

Treasure:
Wand of Web (Orryk)
Eyes of Charming (Mo)

(We went up to level 4 here.)


----------



## prabe (Aug 22, 2020)

Session 7: The Wights Are Back in Town


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM: - Everyone Else


8 Sunnin 748 (later that day) (Campaign day 9)

We met up at the Pewter Oar for breakfast, as usual. We revisited the conversation about what we should call our group. Suggestions were:

Mo W. Kang’s Band of Friends (Mo)
Wired for Light (Fiona)
Bud Light (Mo)
Allies of Light (Imaktis) (Joybell seconded this one)
Light Bringers (Joybell) (retracted when people pointed out there's a clerical order with the same name)
Betrayers of the Dark (Imaktis) (Joybell though this one sounded kind of negative)
Superior Six (Imaktis) (Joybell likes this one too!)
Five Man Army (Fiona)

It seems as though Mo would be in favor of any of those being Mo W. Kang’s… actually Mo W. Kang’s Five Man Army kind of works. And Joybell, at least, is fine with having someone else’s name as the headliner.

We decided to put the question on hold for a while and went off to do fun activities for the day. Mo, Joybell and Imaktis went off to do some shopping -- we picked up Mo’s Iron Boat (so we’re ready to use the Feather Token to immobilize someone if we need to) and Joybell bought some Holy Water.

They then went together to an herbalist -- Mo needed pipe-stuff (whatever is legal and readily available) and Joybell wanted to talk to the herbalist about herbalism. And see if she needed help getting herbs or anything. Imaktis asked about what she thought about all the recent undead attacks. She said she’s glad they’re over -- Imaktis clarified that it “seems” like they’re over. Then he asked if anyone had been buying anything odd lately. She said she couldn’t think of anything. Joybell asked if there are any herbs that might be part of making a lot of undead -- the herbalist said that someone would need spell components for that, but those wouldn’t be herbal. For fighting them, one would need holy water and holy symbols.

Orryk, Fiona and Taman went to Tulmor and Barnett’s library to look up information on dilyarli and their weaknesses, the Tundra Queen and her agents, and fey society in general. (On the Intelligence: Arcana checks they got 24, 22, and 20, respectively.)


They learned:

    Dilyarli are resistant to magic (Note: They have advantage on saves) and it’s especially hard to do mind-magic on them.    
    We’ve seen the ice-sculpture gaze attack thing, but they also exude cold and can do cold damage. (Basically they breathe out cold air as a short-range breath weapon.)
    They are, not surprisingly, vulnerable to fire. (Nonmagical fire is a bit better because they don’t have saving throws to have advantage on.)    
    They looked into the Tundra Queen and her whole organization and organization structure, including other minions. They learned that with Fey Nobles, in general, their powers in the material world are far more circumscribed than they are in the Feywild. In the material world, they are circumscribed by their goals and motivations. Those goals and motivations establish rules by which the Nobles must live. 
    The deal that the town of Auriqua made with the Tundra Queen, under which she provides them with protection, appears to involve some number of the citizens of the town getting turned into dilyarli -- they get taken as children. (At that, Joybell, in the guise of the MetaPigeon, asked if the ones who take the children wear masks. None of the Tundra Queen’s servants wear masks. Taman’s take was that masks are sort of like lying and the dilyarli at least don’t do that.)
    The dilyarli are sometimes escorted by another of her minions -- Ice Mephits.
    Most of the time she resides in the Feywild (not in the prime material plane) but she is very interested in expanding her influence here -- both the geographical extent of the tundra and her political influence.    
    It is a weirdness of the world since The Severance that anything from another plane that dies here can’t come back unless it finds (not makes) a permanent portal or is specifically summoned by a native.
After the shopping trip, Joybell went with Imaktis to “help people”. They went together to the brothels Imaktis has been visiting lately. Imaktis worked on healing the workers while Joybell offered her services as a bouncer -- getting rid of customers who were being mean or abusive. Mo, not knowing their specific destination and being less interested in “helping people” than they, went to the Pewter Oar to get a head start on the evening’s drinking.

We all met back up for dinner at the Pewter Oar.

Between the appetizers and the main course, Taman got a feeling of pressure in his ear then heard Administrator Alighieri’s voice saying, “Go to Allacross now please.” Taman looked around confused in response.

At the same time, Mo had a feeling of pressure in his ear and heard Mogree’s voice in his ear saying, “There are ghouls in Allacross. You might want to hurry. Wear your armbands.”

After a moment sorting out what that was, we hurried off as requested, armbands on. To facilitate the hurrying, Joybell was riding on Mo’s shoulders. And wishing mightily for the day she can cast Find Steed and get herself a mastiff or a wolf or something to ride. We got to the bridge and found 5 ghouls attacking bystanders. (As we were hurrying to fight the ghouls and rescue the bystanders, Mo suggested a couple more names for the group: Ghoulbusters, Ghastbusters. Someone else (I think) suggested Shadowbane, but Imaktis was not a fan of that one.)

When we first spotted them the ghouls (actually, as we learned, 4 ghouls and 1 ghast, though you can’t tell ghouls and ghasts apart by looking at them) were about 150’ away down the bridge with half a dozen or so civilians (and two shop-kiosks -- rectangles of counters with an open space in the middle with poles holding up “roofs”) between us and them.

Mo put Joybell down then moved up thirty feet and cast magic missile from the wand.

The ghast attacked, but entirely missed the unarmed peasant before him. Orryk moved up and shot at it.

The ghouls moved to civilians -- each to its own. They were more successful in their attacks than the ghast -- several of the civilians were paralyzed and one was bleeding out.

Taman moved up to one of the un-attacked civilians, providing an alternative target, then took a bow-shot at one of the ghouls. Fiona moved up just enough to get into range and cast Melf’s Acid Arrow at one -- which will do continuing damage over time.

The un-attacked civilians (three of them, I believe) ran away safely out of range. One of the ones who was attacked but missed, tried to run away, but was hit and paralyzed as it tried to flee. There were four civilians down and/or paralyzed.

Imaktis and Joybell were the slow ones in the party. Joybell moved up as far as her little legs would take her. I believe Imaktis did as well, only his legs are longer.

Mo blew on his pipe and blew out a cloud of sparkling embers that settled on two of them as a Faerie Fire spell. That made those two easier for the rest of us to attack.

The ghast moved up to one of the civilians that had already been paralyzed by a ghoul. It hit (because it’s very difficult not to against a paralyzed opponent) but minned the damage. This was not a top of the line ghast.

Orryk moved up still further and shot at one of the ones with the faerie fire on it.

We were hearing deeply unpleasant chomping noises from the ghouls on the civilians. One of the civilians was entirely killed and dead and partly eaten. Orryk’s hit dropped the one eating that civilian.

One of the ghouls attacked Imaktis and missed. Taman moved up to that one and backstabbed (because of having an ally within 5’ of the opponent) for 26 points of damage. A very effective de-spleening!

Fiona, staying well back, magic missiled the other one with the faerie fire on it. Imaktis moved up to the nearest one and used his Shillelagh to attack. Joybell moved up but couldn’t quite get into melee, so she threw a javelin at the one Mo had already magic missiled. Then Mo magic missiled it again.

As we engaged with them close up, we noticed that they had the Orcus mark on their chests, like the ghouls we’d fought on day 2.

The ghast attacked Imaktis and continued its run of failure by missing with its sword. Orryk used his Fists of Unbroken Air attack on the ghast -- he punched into the air from several feet away and pulses of air from his punches hit the ghast. Then Orryk moved back a few steps. After those attacks, the ghast, looking pretty wobbly, let out a shriek.

Another ghoul (1 more ghoul) came running up from the far end of the bridge. The ones that were eating civilians continued to do so without, apparently, noticing the ghast’s scream.

Taman, feeling heroic, rushed up and attacked one noisily eating a civilian who appeared to still be alive. He missed (nat 1).

Fiona, sensibly staying well back out of things, fired a bolt of fire at one that hadn’t been attacked before.

Imaktis, near Joybell, moved away from the one he’d attacked (and had to use his Shield spell to protect himself from the attack of opportunity), further into the middle of the ghouls, then summoned the power of the light and turned the undead. Because of his position, the ghast would be running in the direction of the rest of the party if the turn succeeded against it. The ghouls would be mostly running away down to the far end of the bridge.

Before that question was resolved, Joybell moved up and finally got to attack something -- she attacked the ghast and killed it. Unfortunately the victim it had been eating on was not saveable.

Mo managed to viciously mock one of them, calling it bony. Orryk moved up on that one and used his quarterstaff for a little bit of damage then punched it for rather a lot and dropped it.

One turned ghoul ran away, but the new arrival to the combat ran up and attacked Imaktis, but the shield spell was still up from before and held it off. Another one was running away off the bridge.

Taman made an insight check, which allows him to sneak attack even when there’s no one else there fighting the opponent, and attacked one of the turned ghouls. Because of the damage it took, it was no longer turned.

Fiona actually had to move up some to be able to attack the one that was running away but she snipered it away with a firebolt.

Imaktis hit the one in front of him. Joybell tried to join him but her move was just a few feet short of being able to attack with her flail so, with a grumble, she threw a javeiln and missed.

Mo viciously mocked one to death, then Orryk dropped the last one.

We could see more at a distance coming down the bridge (2 more ghouls). One of them actually got up to Taman, who’d gotten well ahead of the party, but couldn’t attack. Taman got a critical hit against it then disengaged. He went to check on another of the civilians -- like the others the person was not merely paralyzed but also very, very dead.

Fiona cast a chromatic orb (acid) on one of the newcomers. It took 15 points of acid damage, but didn’t drop. Imaktis cast sacred flame on one, doing radiant damage, then moved right up to it. Joybell moved up next to Imaktis so she could protect him with her shield.

Then she saw a bunch of zombies (6 zombies) coming up the bridge. Orryk moved up close to one of the ghouls and did a Fists of Unbroken Air attack, punching the air forward. He hit with that but missed with his bonus attack. The other ghoul failed in its attack.

The incoming zombies weren’t going for any of the civilian corpses or dragging anyone off -- they were just lurching toward us. Behind them, moving at zombie lurching speed, were two other figures, grim and murky (1 regular wight and 1 spellcasting wight). At the point when we saw them, the zombies were 100’ away and the wights another 30’ behind them.

Taman took shelter in a kiosk and shot at one of the zombies.

Fiona dropped the ghoul that Imaktis and Joybell were on, so that we were all ready to engage the wights and zombies incoming.

Imaktis moved up into range and cast Spike Growth, which made a 20’ radius area of hard spikes -- difficult terrain that also did damage with every 5’ of movement. There’s a wisdom save to recognize the hazard. Amazingly, 3 of the zombies spotted the hazard. (The other three were already in the area of effect when Imaktis cast the spell.)

Joybell moved up as far as possible and threw a javelin at one of the zombies, which was all she could reach.

The regular wight shot its bow at Imaktis and he allowed that to hit. The spellcasting wight shot a coruscating black bolt at Imaktis and he used a Shield spell to block it, because “coruscating black bolt” sounds bad.

The zombies in the spike growth spell shuffled forward at half their normal shuffling speed, taking damage and leaving bits of flesh on the spikes as they walked. Two of the zombies that made the wisdom save to _see_ the hazardous terrain failed the intelligence check not to go ahead and wade right into it. One of the zombies, clearly a brighter spark than most of its kind, turned to go around it.

The wights, who initially failed to see the hazard (failed the saving throw) could see their zombies getting shredded and didn’t wade into the spike growth.

Mo magic missiled the zombie at the front of the ranks in the spike growth and Orryk shot one.

Taman went to intercept the zombie that was going around the spike growth on the other side of one of the kiosks on the bridge.

After moving her full movement, Fiona was five feet out of firebolt range of the spellcasting wight, so she firebolted a zombie instead.

The wights moved up -- the spellcaster did a misty step to get over the kiosk toward Taman then shot two of the coruscating black bolts at him, hitting with both (but Taman saved against the worst effect). The other wight moved into the kiosk and dropped into cover below the level of the counter.

Imaktis moved up to the edge of the spike growth and dodged, waiting for the zombies to emerge. Joybell moved up to the outside of the same kiosk the wight was hiding in and dodged, but also took a bonus action to cast thunderous smite, in hopes that the wight would emerge and she could attack it.

One of the zombies got dropped by the spike growth, or by its determination to proceed through it, just at the very edge of the field.

Mo played a silent note on his flute that then exploded into a shattering sound, casting Shatter on the spellcasting wight and the brainy zombie (the one who went around the spike growth) nearby. That dropped the zombie but the wight was still standing.

Orryk used the Wand of Web to fill a 20’ cube at the end of the kiosk where the regular wight was hiding with webbing. Unfortunately he couldn’t get both of the wights. The area of the effect overlapped by 5’ with the spike growth. (The web spell makes an area difficult terrain and, on a failed save, someone in it is restrained.)

Taman took a moment to gain insight on the spellcasting wight and then backstabbed it with that insight, but it remained standing. Fiona moved to firebolt the spellcaster, but missed with the attack.

Despite Fiona missing, the spellcaster wight turned and began running away back down the bridge. The regular wight in the web spell was in difficult terrain, but not restrained. He also turned to run away.

Imaktis cast sacred flame on one of the zombies -- tattered-looking, it still survived.

Joybell grumbled at the fleeing wights -- she has no way to catch a runner -- so she threw a javelin at one of the zombies and dropped it. Then she grumbled some more and was prepared to go looking for more javelins, thinking we’d just be tracking the wights to wherever they were going...but the _rest_ of the party was able to catch them.

Mo cast magic missile, using two charges from his wand. One missile hit the spellcaster, dropping it, and the rest of them hit the regular one, who had been undamaged.

Orryk used his wand to web the regular wight again.

Taman ran as far as he could around the original web, to get close to the remaining wight, but then wasn’t able to attack. Fiona cast a scorching ray from the edge of the spell’s range. Two of the three rays missed and the other two didn’t ignite the webbing, alas, but that was still enough to drop it. Taman and Orryk each got 9 arrows from the wight.

Joybell took a moment to buy 3 javelins from an unoccupied kiosk on the bridge, leaving some coins and a note explaining what she’d done on a shelf behind the counter. Mo tried to take the money, but Joybell saw him and fussed at him. “Mo Kang, you put that back! I am not stealing from this nice merchant because of you!” Mo put the money back.

At about that time, one of the doors in the wall of the bridge, along the side walls, opened and Commander Mogree, Chief Ullar Truehammer and Administrator Alighieri stepped out. We noticed that the door opened into Alighieri’s office, which is in another part of the city entirely. Mogree was wearing studded leather armor, Ullar was in full plate, and the Administrator...was interesting -- when we looked at him he varied from looking like he was wearing normal clothes to looking like he was in an ornate breastplate.

Alighieri told us that the undead were coming down the Amorr River, walking on the river bottom, then coming up the shores into the city.

Alighieri: “Ullar, Mogree and I can take care of this. You six need to head out of the city and along the road up the river to find where they’re coming from and stop them.”

As it turned out, Alighieri knew that a wraith and some spectres were coming our way, down the river.

Joybell, suddenly suspicious: How do you know that?
Alighieri: I know where everything in the city is.
Joybell: That must be overwhelming.
Alighieri: I filter a lot.

The being that looked like Alin, the Istin’s Yard foreman, (the stinky guy who left the city before we went to Kalmarn to deal with the allip and the whispering ghouls) is some sort of undead warlock of Orcus. Alighieri suspects that he left Embernook and has found a town, now probably with the population all turned into undead, where he could regroup and prepare to come back to Embernook.

As he was telling us this, incorporeal figures (a wraith and four spectres) came up onto the bridge through the walls. Alighieri turned to them and prepared a spell -- Fiona, watching, could tell that he stopped in the middle of casting the spell to tell us to look away or close our eyes. Then he cast a spell that made a very bright, nearly instantaneous flash of light like sunlight (even through our closed eyelids). When it was over, the spectres had been killed instantly and the wraith was in tatters. Mogree and Truehammer moved up and took them out before we could do much of anything.

We decided to take a short rest before heading out of the city, many of us being drained and or damaged by the previous fight. Alighieri returned to his office but Mogree and Truehammer stayed with us. About the time our rest was ending, every wall and every street in the city began to glow, increasing in brightness over the course of several seconds. Joybell turned to Mogree and asked if the Administrator was doing that and he said yes. After a few seconds, the entire city was glowing as bright as daylight.

With that we headed toward the North Gate and let Mogree and Truehammer deal with managing the threat in the city. Whatever it was.

At the gate, there were several guards standing on the wall with crossbows shooting at something that we couldn’t see outside. We asked what was out there and were told that there were 12 ghouls. We offered to help and those in the party with ranged attacks went up on the wall to shoot at the ghouls. Joybell went up with them to cheerlead until the fight was almost over, then went down to wait by the gate for the others to be ready to go.

Once all the ghouls were dead, the guard opened the gates for us and let us out of the city. We could see the tracks of the group of ghouls in the road. This lot did not come down the river and up the bank the way the ones on Allacross had. When we left the city it was about 9 o’clock at night.

We headed generally eastward on the road, toward the Amorr River, in the direction the ghouls came from (and in the direction Administrator Alighieri sent us). After a few miles the road curved around the wall of the city and wound up closely paralleling the river heading east.

After a ways, the road went into a wooded area -- with a forest on the left of the road (the north side) and the river to our right (on the south side). Joybell was extremely excited to be in trees again -- it was a very long time since she’d been in trees. Joybell and Imaktis were up in the front of the group (which was traveling at the speed of Joy), with Orryk off to the side of them. Mo was off to the other side a few feet behind the front line. Fiona was in the middle of the group with Taman at the back.

Taman saw that there were a couple of wights (1 regular wight, 1 spellcasting wight) in the woods -- none of the rest of us did. He also saw that they were coming right for us, but were being stealthy. One was holding a longsword and the other was holding a longbow. When he saw them, they were about 60’ away.

One of them (the one with the longsword, who was the spellcaster) misty stepped right into the middle of the party, next to Fiona, and hit her for 11 points of Necrotic damage. Fiona then misty stepped out of the middle of the party and moved a distance down the road, then firebolted it.

Water coalesced around Orryk’s hands and he whipped the water around the wight. It saved against being knocked prone by his water whip, unfortunately, but Orryk was able to hit it with his quarterstaff.

From the woods, the other one fired at Fiona (at some distance from the party) with an arrow and hit her for 10 damage. It was 60’ out in the woods, but after the shot we heard it moving.

After that shot, a line of zombies (8 zombies) stepped out of the woods along the edge of the road.

Imaktis turned undead -- catching 5 of the 8 zombies and the spellcasting wight in the effect. The zombies were all turned except one but the wight was unfazed.

Mo blew on his pipe the silent note followed by a crash that is the shatter spell on the 3 zombies that were outside of Imaktis’ turning. Joybell attacked the spellcasting wight and missed. Taman attacked it and missed as well.

Fortunately, the spellcasting wight swung at Joybell and missed, wildly. So at least that was on both sides.

Fiona quaffed a healing potion and ran back toward the relative safety of the group.

Orryk pummeled the wight with a flurry of blows and his quarterstaff doing lots and lots of damage. The wight in the woods responded on behalf of its buddy (or something) by shooting at Orryk, but it missed. In the process, it came out of hiding and stayed out of hiding.

The turned zombies ran away, though their flight was slowed by the forest (difficult terrain). The unturned zombies moved up to Mo, Taman and Fiona, who were all standing in a cluster away from Imaktis, Joybell and Orryk. One attacked Taman and hit him.

Imaktis moved over to that group with the zombies and hit one with his shillelagh. Mo cast another shatter spell on those three zombies.

Joybell hit the wight and was going to smite it but could see how badly damaged it was and just went ahead and dropped it without the smite.

Taman got a big hit on one of the zombies, and then moved toward the wight in the woods. Fiona targeted two of the zombies with an acid splash spell, which does ongoing damage.

Orryk moved to the edge of the woods and targeted the wight there (with the bow) with a web from the wand. It saved against being restrained (third save vs. the web of the evening for the wights we’ve fought) and moved up on Taman, but wasn’t able to get there and attack.

The zombie attacking Joybell missed. The one on Mo hit him and Mo used his stone’s endurance (a Goliath thing) to take no damage from it. The two on Imaktis attacked him and one of them hit. One of those looked like it should have been dropped already but was still standing and then it saved against his sacred flame.

Mo actually broke out his rapier and used it to actually stab at the zombie on him and hit it for 4 damage. Nice! Joybell, on the other hand, critically missed the one in front of her.

Taman tried to get insight on the regular wight, but was unable to get a good read on it. Fiona cast another acid splash for a small amount of damage. Orryk used his Fists of Unbroken Air on the wight and used his ki to push it back ten feet into the web spell AND did a nice amount of damage. So cool! Unfortunately, it saved against the web again (4th save vs. the web) and moved back up on Orryk and Taman. It missed its attack with the necrotic touch, but hit with its sword.

One zombie missed Joybell horribly but others hit Mo and Imaktis (twice). One of the hits on Imaktis was a crit. Imaktis used the sacred flame again, but once again the zombie saved.

Mo got another hit with his rapier, but despite looking like it should have dropped, the zombie was still standing.

Joybell dropped her zombie with a nice hit (yay!) and moved so she could protect both Mo and Imaktis with her shield when they were attacked.

Fiona cast another acid splash, catching two of the remaining zombies. Once again, they looked like they should have dropped, but didn’t.

Orryk missed the wight with his quarterstaff and used his ki to do a flurry of blows. Unfortunately, all but one of those attacks missed as well. In return the wight hit him with its longsword and with its black necrotic hand, though Mo’s cutting words turned that last into a miss, thank goodness.

Orryk: A little help over here…

One of the zombies hit Mo with its attack (Joybell didn’t jump in quickly enough with her shield). Joybell protected Imaktis from the first attack against him but unfortunately the critical hit got through. Imaktis cast sacred flame (I think) and finally dropped one of the zombies. Mo hit one and it should have dropped, but it was an Iron Zombie and just would not fall.

Joybell laid hands on Imaktis, healing him for 15 points of damage, then went to help Orryk and Taman with the wight.

Taman hit the wight and Fiona magic missiled it and it finally dropped!

Then Orryk moved over to the two remaining zombies. He dropped one but the other one was still standing.

The remaining zombie got another critical hit on Imaktis, but he didn’t drop because of his shadow sorcerer connection to the grave. Imaktis hit it with his shillelagh, but once again despite being damaged enough to fall, it remained standing. Mo stabbed it, and it still remained up.

Joybell, fed up with the darned thing, moved back across the road to the zombie and did a divine smite on it -- with the additional radiant damage the Iron Zombie finally fell!

We ended while we were deciding whether to take a short rest and continue, take a short rest while looking for a place to take a long rest, or to just find a safe space and take a long rest. We had gotten about an hour away from the city.


----------



## prabe (Aug 29, 2020)

Session 8: Killing Them With Fire

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


8 Sunnin 748 (later that day) (Campaign day 9, an hour after sunset)

While we were taking a short rest, immediately following the combat with the wights and the Iron Zombies in the road, we discussed whether to continue on overnight or to stop for the night. Mo and (initially) Joybell, were in favor of going on -- it seemed like there was a great urgency to this, and if we stopped to rest the city could be overrun with undead. Mo also pointed out that we weren’t likely to get a quiet night’s rest in a forest crawling with undead.

Orryk and Fiona pointed out that Alighieri didn’t know how far we’d have to travel to find the center of the problem -- it could be days of travel away. Even if it was the very next town, it’s probably more than just a few hours travel to get there.

Imaktis appeared to be arguing that we could just abandon the whole city to its fate, but that was not seriously considered. Taman pointed out that Alighieri seemed pretty powerful and it’s likely that he, Ullar Truehammer, and Mogree could take care of the city (with the rest of the guard) for a few days (giving us time to take a rest).

Orryk and Fiona’s argument that we could be traveling for days convinced Joybell and she began to argue on their side that we should rest. Orryk’s absolute certainty that if we went on we’d die and not save anyone was also pretty persuasive.

As part of this conversation, Orryk also pointed out that in the previous combat, the two people with non-magical weapons or attacks wound out fighting the wights (resistant to non-silvered, non-magical weapons) rather than the zombies, which was a sign of unwise tactical decision-making on the parts of some members of the party. Joybell pointed out that some of her tactical decisions have to do with who she can get to with her little legs, but admitted that he really did have a good point.

Having agreed with Orryk on that, and on stopping for a long rest, Joybell and Taman went to look for a good place to camp for the night while Orryk and Mo continued to discuss. (Taman was sneaking around so Joybell stayed as far away from him as possible. To the extent she knew where he was.)

We found a campsite that was off the road, on some high ground with some trees and not a lot of game trails, but not too much underbrush -- so we could see things coming, but have some cover. Orryk used his move earth cantrip (from being a Way of the Four Elements monk) to dig a 5’ wide and 5’ deep trench around the camp at the top of the hill, with a 5’ wide area not dug out to make it easier to get in and out. Fiona cast alarm across that “entrance”. The dirt removed from the trench was spread evenly around on the top of the hill -- and the dirt let us make nice soft places to sleep. Very homey.

Orryk and Fiona took first watch, which passed without incident.

Joybell and Imaktis took the second watch. In the middle of their watch, they heard snarling, like ghouls (not like animals) a ways off from the campsite. We moved to where we could see (hopefully without being seen). There were 4 ghouls (apparently, it was actually 3 ghouls and 1 ghast, but we couldn’t tell that from a distance).

Joybell asked Imaktis if we should wake the others, and he said no. So she went back to hunkering and watching. When it became obvious that they were coming straight for us, not merely wandering around, she went and woke everyone up despite Imaktis saying not to.

When woken, Mo was all snarky about us being attacked by undead in the middle of the night, because he’d predicted this, but he got up.

Immediately on waking up, Taman shot one with an arrow, which was a good start. Mo viciously mocked the same one. Orryk took a shot at the same one (focusing fire) but missed horribly and started swearing in Gnomish. Joybell was shocked at his language.

One of the ghouls moved up faster than the others (that was the ghast) - this was the one that everyone had been shooting at.

Joybell threw a javelin at it, but totally missed (with a nat 1). Basically everyone missed that round, except Taman.

Orryk got a good hit on the ghast, then it ran up and went down and over the trench and got right up on Joybell. (The trench counted as two squares of difficult terrain.) It missed her, though, which was good. Imaktis, who used his shillelagh cantrip, hit it and dropped it right into the trench.

With the ghast right in front of her gone, Joybell threw a javelin at the nearest ghoul. The ghouls then finally got all the way up to the party, though they were mostly standing in the trench, which had them fighting at disadvantage. Taman used his rapier on one.

Mo flicked a spark from his pipe in the air, which burst into sparkling faerie fire that clung to two of them, giving us advantage on our attacks on them.

Orryk dropped one with his fists of unbroken air. Imaktis got a hit. Joybell tried to get fancy with an Ensnaring Strike spell on the one which wasn’t faerie fired, but failed with her attack. Until one of the faerie fire’d ones moved out of her threatened area and she hit it with an opportunity attack. At that point it, saved against the writhing vines.

Fiona firebolted the faerie fired one and then Taman hit the other one and killed it with a mighty backstab.

Mo stepped forward and threw a dagger at the last one and dropped it. With his dagger.

Mo: Are we done with this now?
Joybell: Yes. Go back to sleep.

We got all of the ghouls and the ghast into the trench and Orryk covered them up with his earth moving cantrip. Then Mo cast a sleep spell, though it really wasn’t going to work against the party. But everyone but Joybell and Imaktis did go back to sleep.

Around the time they woke up Taman and Mo for their watch, Taman heard more of the ghoulish snarling in the woods -- we stayed quiet until they moved on, then Joybell and Imaktis went to sleep.

The rest of the night passed without incident.


9 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 10)

The next morning we got up and continued on our way -- we thought about traveling just off the road, until we remembered that the forest was difficult terrain and we’d be moving very slowly. So we let Taman scout ahead of us on the road and we stayed close to the forest side of the road so we could dart off of it and hide if we needed to.

About mid-day, Taman, scouting 60 to 100 feet ahead of us, saw some figures coming down the middle of the road toward us -- they were sort of bony looking, but not skeletons (4 ghouls (or ghasts, as we can’t tell them apart at a distance)) and 1 not-a-wight (GM didn’t say at this time what it was, just that it didn’t look like any of the wights we’ve been fighting all along; later we learned that this was a deathlock)). Taman came back to tell us about them (they hadn’t seen him), and we hid in the forest alongside the road, rather than confronting them. (We wanted to be at full strength when we found the Undead Warlock of Orcus person we were out looking for.)

We succeeded in hiding in the woods, despite Joybell wearing heavy armor. Also despite Joybell getting a look at that not-a-wight thing -- it looked really bad and was heading for the city and not fighting it was killing her. But Taman and Orryk kept her focused on the plan and she didn’t throw a javelin at it. Also Taman kept his hands on her shoulders and held her in place.

After they passed by, we resumed proceeding on our way with Taman scouting ahead. The rest of the day we travelled without incident until just before dusk we saw a logging camp in the distance -- there were a few bunk tents, a big stack of sawlogs, and a pier in the river. All were semi-randomly placed in a 60’ clearing starting at the river and extending over the road. Everything looked pretty tatty and we didn’t see anything moving.

We stopped inside the forest where we could see into the camp without being seen and Taman went in to scout around. Mo inspired him with a hearty “Best of luck!”

Taman cut a hole in the nearest tent and peeked in -- it was very dark in the tent, but the sunlight was coming in through the entrance (at the far corner). Taman saw and heard something in the tent recoil and hiss away from the light. (1 bodak).

(Note: GM told us what all of the big bad guys were after the combat and I’m going to use those names for them rather than the monikers I wrote in my notes. I’d rather not sound like an idiot talking about the hissing thing (later to be called the Abyssal guy), the was-invisible guy, the guy that came from the road, and the tall skinny guy.)

He then went to the next tent and cut a little peephole in that one. There was more light in that one and he could see three figures -- one was really tall and thin and the other two were ghoulish (1 fext and 2 ghouls). They were speaking with one another, but in a language Taman couldn’t understand. (He recognized the rhythms of conversation/speech, but not what they were saying.) The ghouls weren’t very articulate, but the fext was speaking.

(There was a third tent nearby, closer to the river, but there wasn’t any good way for Taman to get to it without risking being seen by whatever was in the other two, so he didn’t go peek in that one.)

As the rest of us waited for Taman to return, Orryk quaffed the Potion of Firebreathing and Imaktis blessed himself, Joybell, and Orryk.

After a few minutes, Taman came back and told us what he saw.

We spent a moment figuring out what we were going to do, and then Orryk moved up along the back of the nearer tent (the one with the bodak that hissed away from the light) to where he could throw a bead from his necklace of fireballs at the second tent (with the fext and ghouls). Joybell moved up along the front of the nearer tent and stopped where she was not visible from the door, but so she could get to the entrance the next round.

When Orryk threw the bead, the second tent more or less exploded in flames, entirely burning, and the nearer tent took some damage and caught on fire at one corner.

After the explosion, Joybell moved up further and stopped, sort of in the middle of the square, and took a dodge action. She was in a position to take on anything that came out of the first tent (burning at the corner and with the bodak in it) or second tent (entirely on fire with the fext and 2 ghouls) or the third tent (not burning at all and un-scouted). The fext, armed with a greatsword, came out of the second tent.

The fext was tall and skinny and seemed to fit the description of the guy that came off the ship at Istin’s Yard -- apparently a big bad if not THE big bad.

Fiona cast firebolt and hit the fext twice (does this make sense?). After she hit it, it turned and glared at her -- casting a Hex spell on her. Then it fired two Eldritch Bolts at Joybell, but missed.

Orryk couldn’t see anything still moving in the tent he fireballed, so he held his action to shoot at something that needed shooting when it appeared.

After a moment, one of the two ghouls came out of the fireballed tent. The other one apparently was killed in the fireball. The ghoul ran across the central square of the camp to the third tent and got just to the entrance. We assumed he was going for reinforcements.

At the same time, we saw 2 more ghouls running in from the far edge of the camp, beyond the pier.

Taman moved up a bit and shot one of the new ones coming in.

Imaktis cast Guiding Bolt on the fext and the fext cast Counterspell -- except he was 5’ out of range for the Counterspell (but well in range of the Guiding Bolt) and had to take the 16 points of radiant damage Imaktis was dealing.

Imaktis, Orryk and Joybell saw the flap at the entrance of the third tent fly open, but didn’t see anything other than that. Joybell yelled out that something invisible just came out of the tent.

Joybell couldn’t get to the fext and attack, so she moved up half her move and threw a javelin at it, hitting well. (This was her last moment of effectiveness until the end of the combat.)

Mo cast Faerie Fire on the area near the entrance to the third tent, hoping to catch the invisible thing. Unfortunately, the invisible guy didn’t get lit up, but the ghoul (which had already been through the fireball and taken at least one arrow) did get caught in the spell. 

The fext took two swings at Joybell -- one missed but the other one hit for quite a lot of damage (more than a third of her total), and that was after Mo used Cutting Words to ameliorate the strength of its blow.

At this point, the 1 deathlock (the not-a-wight) and 4 ghouls that we’d seen on the road heading toward the city, came up behind us, from the road. We were all focused on the fight in the center of the camp, so no one noticed them coming up until the deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona. Fortunately, it missed with both.

Orryk moved up and threw a fireball that caught the fext and the ghoul that had already been through the other fireball. Then he breathed fire in a 30’ cone (thanks to the Potion of Firebreathing) in the direction of the fext. The fext managed to dodge and miss much of the damage from both of those attacks, but in doing so, it lost concentration and the Hex spell on Fiona went away. The ghoul, unsurprisingly given all that it had been through, died.

At that, the fext screamed out a name in Abyssal and said, “Get your ass out here!” (Orryk understood and translated for us.)

At that the bodak came out of the first tent and walked right up to Imaktis. It wasn’t a shadow -- it was entirely solid. It also didn’t take any damage from the fire that was consuming that side of the tent, but its skin was blistering in the fading evening sunlight. We finally got a good look at it -- it was barely human, looking like a slightly melted wax sculpture and wearing tatters. It was also wearing the ram’s head Orcus symbol (as the rest were).

Taman moved up to attack the fext, but missed.

Imaktis moved around the knot of combatants to cast Guiding Bolt on the fext, who counterspelled. Imaktis then moved back to his original position.

At the end of his turn he took damage from an aura of death and decay (necrotic damage) that the bodak was giving off.

A skeletally thin undead thing appeared next to Mo and cast Arms of Hadar, which created dark tendrils of energy that battered Mo, Joybell, and Imaktis. Joybell and Imaktis were able to resist it, but Mo took a lot of damage. This was the invisible thing, a deathlock mastermind.

The deathlock mastermind looked mostly like bones held together with stretched tight skin. Sort of lich-like, really, except not a lich.

At that point in the combat, Mo had been badly injured, Joybell was below half her hit points, Imaktis had been hit a couple of times. Everyone had been hit to varying degrees. And we’d killed one ghoul.

Joybell took a swing with her flail at the fext, missing, then moved around him to get out of range of the deathlock mastermind’s Arms of Hadar, if he chose to cast it again. Unfortunately she couldn’t get out of range of the bodak’s necrotic aura without taking an attack of opportunity from the fext.

Mo healed Imaktis with a healing word, then disengaged and moved out of the middle of things to a somewhat better position.

The fext took a swing at Joybell with his greatsword and dropped her with his first swing.

The deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona -- one hit and the other missed.

We had still killed exactly one ghoul. (Note: At this point we were thinking we’d stumbled into a TPK.)

Orryk then moved up to breathe fire on the fext and the deathlock mastermind. The fext finally died -- after two fireballs, two fire-breaths, and several hits from various people. The deathlock mastermind took a lot of damage from the fire and was looking rather worse after it. Orryk then took the rest of his move to head toward the deathlock and four ghouls that came in from the road and threw another fireball bead at them from the necklace. All of them -- the ghouls and the deathlock were burned up in the fireball. 

After Orryk’s turn things were suddenly looking very much better.

The bodak took a swing at Imaktis, but missed. The two ghouls that had been running up from the far side of the camp finally arrived, getting right up on Taman and Joybell’s dropped body. Fortunately they both attacked Taman (rather than making auto-crit attacks as they went to eat Joybell). Even more fortunately, both missed.

Taman hit one of those ghouls, then disengaged and dragged Joybell 15’ away. Unfortunately that left her still in the bodak’s necrotic damage radius.

Imaktis turned undead, getting one of the ghouls but neither the deathlock mastermind or the bodak. He then dragged Joybell five more feet out of the bodak’s range so she wouldn’t take that damage (and auto-fail 2 death saves).

The deathlock mastermind moved to where he could see Fiona and cast dispel magic to get rid of her Blur spell. Fiona, in response, backed further away from the center of combat and cast chromatic orb, but missed.

Mo cast healing word and got Joybell back on her feet--figuratively speaking, anyway as she was still prone. Then he cast vicious mockery on the deathlock mastermind.

Orryk used his final firebreath from the potion on the bodak and the un-turned ghoul. That dropped the ghoul. Then he hit the bodak.

The bodak glared at Orryk--the effect was obviously bad because there was a withering energy and Orryk saved and still took 11 points of damage. Orryk then used his ability to Fade Away and turn invisible.

The turned ghoul continued to flee, running out of the field of battle and the logging town. (Note: We totally forgot to track this guy down, so there’s a random ghoul out there in the forest. Later note: Apparently he came back and we killed him later without incident.)

Taman studied the bodak for a bit to gain insight on it, then shot it with his bow, but even with the insight he didn’t do a ton of damage.

Imaktis used guiding bolt on the bodak, wherein we learned that it is not vulnerable to radiant damage, though its skin was blistering and peeling away from the sunlight as we watched. (The GM was surprised by this, too ...) He then reached down and stood Joybell actually on her feet.

The deathlock mastermind moved away from Orryk, who took an attack against him as he moved, which cost him his invisibility. Unfortunately, he missed. Fortunately, the mastermind also missed when he used eldritch blast on Orryk.

Fiona fired a magic missile at the deathlock mastermind, which hit.

Joybell, now standing, and angry, laid hands on herself and marched toward the bodak, getting about 10 feet away before her movement ran out. She was hoping that he’d come to her…

Mo dropped a shatter spell on the bodak and then inspired Joybell.

Orryk attacked the deathlock mastermind, missing with his first attack but doing some real damage with his flurry of blows.

The bodak died without anyone touching it from the damage it took from the fading sunlight -- its flesh blistering and sloughing away.

With the bodak gone and the one surviving ghoul having fled well away, the only opponent left on the field was the deathlock mastermind. Taman took a shot at it. Imaktis cast guiding bolt,and did some nice damage (and gave the next attack against it advantage).

The deathlock mastermind turned around and its hand started to glow with a black glow then it hit Orryk. Mo tried to use cutting words to reduce the amount of damage he took, but it wasn’t enough and Orryk was dropped.

Fiona hit it with a Melf’s Acid Arrow, which did some good damage. But it stayed standing.

Joybell moved up and absolutely botched her swing (with a Nat 1). There were swears at this point.

Mo healed Orryk with healing words then tried vicious mockery, but the mastermind succeeded in saving against that.

Orryk pushed himself to his feet, swore in Gnomish, and attacked. Woozy from having been knocked out and dropped, he missed with his first attack and the first of his flurry of blows, but he did get a hit with the last of them.

Taman moved up and attacked with his rapier but missed. Imaktis hit it with a guiding bolt, which did lots of damage and the next person to attack it once again had advantage.

After all of that it was still standing.

The mastermind took a swing at Orryk and dropped him again.

Mo: Stop that!

Fiona shot it with a firebolt and it took some continuing damage from the Acid Arrow.

It was still standing.

Joybell, really really pissed now, hit it and did a divine smite, calling down the power of nature she’s sworn to protect, and finally dropped it.

Imaktis cast Prayer of healing to get all of us into better shape, because we were all beaten and bloodied.

While the rest of us looted the bodies, Taman skirted around the camp and made sure nothing was in any of the other tents or coming our way from the woods.

All of them had the Orcus symbol (the ram’s skull) either carved onto their bodies or worn as an amulet. The ghouls looked like they were perhaps formerly the lumberjacks and sawyers of the logging camp. We did not find anyone who looked like Alin, which seemed a little surprising, though it had been suggested that there might have been a disguise self spell involved at some point.

We did not find any journals or writings or letters that would let us know for sure that this was the whole of the problem or if there are other deathlocks of various sorts out there planning to attack Embernook.

In the tent that wasn’t burned, we saw that the mastermind was again starting to set up a shadowpool. Fiona recognized it as the work of the same creator as the two we’d dealt with before. We disrupted that and Mo burned the tent down with a prestidigitation spell.

During all of this we took a short rest, so we were feeling much better by the end of it.

On the persons of the dead guys and in the tents, we found:

7 x 50 gp gems (2 jasper; 5 onyx)
12 x 100 gp gems (4 spinel; 5 tourmaline; 3 chrysoberyl)
4 x 25 gp art and valuable objects (1 silver ewer; 3 ornate mirrors with painted frames)
110 gp
1900 sp
2900 cp

GM says that the gems and art are freely interchangeable for money, which means that all divides like so:

293 gp each (with 2 left)
316 sp each (with 4 left)
483 cp each (with 2 left)

We also found:
+1 Greatsword (No one in the party can use this)
Gloves of Swimming & Climbing
Rod of the Pact Keeper (Warlock only)
Horn of Silent Alarm
4 spell scrolls (Hex (Warlock only), Armor of Agathys (Warlock only), Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat) (Fiona has asked for and really should get the Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat scrolls.)

We decided to travel through the night to get back to town as soon as possible -- there was enough moonlight to travel safely on the road.


10 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 11)

We got back to town a couple of hours after sunrise. The town was no longer glowing.

As soon as we were in the city, Orryk said: “Hey, Alighieri, we’re back.” But there was no response.

As we went through the city and across Allacross to get to Centerkeep, we noticed that the city seemed to be in remarkably good shape, though the crematoria were clearly working hard. We didn’t see a lot of signs of anything having happened -- the people in the streets looked pretty normal and like it was just another day. However, we noticed that the _guards_ we encountered looked tired, worn, and edgy. They had bloodshot eyes and looked like they hadn’t slept for the last two nights. The citizens were business as usual, but the guards had seen some business.

We reported to both Chief Truehammer and Commander Mogree.

Joybell: We killed lots of things. With fire. We think everything is dead. That’s all. The others can tell you anything I left out.
Everyone Else: No, that sounded good.

We were all aching to go to our respective beds and sleep. On our way out, we were told that the Guard have a storehouse and we should be able to trade in any of the items we got that we can’t use for something they have. Specifically the greatsword that no one can use and the warlock only items.

So that’s cool.

Exhausted, we left and went home.

We will wake later at level 5.


----------



## prabe (Sep 3, 2020)

Session 9: Back to Kalmarn

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


10 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 11) (the same morning)

We left Chief Ullar and Commander Mogree after making our somewhat sketchy report “We killed lots of things. With fire.”

We said we’d come back later to trade in the things we can’t use and all went to our respective homes.

Most of us slept for the rest of the day and the night. Fiona slept for a while and then spent the rest of the night copying spell scrolls we’ve obtained along the way.

Joybell cast Find Steed in the middle of the night, after sleeping through the day. Orryk heard some snuffling and whuffling noises from Joybell’s room and knocked to see what’s up -- so she introduced him to her new wolf mount, Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl, Defender of Henge and Wold.

Joybell: But he’ll respond to Scooby.

Scooby licked Orryk on the cheek.

Orryk nodded and went back to sleep.


11 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 12)

The next morning, Joybell walked with Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl down the stairs and introduced him to Queena. Scooby licked her cheeks. Whereupon it was worked out that Scooby can stay in Queena’s fenced yard, but Joybell agreed that maybe he should have something like the wolf equivalent of the guard armbands, so no one tries to steal (or hurt) him.

Queena accepted Scooby like a champ, which made Joybell very grateful.

We all met up for breakfast at the Pewter Oar, where Joybell introduced Scooby to everyone and there was much licking of cheeks.

At breakfast, Orryk asked Joybell about the Basalt Henge. He’d heard that it has been there as a Druidic circle for about 200 years and that it’s a good place to find elemental magic. He asked if she would take him, or the whole party there, and Joybell said yes.

We decided to leave the next day, after taking care of some things in town. First, we stopped by Centerkeep to see about what exchanges we could make for the things we can’t use. Joybell rode Scooby through the city and got a number of weird looks and double-takes but no overtly freaked-out reactions. And we were able to travel at everyone else’s speed without Joybell having to ride on Mo’s shoulders.

We all went into Ullar’s office, including Scooby. Joybell asked if we could get a collar or something for him. Ullar made arrangements for that, which will be helpful.

There was a bit of discussion as to whether he’d agree to wear a collar. Joybell figured that since he’d agreed to be named Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl, Defender of Henge and Wold, he’s probably a pretty easy-going celestial wolf and will be okay.

We asked about what we could trade the items we can’t use for. Ullar wrote a note and sent an assistant out to bring back some items from the stores. Scooby licked Ullar’s cheeks.

While the assistant was doing that, we talked to Truehammer about where we’d go to purchase magic items. He recommended a guy in the Nook named Trannel. He also said we’d do well to get an introduction from Tulmor and Barnett.

Imaktis offered to help heal people, if anyone was still in need. Ullar said that there are some people who could still use restorative magic.

We asked if we should report to Alighieri. Ullar said that he and Mogree had passed on our report already, which made Joybell feel bad that it was so sketchy. While waiting for the assistant to come back, we give a much fuller report that they can pass on to the Administrator.

After about an hour, the assistant came back with a guard collar for Scooby and also:

Shortbow +1 (Orryk)
Pearl of Power (Fiona)
Scrolls of Feather Fall and Illusory Script (Fiona)

The city was very quiet at the moment and he had nothing for us to do, so we all headed over to Tulmor and Barnett’s together to get an introduction to Trannell.

We were met at the door by Tulmor and we explained the situation to her. She said she was not free to leave their shop, because Barnett was at Harl’s house in Kalmarn (see session 4) with a group of mages trying to reassemble Harl’s library. She did give us a letter of introduction to Trannell.

Fiona stayed behind to copy a spell (Leomund’s Tiny Hut) while the rest of us went to Trannell’s.

Trannell is a human man, about average height but very large in build -- formerly someone who worked hard for a living he’s a bit squishy now, but not overweight or flabby. The shop is simply called “Trannell’s”, which is at least easy to remember.

Inside the shop, which was all counters and cabinets for displaying items and a door to a back room. The items on display in the cabinets were very well made armor and weapons. There weren’t a lot of items, but all of them were top-notch.

We showed Trannell the letter from Tulmor. His response was that he trusts Tulmor, though he doesn’t always agree with her or even like her. But he trusts her.

We asked what magical items he had in store and he showed us a Potion of Firebreath, which Orryk purchased (yay!), a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power which Imaktis purchased (thereby more than doubling his strength), and a pair of goggles (Goggles of Night) that allow one to see in the dark, which Mo purchased -- at least in part with a great big sack of copper coins.

Orryk asked if he had any items with elemental magic or ties to the elemental planes. Trannell said that most of those items he sells to the Basalt Henge. Orryk gave him a bit of gold so that he’d let Orryk know when Elemental things came into his shop.

He also showed us a pouch with six Beads of Force. Each individual bead cost substantially more than we as a party could afford. Which was a pity because they’re really kind of awesome.

Imaktis asked if there was anything in particular that Trannell was looking for. Trannell couldn’t think of anything specific. He did tell us that if we found anything that we couldn’t use and couldn’t, for whatever reason trade out at the guardhouse, that we could take it to him to sell or trade. He’s mostly on the lookout for anything he can sell.

Imaktis then asked about his thoughts about the undead invasion of a couple of nights earlier.. Trannell didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Utter non-comprehension.

Mo: Have you had any weird people shopping lately?
Trannell: <<looks around at party>>
Mo: More weird than us?
Trannell: No.

Okay.

We went to the Administrator’s office after that -- Joybell signed her name on the sign-up sheet to see Thalith. Mo went straight to the person who manages the list to see if we could get directly in.

Thalith called us in immediately and Joybell scampered up from where she was waiting in line.

Mo: Wait your turn…

We all went in.

Thalith told us that only people who are wearing armbands would know what we’re talking about if we talk about the undead. Which was exactly what we had experienced with Trannell. We had our armbands on at the relevant moment and therefore our memories are not affected.

Apparently the Administrator had been busy with the Council all day, explaining what happened and what his response was and how he planned to keep it from happening again. Thalith wasn’t sure it was going well. Before any of us could ask if the Council had been affected by the memory-thing that the Administrator did, he said that there were some people not in the guard who were exempt.

Joybell immediately felt even more guilty about not giving a better report when we got back.

We asked about whether this group of undead warlocks of Orcus indicated that Orcus had manifested in our plane. Thalith said that Warlocks of Fiends find themselves powerless to resist the demands of their patrons if the patrons appeared in our plane. Which didn’t reassure. Except that if Orcus himself were here, people would know.

We asked if he or Alighieri had any idea about why these deathlocks were attacking Embernook. His only answer was that Embernook has a range of influence and is a big target. As far as Thalith knew only Embernook was attacked.

After we left Thalith’s office Taman had an urge to go around telling people about the undead attack...but it would probably just have gotten people thinking he was nuts.

Orryk and Mo then went to an armorer to get Mo “studded up”. Mo explained to the armorer that he wanted a lot of pockets all up and down the armor. They said they’d have to alter some -- both for the pockets and to fit his skinny frame -- and would have it ready in two days.

The rest of the day passed with people doing their own things around Embernook. Joybell was providing security in one of the brothels for a while, then went to the Pewter Oar to join Taman and Mo. Mo set himself up in the bar to play music and make some money. He used the Flute of Scribing to put “Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Wandering Band” on the wall behind him -- he made 2gp and got all of his drinks free for the day.

Note: Joybell thinks “Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Band” would be an _awesome_ name for our party. She’s totally cool with Mo being the headliner and “Wonderful Band” seems like a great way to advertise ourselves. (She left out the “Wandering” part, because we really haven’t wandered too much and maybe we shouldn’t advertise on that.)


12 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 13)

The next morning we all gathered up and headed out to the Black Field, traveling to the Basalt Henge. On the way, Joybell introduced Orryk to some of the prairie dogs. We got to the Henge in the evening and they had beds available for everyone (in the rooms where they put up pilgrims who are in for festivals).

The resident population at the Basalt Henge are mostly Wood Elves, Firbolgs and Gnomes (mostly Forest Gnomes, but some Rock Gnomes as well). There are some humans and a few Earth and Fire Genasi as well.


13 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 14)

The next morning, Joybell introduced her new friends (and Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl, Defender of Henge and Wold) to Naïlo, the head of the Druids in the Henge (a female Wood Elf). Naïlo gave Scooby a scritch and then asked us what we needed.

Orryk demonstrated some of his elemental powers for her and said that he’s looking for information about the thin boundary between this plane and the Elemental planes. He mentioned being from the Stonestream Cloister (where he trained as a monk) and Naïlo said she had guessed that he was connected there based on his abilities.

She told us that the boundary at the Henge (and maybe in the Black Field generally) is thinner with the Plane of Earth than with Fire. The Druids are trying to strengthen that boundary. Joybell asked why and she said because Genies (intelligent denizens of the Elemental planes) are slavers. The Dao (Earth Genies) and the Efreeti (Fire Genies) could come through the boundary on their own and take captives back to sell as slaves.

The Druids have been doing long term ritual magic to strengthen the boundary. Naïlo admitted that it was hard to know if their magic was working or if they were just benefiting from the thousand years since the volcano had erupted.

To do this ritual work, they need items that are tuned to summoning and controlling elementals (mostly Earth Elementals). Items that could be used to make a portal to the elemental plane. They use the items in reverse (sort of) to close the boundaries.

Orryk told her that we helped fight off an invasion of undead in Embernook and asked if they had any pieces that had turned out not to be useful in their work to strengthen the boundary. Naïlo said that all they had has been used.

Imaktis asked what we could help them with. Naïlo said that one of the Cities on the Ends of the Rivers (presumably Pelsoreen) has a school of Elemental Magic -- but that isn't obviously an answer connected to Imaktis’ question.

Orryk asked if there was a library or any written information he could study. She said that theirs is mostly an oral tradition but there are some writings and some elders Orryk can talk to.

While they were still there with Naïlo, Taman asked Joybell why she didn’t become a Druid. Joybell got a little quiet and moved a little away from Naïlo, like she was a little afraid of what would come from that quarter. She said that she’d been going to be a Druid. She’d started her training at a circle in the forest called the Wold, which was where she grew up. She was out in the forest for a couple of days gathering herbs, a normal part of the novice training, and came back and found that the Wold had been destroyed and all of the people…. Orryk asked if this was the masked people she’d asked about before. Joybell said yeah, the children had been taken and all of the adults were either killed or gone. She’d spent a couple of days burning the corpses and hoping anyone, any adult, would come back to make it all okay again, but no one did. She learned from one who died in her arms that some people blamed her and she definitely blamed herself -- she should have been there and done something, helped somehow. Through all of this Naïlo did and said nothing.

Joybell decided to become a paladin instead -- a defender. So she’d be able to help and protect when she was needed.

After that, Joybell went up to the Henge to pray and meditate by herself, curled up with Scooby for comfort.

Orryk was sent to Alsinor, a Wood Elf who is very knowledgeable about the ritual workings at the Henge. Orryk spent the day talking to Alsinor and other people and  reading the material they had. It was mostly similar information to what he’d found at the Tulmor and Barnett’s library, but from a different perspective.

Orryk then went to the Henge to see if his elemental abilities reacted differently close to the Henge and the ritual work the Druids have done there. He used Mold Earth to put shapes and colors in the earth -- normally these would last an hour, but at the Henge they disappeared almost instantly. The Earth was resisting being shaped there. Control Flame was much less dampened.

Joybell asked Alsinor if this dampening was because of the work they’ve been doing or because of what they have yet to do. Alsinor thinks that it’s because of the work they’ve been doing. Before the work, the Earth spells would have been more powerful, but less controlled.

Mo and Taman spent the day talking about what kind of being Administrator Alighieri is and what kind of deal he made with the Tundra Queen. (And whether or not he got the better of it.)


14 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 15)

We left in the morning to head back across the Black Field. Joybell pointed out to Orryk the dwarf buckwheat -- cool little plants that space themselves out so that each can get enough water. (Joybell has absolute faith that Orryk is interested in things like this.)

We got back pretty late in the day, but before it was fully dark.

Mo, to the guard at the gate: Any undead attack while we were gone?
Guard: It has been really quiet.
Mo: Good.

We went together to the Pewter Oar and found a message and a package waiting for us. The package was a small crate that had been delivered that morning. It had an envelope on the top sealed with Alighieri’s seal. The box was about 4 feet long, but only 1 foot wide and 1 foot high.

Fiona took 10 minutes to cast Detect Magic and was nearly blinded by the magical radiance coming out of the box, with many schools of magic represented - Divination, Transmutation, many others.

The letter said:

With the gratitude of the City of Embernook and my own personal thanks.

--Alighieri D.​
Joybell put the letter in her bag and opened the box.

Inside on top were six pouches, each with one of our initials on it. Inside each pouch was 100gp. (Joybell treasures the pouch maybe more than the gold -- the gold will get spent and be gone someday, but she can keep the pouch forever.)

Also in the box were:

Potion of Greater Healing (Joybell)
Potion of Invisibility (Taman)
Potion of Clairvoyance (party item)
Scroll of Magic Weapon (Fiona)
Protection Scroll of Protection from Fey (Taman)
Stone of Good Luck (Orryk)
Cape of the Mountebank (Taman)
Mantle of Spell Resistance (Imaktis)
Sending Stones (one each to Taman & Mo)
Rapier +1 (Taman)

After dinner we went home to sleep. 


15 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 16)

At breakfast at the Pewter Oar, we started talking about leaving Embernook and heading to Pelsoreen so Orryk could continue his elemental research there. We know that this would be a long trip -- a couple of months to get to the other river and then another month down the river. Longer to come back because we’d be coming up river. Realistically probably a few months each way, on average.

Joybell pointed out that we could go up to Ariqua, but Taman is very nervous about that.

Imaktis said that he didn’t think that things were permanently finished with the undead.

Joybell wanted to go talk to Ullar Truehammer before we left, in case there was something he needed for us to do. Mo wanted to go talk to the Administrator so that we could thank him for the gifts and tell him that we’re leaving.

Joybell agreed to that, a bit reluctantly.

We all went over to the Administrator’s office. While Joybell was signing up on the waiting list, Mo went to talk to Thalith. Joybell followed over when Thalith took everyone into his office.

In his office Mo told Thalith that we’d gotten the package from the Administrator and we all thanked him. Then Mo said that we were planning to head to Pelsoreen.

Thalith told us that Pelsoreen has an active slave trade -- any race or type of person they can catch. The slave trade is supported by the government. Taman asked what kind of government the city has and was told that it’s a criminal oligarchy (suggesting that Pelsoreen is sort of run by the mob). The college of elemental magic is in such a horrible place because all genies are slavers.

Orryk asked if there was anything the Administrator would like for us to do there, or along the way.

As Thalith turned to ask the Administrator that question, portcullises slammed down around all of the entrances and exits to the room and the Statue Sentries that Taman had noticed the first time we were in Aligheri’s office woke up with their red eyes flaring bright.

Barnett and three other people appeared in the room screaming and freaked out.

Barnett: This isn’t my library.
Alighieri, who appeared in the room Batman-style without anyone (not even Taman) noticing him arrive: My apologies. Your teleport was redirected here. What has happened?

Barnett and the other people, all mages, had been working in Harl’s library, intent on reconstructing the library and pulling together the books that had been torn apart, when a thing bounded in through the open door and tore apart one of the mages.

Barnett was clearly Not Okay -- he was at best marginally coherent and totally freaked out. The other three were a bit more together. They described a blob with arms and claws and mouths with teeth that tore Ingurd just to shreds.

Joybell asked if anyone had accidentally read some of the pages of the Crazy Book and they said they were being very careful not to do that.

Alighieri (in Sylvan): Stand down.

At that, the sentries went dormant again and the portcullises raised.

Fiona and Orryk, with their knowledge of the arcane, think the monster sounds like something from the Outer Chaos. Joybell and Imaktis, with their knowledge of religion, had heard of something called the Hunger Between Worlds and knew that there are groups that celebrate this hunger.

We wondered if this could possibly have to do with the Crazy Book that Harl was trying to read and that killed him. It certainly doesn’t seem like a big leap.

The magic users tell us that there was no summoning or flash of light -- the monster just ran in.

Orryk, to Alighieri: Can you teleport us there?
Alighieri: I cannot. Kalmarn is not in the city.

Alighieri, very intently and seriously to Barnett: We need to get people to Kalmarn. Can Tulmor do that?
Barnett: <<nods>>

Alighieri, in response to that, went to a closed door in Thalith’s office and opened it. The door opened to the street outside Tulmor and Barnett’s place.

Alighieri: I believe she’ll be happy to help you. And better able to help Barnett.

Barnett was still shaky and disconnected. He appeared to have had some sort of PTSD triggered…

Before we left Thalith’s office, Orryk asked if Alighieri could use a Sending spell to communicate with us in Kalmarn.

Alighieri: My powers have pretty strong geographical limits.

(Note: The notes don’t give any context for the following conversation:
Taman: We can just slap him until he comes back.
Joybell: We will not beat on the traumatized person.
Taman’s player had been watching Airplane!)

We helped Barnett across the street to his house and knocked on the door. Tulmor answered and, seeing Barnett, immediately had us bring him in and help him to his very spartan room.

While we were telling her what Barnett and the other mages told us earlier, Barnett was stuck in a mental loop.

Barnett: It’s bad. Really bad. It’s bad. Really bad. (Repeat, repeat)

We told Tulmor that we were there so that she could teleport us to Kalmarn. She had a scroll and could get us to the Teleportation Circle in Harl’s library. Before we went, Mo gave her one of the sending stones we just got so that we could contact her when we need to arrange to get out of there.

Mo also cast Longstrider on Taman, Orryk and Joybell. Imaktis, just before the teleport spell opened the gate, cast Bless on the same three people.

Then the teleport gate opened and we went through into a large room with bookshelves on the walls (and some free-standing shelves in the middle of the room) Two people with swords, shields, shaved heads (and not many clothes on) were about 85 or so feet away. Another 20 to 30 feet behind them was a guy in splint mail with a mace and a shield and a guy in robes. Off to one side, next to one of the bookcases was a really nasty Gribbly Monster that looked like a weird cephalopod with sickle claws on the ends of its tentacles and mouths along the tentacles. There was a big maw and eyes that glowed slightly green on the “body” of the cephalopod. (1 Gribbly Monster, 2 Barbarians, 1 Cleric, 1 Sorcerer)

Because of the way the teleportation circle works, they had plenty of warning that we were coming -- they were looking at the circle waiting for us.

Taman immediately took cover behind a bookshelf waiting until someone showed aggression.

GM, contemplating their actions: They placed themselves poorly.

Orryk shot at the Gribbly Monster, hitting once, and then he also took cover behind a bookshelf.

Joybell moved up, on Scooby, and asked “What are y’all doing here? And what the hell is that thing?”

When they didn’t answer, Taman peeked out from behind the bookshelf and took a shot at the Gribbly Monster, doing lots of damage with a sneak attack.

Joybell waffled a bit then rode Scooby as far as he could go and threw a javelin at the Gribbly Monster.

The Gribbly Monster moved up as far as he could, which got him to ten feet away from Joybell and gribbled at her, but couldn’t attack. The closer barbarian (in my notes as Barbarian 2), however, was able to charge her and attack, but he missed.

The cleric cast a spell that would have affected everyone but Joybell and Scooby -- everyone in the party felt a sense of time around them speeding up, then it slowed down again as literally everyone saved against the Slow spell. (This was a preview of how the combat was going to go for the DM.)

Mo blew a Shatter spell on his flute, placing it to catch the Gribbly Monster and Barbarian 2, without catching Joybell. Then he inspired Imaktis.

The robed figure, a Sorcerer, moved up and cast something that Orryk, Mo, Imaktis and Joybell would have had to deal with -- the area started glowing with a dim and sickly greenish light.

Fiona cast a fireball to catch the Cleric and the Sorcerer and did lots and lots of damage. The Sorcerer lost his concentration on that spell -- the greenish radiance of the Sickening Radiance spell dissipated before anyone had to make a save against it.

Imaktis cast Hold Person on Barbarian 2, which froze the barbarian in place, and then Imaktis moved up into the combat. Taman used the Dimension Door ability from the Cape of the Mountebank he’d just gotten and moved up to a position behind a bookcase but near the Sorcerer. He tried to hide there, but didn’t do a good job at all. He’ll have to get used to the disorientation from the Dimension Door.

The other barbarian, Barbarian 1, attacked Imaktis and missed.

Orryk moved up on Barbarian 2, still held, and attacked (with advantage). He missed with his first attack but his second did serious damage, then he backed up and out of range.

Joybell dismounted and sent Scooby back out of the thick of things (back to the teleportation circle) then she dropped the held Barbarian 2 and then got a hit on the Gribbly Monster.

The Gribbly Monster, in return, attacked Joybell with six tentacles. Three of them hit and she took 28 damage. Mo used Cutting Words to reduce that to 20, so Joybell wasn’t down more than half her total hit points in one round.

Then the Gribbly Monster moved like lightning, 40’, around the bookcase back to where Mo and Fiona were.

The Cleric cast a Silence spell that caught Fiona, Mo, Scooby and the Gribbly Monster, but it really only mattered for Fiona and Mo. Mo moved out of the spell and cast Blindness on the Monster, succeeding in blinding it such that every attack against it was with advantage and every attack it made was with disadvantage. (Note: The Gribbly Monster failed a CON save -- and one has to assume that the monster was strong in that.)

The Sorcerer moved around to where he could see Taman and shot four scorching rays at him. Fortunately only two hit, but Taman still took 11 points of damage, after his uncanny dodge. Then the Sorcerer shot 2 beams of crackling Eldritch Blast energy at him. Fortunately only one of them hit.

Fiona moved out of range of the Monster and cast Blur on herself. Imaktis moved and cast a level 3 Guiding Bolt at the Gribbly Monster. He did 18 points of Radiant Damage and dropped the Monster. Hooray!

Taman said “Ow” then used his Insight to learn something about the Sorcerer, then moved up to melee range. He attacked and hit, but even with the sneak attack damage, he didn’t do a lot.

Barbarian 1 (the only remaining barbarian) raged and attacked Joybell. He did a reckless attack and got in a good hit.

Orryk dashed 90 feet (spending a ki point) and attacked the Sorcerer. He spent another ki point for a stunning strike. The Sorcerer saved against the stunning strike, So Orryk hit it again and spent another ki point to try again with the stunning strike and the Sorcerer saved again. Dammit!

Joybell hit Barbarian 1 with a wrathful smite and he failed the save (first successful Smite Spell!), then she hit him again.

Unfortunately on the next turn, the Cleric dispelled the frightened condition from the Wrathful Smite and Barbarian 1 got to use his reaction to hit Joybell.

The Sorcerer cast a quickened Thunderstep, to move away from Taman and Orryk, doing them damage on the way out. Taman was dropped. Orryk saved. Then the Sorcerer missed Orryk with an Eldritch blast.

The Sorcerer and Cleric had, likely inadvertently, moved themselves into Fireball Formation with Barbarian 1, so Fiona, recognizing an opportunity when she saw one, Fireballed them. She did some nice damage -- dropping the Sorcerer and bringing down the silence when the Cleric failed to maintain his concentration on the spell. The Cleric was looking pretty ragged at that point.

Imaktis moved up on Barbarian 1 and got a hit with his Shillelagh, but didn’t drop it.

Which was a bit of a pity, because the Barbarian then attacked Joybell twice with a raging frenzy. The first strike dropped her and then the second immediately had her at two failed death saves.

Orryk ran to Joybell and poured the greater healing potion she’d just gotten down her throat.

Joybell stood up, but still woozy from having been knocked out and nearly killed, missed with both of her attacks. Then she cast Misty Step and moved to the other side of the bookcase back toward where the Gribbly Monster had been killed.

The Cleric cast healing word on Barbarian 1, who then got to immediately use his reaction to attack Imaktis.

Mo moved into range to cast Healing Word, which did a good deal of healing to Taman. Then he cast Vicious Mockery on Barbarian 1. “Why don’t you put some clothes on. You suck!” The Barbarian, flustered by this, had disadvantage on his attacks for the next round.

Fiona cast Scorching Ray on the Cleric but only one of the rays hit. Imaktis hit the Barbarian for 9 points of damage, but it was still standing.

Taman stood up and took a shot with his bow. It initially seemed like he was going to miss, but he got lucky and it was a hit instead.

The Barbarian attacked recklessly (which negated the disadvantage from Mo’s vicious mockery) and attacked Imaktis. Fortunately, Imaktis was able to throw up a Shield spell.

Orryk attacked with advantage against the Barbarian -- the first attack missed and the second hit. Then he did a bonus action to hit him again -- and that was a crit and he just pummeled him with an upper cut into the abdomen and then into the chin when he buckled over.

Joybell moved half her movement and called Scooby to her, then rode up to the Cleric and attacked him from wolf-back and dropped him.

With everyone down, we looted the naughty word out of them and found:

Splint Armor (from the cult cleric) -- can and will be cut down to fit Joybell
Wand of Magic Detection
Immovable Rod
Potion of Greater Healing (Joybell)
Potion of Firebreathing (Orryk)
(Also 2 regular longswords, a mace, and 3 shields)

Also from the cultists and gribbly monster:
80pp
1200gp
14 100-gp gems (5 jet, 5 amethyst, 4 coral)

(Note: The money from the cultists divides to:
433 gp each (with 2 left in a party kitty)
13pp each (with 2 left in a party kitty))

We ended there -- discussing how to get in touch with the people in Embernook to get back there (whether by boat or by another Teleportation spell) and how to take back the remains of the Gribbly Monster as proof of having killed it. Joybell suggested that maybe there was a wheelbarrow in the garden that the body could be dumped into. 


Not directly related to this session, an update on the contents of the Bag of Holding. Despite Orryk’s plan to fill the bag with books, it currently contains: 

Potion of Clairvoyance
Potion of Force Resistance
Candle of the Deep
Gloves of Climbing and Swimming
Longsword x3 (2 from the cultists)
Mace x1 (from the cultists)
Longbow x1
Splint Mail (from the cult cleric, mentioned above)
Shield x3 (from the cultists; question as to whether the cleric's shield has his holy symbol on it)
2 Quivers, each with 20 arrows (some arrows from Wights, others from stash of spares Orryk had)
Spare/old gear of Orryk's: Quarterstaff, Shortbow, 20 Darts

Note: the party kitty contains: 2 pp, 8gp, 6sp, and 8 cp.


----------



## prabe (Sep 12, 2020)

Session 10: Why Did We Come Here Again?

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


15 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 16) (immediately after the fight)

I failed to note at the end of the previous session that Imaktis stopped the Cleric from dying (he may have cast Spare the Dying). He was unconscious, and going to be unconscious for a while, but not dying. We still stripped him of his armor and his holy symbol.

We also found an additional magical item: a device that looked rather like an orrery -- with eleven rotating rings with pins on them. The pins were slowly rotating.in different directions. A bit of exploration of it determined that it was a direction finder -- like a locate object spell. This was on the Cleric.

The Cleric’s holy symbol was clearly reminiscent of the orrery -- eleven rings nested together that gimbal around in different orientations. The cleric was the only one with a holy symbol and the one carrying the orrery.

We took a short rest, during which we hogtied and gagged the cleric, so even if he woke up he wouldn’t be able to cast any spells or do anything. After our rest, Taman went off to scout around the village. Mo sent him off with some inspiration, telling him he can do it.

Mo, Imaktis, and Joybell looked around Harl’s house to make sure that the rest of the house was clear. Imaktis had a Detect Magic up. In the library itself we noticed that were signs of the work that Barnett and the other mages were doing to reassemble the library -- there were groups of paper piled up and grouped together. Some of those stacks had been disarranged and re-scattered. On the ground floor, we found a door that had been forced.

Neither Taman nor the folks at Harl’s found any sign of a camp where the cultists had been staying.

Taman found the village still abandoned -- there was no sign of anyone living there or settling in. Though the bodies had been properly taken care of. He thought that maybe someone had been in some of the buildings, but it was hard to tell and he couldn’t be certain. He didn’t see a boat at the docks, so the cultists didn’t come that way.

He then looked for tracks and found tracks of four people and a sort of blobby, tentacled thing that could very well have been the Gribbly Monster that came in on a footpath that parallels the river going north. There are a number of small settlements a day or two apart up in that direction with both a footpath and the river connecting them.

After their exploration of the house, Joybell took the orrery out into the garden to see what it did. Over the course of a minute or so, the pins all lined up to point solidly at Harl’s house. Orryk then took it around the house, trying to see if there was a particular part of the house it pointed at, but it only pointed generally at the house.

When we felt we had extracted all the information we could from the house and the surroundings, Joybell did one point of healing to the cleric by laying on hands and woke him up. He came to with Mo smiling right into his face, with the Eyes of Charming on (the Magic Contact Lenses).

Mo: Hi, buddy! How are you doing? We had a bad first experience, but we want to make sure you’re feeling okay. What was going on here? What were you doing here?
Cleric: Something of ours was stolen and we were trying to get it back. A book -- that’s why we were in a library, dumbass.

(Clearly the Charm Person from the Eyes of Charming didn’t take.)

Mo: Who are “we”?
Cleric: We seek to feed the Hunger.
Mo: Does your group have a name?
Cleric: Yes.

(Clearly he was just being obtuse.)

Mo: What is it? Why is this book important?
Orryk: The book isn’t here.
Cleric: This is where it was. The book opens minds…
Mo: We’ve seen that.
Joybell: Can it be controlled?
Cleric: Why would it be? Why would we want that?
Joybell: It didn’t feed the hunger. It just made a man turn into a crazy whispering undead thing that made other crazy babbling undead.
Cleric: [Evil smile]
Joybell: But that’s not beneficial to anyone.
Cleric: [Evil smile]

We gagged the cleric again.

Those of us who talked to the cleric realized that he wasn’t speaking out loud, exactly, he was speaking in our heads, telepathically.

Taman pulled out his sending stone (paired with the one that we left with Tulmor) and sent out a message.

Taman: The house is clear!

Tulmor, not having been in Kell’s Boarding House with us, didn’t realize how great that was. She just said: Okay. We’ll be there in the morning.

Orryk had the idea suddenly to go looking for a basement or hidden rooms -- but the basement is the same size as house, with no space where a room could be hidden.

Mo tried to charm the Cleric again -- Joybell at least wasn’t at all certain that it would work since he resisted it the first time, but this time it worked.

Mo: Are you hungry?
Cleric: Hunger is not my biggest problem.
Mo: What is the name of your group?
Cleric: Servants of the Hunger

That’s so totally not a good name for a group. They need to tighten that up.

We learned that they’d had the Gribbly Monster since shortly after they left The Knot. They travelled from The Knot up to Auriqua and then came south from Auriqua along the roads and footpaths that parallel the river. Before The Knot they were in Ov, which is a smallish city on the river that flows down to Pelsoreen. (Note: There will be geography notes following the conversation with the cleric.)

Mo told the Cleric that the only thing we’ve seen the book do is drive a man mad and make zombies. (I believe Joybell helpfully corrected him here and said they were more like ghouls.) He asked if that’s all it does and why the book is so important to the Cleric and the Servants of the Hunger. The Cleric actually seemed a bit surprised and said that he’d never heard of the book doing that.

Mo: What is it supposed to do?
Cleric: It opens minds.
Mo: Wine opens minds. Travel opens minds. Art opens minds. But they don’t have spinning oratories pointing to them…
Cleric: It is mostly a recruitment tool.

The Cleric only knows of the one copy of the book. Orryk cast a minor illusion of the book next to the Cleric to confirm that we were all talking about the same thing.

Orryk: We know where it is. What will you give us for it?
Cleric: Nothing you want.

Mo told the Cleric that the book has been destroyed and is now confetti but that this is the last place it was whole, which is probably why the orrery was leading him here.  The Cleric said that was going to be a problem because the book was their relatively _painless_ recruitment tool. Their other methods are more abrupt and less selective.

Given what the book did to Harl, and what the monster Harl became did to the whole rest of the village, the fact that the book was the kinder, gentler recruitment method is _very_ alarming.

Mo and Joybell each in turn tried to intimidate him -- Mo by asking why we shouldn’t kill him and Joybell by slamming her flail into the ground next to his head. But we didn’t get any further information from him.

So we gagged him again and Orryk made a pit out in the garden (because there is no jail anywhere here in Kalmarn). We put the cleric down in the bottom of a 10’ deep pit, still bound and gagged and at 1 hit point. It’s possible he got konked on the head again so he was unconscious and at 0 HP.

Joybell took a jar from the kitchen and got a jar full of Gribbly Monster bits before it completely sublimated.

We spent a relatively pleasant evening in the house full of dead people and gribbly monster vapor and destroyed books -- Taman went hunting and got us some fresh meat and things to eat and we cooked a decent dinner in Harl’s kitchen. Overnight we stayed in Fiona’s hut (Leomund’s Tiny Hut) out in the garden, next to the pit so we could keep an eye on the cleric and on Harl’s house.

Mo suggested throwing pebbles at the cleric all night (as we kept watches) to keep him from sleeping and getting a long rest (and therefore getting healed up and his spells back). We didn’t think it would be necessary.

The night passed without incident.

Geography Notes:

Before the Severance there was an empire on this part of Urnod. During the Fiend Wars, the capital city of that empire was completely levelled and it has not been rebuilt. However, the roads that led to the city, from all corners of the former empire, are still there and still meet in the former city’s network of roads. This is The Knot. It is about a month’s travel to the east of Embernook.

It is now a trade hub with carriage inns and caravans stopped to trade their wares. But it is not really a city now. There is no organized government, just a cluster of caravanserai and temporary camps of trade caravans.

Also, one presumes, the ruins of the former capital.

From the Knot there are roads to Auriqua, to Tash (another city on the river that flows down to Pelsoreen), to Ov, to Embernook. Possibly other cities we don’t know of yet.


16 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 17)

The next morning, we woke up to find the Cleric out of his bonds and dead in the bottom of the pit. As it turns out, Mo was exactly correct and we should have kept a better eye on the cleric -- since at some point in the night he wriggled out of his bonds and cast inflict wounds on himself. (Though we don’t know how many spell slots he had -- he could have done that before he got a long rest.)

We were watching the pit all night but with him at the bottom of it, we really couldn’t see him. We decided to take his body back to Embernook so that the clerics could speak with dead and maybe learn something further from him.

Getting him out of the pit was looking to be a bit of an adventure, then Fiona cast Tenser’s Floating Disk and that made moving him to the library much easier.

Shortly after we got there, Tulmor showed up in the teleportation circle. When we all gathered up with her, she pulled out an inkwell, that we recognized as from Thalith’s office in Embernook. When she saw us recognizing it, she said, “It’s where we’d go anyway.” (Note: it will allow us to teleport accurately to the place the inkwell is from.)

Taman: Does he know you took that?
Tulmor: He wasn’t using it.

And with that we teleported to Thalith’s office -- as we arrived the portcullises lowered and the Sentinel Statues woke up for a moment and Thalith looked startled. Everything went back to normal when he saw who we were.

We gave Thalith a report -- assuming that Alighieri was listening, though he didn’t make an appearance -- and told him what was going on and what we did at Harl’s. We also told him that the crazy book they were looking for has been torn apart but could be reassembled.

We pulled out the orrery -- it was still pointing at Harl’s house, not at Tulmor and Barnett’s. We figure out that it was pointing to where the book had spent the most time recently (or perhaps where it was last intact).

Tulmor: Good thing it’s in a portable hole.

When we mentioned the name of the group, the Servants of the Hunger, Tulmor said she’d heard of them and they’re beyond crazy. She’d never known anyone who was recruited into their group, but thought that perhaps people being recruited get exposed to the Chaos Between Worlds and that corrupts them, or breaks their minds. Harl may have been strong enough to resist that, but not strong enough to resist trying to understand the chaos. And thus he was lost in a different way.

Mo: What is the Hunger? How do they feed it?
Taman: I assume it eats souls.
Fiona: Souls, worlds.
Tulmor: They probably intend to feed it the whole world.

We started talking with Tulmor and Thalith about what appears to be an increase in extraplanar activity -- with the Cult and Orcus and the Tundra Queen all being active in and around Embernook in the last few weeks. The Tundra Queen’s activities aren’t really changing -- she’s been meddling in the prime material plane in the same ways and at about the same level for centuries, though she does appear to be increasing in power since the Severance.

Orcus does appear to be more active.

Joybell had some questions about these things and why the cultists can worship the Hunger and still get spells -- why weren’t they cut off when they named it the “Hunger Between Worlds”? Tulmor said that they don’t really worship the hunger -- they’re just serving its ends.

Mo asked Thalith what he wants us to do about this. And if the cultists are capable of feeding the whole world to the Hunger. Should we stop them?

Orryk: Something’s always trying to destroy the world.
Taman: That’s depressing.

Orryk asked Tulmor if she had access to teleportation circles other than Harl’s. She said she probably did, but she’d have to make some inquiries and arrangements. She could think of circles in Auriqua, the Knot, maybe Ov… she said she’d look into it and let us know.

Orryk seemed convinced that we learn things and learn about things when they try to kill us, which is sort of true.

When we were done in Thalith’s office, we took the Cleric’s corpse to the Last Doorway, the temple of the clerics of nature, darkness and the grave, who oversee cremations, to see if they could speak with dead with it. They looked kind of uneasy at the prospect of speaking to someone that crazy. We bandied about the idea of trying to charm the corpse while it was under the speak with dead, or possibly using a zone of truth on it, but ultimately decided that those things weren’t necessary. The clerics agreed to try to speak with him and report to us, but it was understood that they didn’t want us there for it. After the speak with dead, they would cremate him and consign him to sky and ground.

Joybell wanted to go with Orryk to the armorer that made Mo’s cargo-studded leather armor (since he knew them) to see about getting the Cleric’s armor cut down to fit her. And maybe the leftover bits made into something for Scooby. They couldn’t do that last part, but with a couple of days work they could cut down the armor to fit her.

After the armorer, Joybell went with Mo to the herbalist -- Joybell got herbs and ingredients to brew two healing potions in the couple of days of downtime she was going to have while the armorers did their work.

Mo bought himself a light crossbow and some bolts, so he’d be able to do damage at range beyond throwing his one dagger (though he’s done good work with that dagger).

We had a couple of days of downtime in here, during which some things happened:

The party went to the guard house to see what they could give us for the wand of detect magic, which we don’t need, though it seemed like it could be useful for the guards. They came back with a Rope of Climbing -- it’s 60’ of silk rope that will tie itself. With the Immovable Rod we could have a self-anchoring rope, which seems like it will be handy.

Orryk went to talk to Tillaron Zun about Pelsoreen to get advice and possibly some contact information. Also to offer to do any small favors (taking messages type thing) we could do for him. Tillaron’s main advice was not to get into debt in Pelsoreen -- that’s the main way people become slaves there. Almost all slavery in Pelsoreen is debt repayment. There is some birthright slavery, so to speak, but that is often repaying a debt so large that one lifetime of servitude can’t repay it. That said, the Efreeti, Marids and Dao will take people who don’t owe a debt as slaves. They’ll also purchase the debt of someone who thought he was going to have a human master and take him off to the City of Brass or the Great Dismal Delve.

Fortunately, it’s hard to go into debt there without knowing it.

Tillaron gave Orryk the names of some merchants that were more trustworthy than others. The Zun family’s main interests in Pelsoreen are spices, fabrics (both luxurious and more commonplace) and exotic woods. Pelsoreen, despite being a port, is not as big a fishing town as New Arvai.

Orryk asked for a letter of introduction to some of the merchants Tillaron recommended and Tillaron agreed to do that, though he’d need a day or two to get that written up.

Joybell spent the days of downtime doing two things: brewing healing potions at the druidic circle (two of them) and, while the potions were simmering or steeping or brewing, going to talk to some clerics about religion and the Severance.

(Note: This is the conversation that we agreed would happen off-line -- I’m adding it to the notes because it’s my information to share. There’s a great big religion information dump here. If you’re not interested scroll down -- the end is clearly marked.)

Her original thought was to speak to as many clerics of as many different orders and domains as possible, but she found Taramor, a cleric of the Lightbringers, an order of clerics of light, knowledge and trickery, who was a fountain of information. She mostly spoke with him and Aramaka, one of the druids at the circle.

Taramor was old, even for an elf, and had memory from his parents and grandparents of the Severance and the Fiend Wars.

Joybell asked him what is making people turn to these arguably more personal, but awful interactions with Supernaturally Powerful beings rather than to the religions worshiping concepts and powers? Even bad or evil concepts and powers seem better than Orcus and the Hunger Between Worlds. Is all of this an indication that something is missing religiously from people’s lives? Is it a sign that perhaps we should be working to figure out what caused the Severance and undo it? People have tried to figure that out in the centuries since it happened, but should it be an ongoing project? Is this world without gods MISSING something important? Clearly at least some people are missing a personal connection and making it through pacts with Supernaturally Powerful Beings (even ones inimical to life) or worshiping the Hunger Between Worlds. Does Taramor (and do the druids at the circle in the city) even think this is a problem?

(Unsurprisingly, Joybell’s questions were rather long and wordy and delivered all in a rush.)

Taramor said that the people making deals with or otherwise choosing to serve entities like Orcus and the Elder Darkness are almost to a one seeking power here in this world.

The cause and possible cure of the Severance is still, after all this time, a mystery. Some people in the various orders are trying to undo it (Restorationists), others think the world is better off now and are working to keep the gods away (Exclusionists), and still others are ambivalent about the whole question because they see more important and pressing needs in the world around right now.

Taramor could say that what was Severed, though, was not merely the ability for the Gods to empower their worshipers, but the ability for worshipers to empower their Gods. What seems to be happening now is that these concepts, which are part of the existence of sentient beings, are being broadly empowered by ... being experienced and acknowledged by sentient beings. What was two streams, one flowing from mortals to the Gods and the other flowing from the Gods to mortals, has become one stream, bending around to come back whence it began. Even before the Severance, there were people who cast as clerics who didn't worship particular Gods; now, that's the rule, not the exception.

Joybell wanted to think about that more ... because that sounded like we are empowering ourselves now, since our worship doesn’t empower gods. Could that be right?

She also learned from Taramor that Orcus is powerful and sentient, but he is not a God. He does not gain power from being served or even worshiped. The Elder Darkness is powerful, but it does not seem to think or otherwise operate on mortal time scales; the general thinking is that it barely notices mortals, if at all. It also doesn't gain power from being worshiped or served.

Those who serve Orcus (or any other Fiend) are looking for power, either as a favored servant, or by somehow using the Fiend for some end of their own; that rarely works out well, and they almost always end up serving the Fiend's ends. While that might gain a Fiend something, it is not the same sort of thing as the power from being worshiped. Those who claim to serve the Elder Darkness are mostly either nihilists or insane; they basically want to end the world, and hope to have a grand time doing it. Since exposure to the Elder Darkness tends to drive mortals mad, even those who start out merely desperate often wind up as insane and/or nihilistic.

What's missing from most current practices of religion is, obviously, that personal connection. Some want a figure to bargain with. Some want a figure to blame. Some want a figure to thank. Given time, maybe that will cease to be missing.

END OF RELIGION INFORMATION DUMP

Possibly Taramor’s most telling thought echoed Orryk’s rather depressing observation in Thalith’s office: Obviously evil people doing evil things is a problem, but that was a problem when there were evil gods, too.

There is some thought (and the druids confirmed this) that the Fey, with their selections of realms, are drifting toward a form of godhood. Whether that is intentional, or whether that would even work, or whether they'd need to undo the Severance, no one seems to know. If the Fey know, they're not telling.


18 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 19)

During the third day of our downtime, Tulmor got in touch with us and we went over there. She has access to circles that will accept us arriving there in New Arvai, Erlin (on the river that goes to New Arvai), Tash and Pelsoreen. All of them belong to people she knows but not everyone would be capable of sending us back using the circle. She can’t promise the return trip.

Joybell, remembering what Orryk reported from Tillaron Zun about getting into debt in Pelsoreen, asked if we’d be indebted to the people who let us arrive at their circle. Or if Tulmor would. Tulmor said that there would be no debt involved.

Joybell turned to the rest of the party and made an impassioned plea: They like us here. They accept us as protectors and guards. We’re doing good work and there are things that need to be investigated and taken care of. I’ll go where everyone else wants to go, but they like us here.

Mo suggested going to The Knot to see if we can find more information about the Servants of the Hunger.

The others reassured them that this is just a trip and that the group would be coming back to Embernook after Orryk’s research in Pelsoreen was finished.

Concerned that the Servants of the Hunger were a ticking time bomb, Joybell and Mo asked Tulmor and Barnett if they had any sense that the cult’s plans were coming to a head. Tulmor said that the cult has been around for quite some time and feeding the Hunger Between Worlds has been their goal forever.

Joybell agreed to go with her friends, but with a heavy heart. Mo said he wants to liberate the slaves, which Joybell is totally behind.

Before we left, we went to talk to the clerics at the Last Doorway, where we’d taken the cultist Cleric for speak with dead to see what they’d learned. What they’d learned was that they couldn’t understand him at all. It was like he was speaking a gibberish language. They thought they could understand one word in ten, perhaps, but it was mostly gibberish.

We also went to talk to Thalith before we left. Joybell asked if we could have something from his office so we could teleport back more easily. Surprised that we asked rather than just nicking something, he gave us a simple letter opener. If we knew a teleportation circle in the city we’d go straight there, rather than to Thalith’s office, but Barnett destroyed the one he’d had in his rooms some time before.

Thalith didn’t have any errands or messages for us there. He said he knows there are some decent people in Pelsoreen, but he doesn’t know any of them personally.

We went to Tillaron Zun’s estate to pick up his letters of introduction to some of the merchants and to thank him.


19 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 20)

The next morning we went over to Tulmor and Barnett’s. Tulmor gave us a scroll of Sending so that Fiona can learn the spell. It’s so useful for getting in touch. We recovered Mo’s sending stone from her, so we have both of the pair again.

When we’re ready to come back, we can contact her. It is possible that she’ll be able to teleport to us and bring us back, like she did from Harl’s place.

Then she cast Teleportation Circle and we all walked through.

We found ourselves in a room, not a large room, which was crowded with the whole party (including Scooby) in it. The only features in the room were the circle on the floor and a door.

After a moment, the door opened and a chubby halfling man greeted us. His name was Ammoch and he had breakfast, or perhaps second breakfast or elevenses waiting for us.

We accepted his hospitality and asked him some questions about the city, starting with an inn we could stay at. He recommended the Flaming Quill because it’s near where the magicians are, so we’ll be close to where he understood from Tulmor that we want to be.

Joybell asked if we should go check in with the guard, since we’re new in town. Ammoch said that he wouldn’t recommend that at all. Pelsoreen is run by five more-or-less criminal corporations, so most of the guard work for one or the other of those. They’re not at war with each other, exactly -- there’s not a lot of overt violence -- but if someone violates the armistice between them then violence can break out for a time.

He recommended strongly finding some way to carry your money that is not easily accessible from outside your person. Some of the pickpockets and thieves are protected by one or the other of the families. Others are not.

Taman: How do you know if they are? Because if someone tries to rob me, I’m going to run them through.

Ammoch said that it’s okay to defend yourself from being attacked or robbed, but if you see someone else being robbed, assaulted, or even killed, it’s best not to help them.

Joybell, utterly horrified: This is a horrible place!! This is awful! There are slavers and it’s run by criminals and you can’t help people who are being hurt and… Just do your thing quickly and let’s get out.… <<deep breath>> <muttering> I want another crumpet.

Before we left Ammoch’s Joybell went back into the teleportation circle room and shifted her money around, putting the copper and silver and a couple gold into one pouch at her side, a larger amount of gold into a pouch secured inside her armor, and most of it in the pouch with her initial on it that came from the Administrator in the Bag of Holding. The party kitty is in another pouch tucked under her tabard, secure and not easily visible, but also accessible.

Joybell also asked Ammoch if there’s a druidic circle in the city. He said there’s not one in the city exactly, but there are some offshore islands, a small archipelago, with an elemental druidic circle. Joybell would like to visit that before we leave because it sounds like it might actually be nice.

Ammoch gave us directions to the Flaming Quill and agreed that we could come back to him when we’re ready to get teleported out of the city. We thanked him and left.

Joybell: I want to get Ammoch a present. Maybe a nice crumpet iron.
Taman: You could get him a slave.
Joybell: <<speechless horror>>
Fiona, slapping Taman on the back of the head: Don’t say that!
Taman: I was joking.
Fiona: She doesn’t know that.

We found the Flaming Quill without incident. The sign outside is actually a permanent fire in the shape of a quill pen hanging from what looks like a more or less normal sign bracket. Mo suspected that the innkeeper might be a fire genasi, and it certainly looked possible given the redness of his skin.

Joybell complimented the innkeeper, Jorly, on the sign and he said that his great grandfather made it.

We asked about the libraries and were told that there are several of them including two in the magical college itself. We asked why there were two instead of them having been merged into one. Jorly said that he understood that they’d originated from two different donated collections. He’s never been to either of them but his understanding is that to get into one you need to demonstrate knowledge and to get into the other you need to demonstrate capability.

Jorly also said that there are a couple more libraries outside the college that are accessible to the public -- you have to pay to get in and that payment is not necessarily in coin. Some of them want a service of some sort.

Jorly said he could give us directions to the ones he knows about but he also had a map of the city available. Orryk bought a copy of the city map.

We took one room for the lot of us (including Scooby, Joybell is not leaving him in the stables where anything could happen to him). Fiona can put an alarm spell on the one room overnight.

We ended in what Joybell, at least, is convinced is the Worst Place In Urnod. It’s still mid-morning.

Pelsoreen awaits.

Treasure:

Orrery of Finding Crazy Book (Joybell wants to spend some time with this and maybe get Fiona to identify it -- it could be handy if it could be used to locate anything other than the Crazy Book)
Rope of Climbing (party item in the Bag of Holding)
Holy Symbol from Cultist Cleric (I’m not sure what we did with this)
2 Healing Potions Joybell Made (She’s planning on giving one to Taman and one to Orryk and just forgot)

Note: After paying 6gp for our room at the Flaming Quill, the party kitty contains: 2 pp, 2gp, 6sp, and 8 cp.


----------



## prabe (Sep 20, 2020)

Session 11: In Which Joybell Lies

Dramatis Personae:


Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM: - Everyone Else

Before we got started there were two corrections to information previously imparted by the GM:

   Overland  distances are greater than originally reported by a factor of approximately 3. [The GM believes he has fixed this one, above]    
   The Guard are paying us 3 silver a day, and room and board, instead of one silver a day. We’re rich!

19 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 20) (immediately after the previous)

We got some information about Pelsoreen, based on talking with Jorly the Innkeeper at the Flaming Quill and looking at the map Orryk bought.

Geographically the city is two islands near the mouth of the Gramolos River connected by footbridges, not large enough for cart travel. The smaller, upstream island is called The Breaks and is a lower-class area with slaughterhouses and poultry farming. The larger island is the bulk of the city of Pelsoreen. The Currentside district, which has the river port, is on the upstream side of the larger island. The islands are very hilly and the larger has a perimeter road which gets most of the cart traffic, and the most heavy traffic. About a half mile out toward the ocean is a breakwater that protects the ocean port and its vessels from the sea. Even despite the breakwater, though, the Gramolos River gets a tidal bore and flows backwards for a time every high tide.

There are two causeways connecting the larger island to the banks of the river, each about a mile long. The one to the right bank (as you’re facing downstream) is called Ovverway and leads to the road that parallels the river toward Ov and Tash. The left bank causeway is called Mountainway and leads to a road that goes into the Dunnimar Mountains. The causeways rise from the bottom of the river for an hour and a half at sunrise and sunset on a set, semi-alternating schedule.

There are several districts in on the larger island: The ocean port is in a district called Waveside. The Heights is the nicest and wealthiest parts of town -- in addition to expensive houses there are also city offices and upscale businesses. This is also where the colleges and libraries are. Located. The Stonetree district has nice hotels and upscale brothels, as well as some upper-middle class homes. This is not where the Flaming Quill is located however. That is in Thani’s Truth, which where a lot of the students live, as it’s near the part of the Heights with the colleges. Bloom Cliffs is a series of terraces from the high hilltop down to the sea and it is where all of the agriculture that takes place within the city is located -- fruit orchards, vegetable gardens, and some terraces dedicated to growing plants for spell components, alchemical work, and herbal medicines and other concoctions. The Old Lament district is close to Waveside and is where the banks, gambling dens, slave pens, skeevy brothels, and the Courts are located.

Slavery has arisen in Pelsoreen mostly since the Severance, though there have been genies since the city was founded.

All of the schools of magic and the libraries are located in the Heights district, where they are safe from the periodic tsunamis the city suffers. There are two colleges, or collegiate libraries:

    Thani-Breel     - Which focuses on theoretical knowledge and the Planes. To get into this library there is a test of knowledge.    
    The Demasthy - Which focuses on practical magic and history. To get into this library there is a practical test of ability.
The two colleges share a lot of facilities and even faculty, but are separate institutions. Especially the libraries.

There are other smaller and more focused libraries, which one needs a reference to get into. In addition to whatever entrance fee they charge.

Jorly also told us that there are five Corporations that run the city -- what we were thinking of as mob “families”. They are not geographically separated -- no corporation “runs” or “owns” the Heights, for example. But almost all the buildings in the city (except those that are city owned, like the courts and the buildings associated with various city offices) have one or more plaques outside indicating which corporation or corporations they’ve paid to affiliate with (or paid for protection). The signs are (at least) plated with copper, silver and gold. The preciousness of the metal involved indicates how tightly the building has affiliated itself (i.e. how much it has paid). Some buildings will have multiple copper signs for multiple corporations, but it is rare to see more than one silver or gold sign. 

The Five Corporations are: 

    Corbus & Coldin (logo: an intertwined C&C)
    Ammidorse & Sons (logo: a caravel ship)
    The Brass Giant (logo: an armored humanoid figure)
    Dallington’s (logo: the head of a bighorn ram in profile)
    The Blink Toad (logo: a one-eyed toad)
(Note: We’re prepared to like the Blink Toad just on the strength of the possible Hypnotoad jokes. Even if it did go downhill after the third season.) 

The Flaming Quill had a silver sign with an armored figure -- the emblem of the Brass Giant corporation. 

Before we left the Flaming Quill to look into the libraries, we went up to our room to stow some of our stuff. When she opened her pack, Joybell gave out a yelp and went pale and stiff when she saw something in her pack. 

She put it on the bed for the others to see -- it was a divination card, like a Tarot card, showing a person, recognizably Joybell, in a city, with an out-of-focus wolf behind her, looking determined and frightened and holding a blank mask. She told the others that this card had been following her for years. She left it at the Henge deliberately. She’s also left it at her parents’ house and in fields. It’s why, she believes, she almost didn’t get accepted as a novice at the Wold -- because this horrible card was following her. The picture changes -- it showed her unhappy with trees, which is utter nonsense because she loved trees and the Wold. The last time she saw it, just before she left the Henge to go to Embernook (the day before the campaign started), she looked happy, or at least satisfied, and was wearing armor and had a sword with black stone behind her. 

Joybell: It’s been following me since I was a kid. I hate it. 

Fiona cast detect magic followed by identify. The card is indeed magical and has an aura of divination. The card is a Card of the Wheel -- it does not require attunement and is not really cursed, but they do sometimes attach themselves to a person. They show a probable near future. But not a definite one. 

As we left the hotel room, Joybell left the card on the wash \stand in the room with a note saying “Please feel free to steal this”. 

Then we headed out toward the magical colleges. Orryk and Fiona wanted to go to The Demasthy first, so we headed in that direction. The Demasthy is the library dedicated to practical magic and history -- to get in one must demonstrate ability. We had no problems getting onto the university campus -- we don’t exactly look like students (except Fiona and Orryk) but the campuses are open and free to enter. 

At the library, there was an anteroom with a reception desk. University students have a badge that lets them get in. Those without the badge must cast spells that produce fire, cold, thunder, lightning and acid. While the rest of us were figuring out if this was even going to be possible, Fiona cast Chromatic Orb, which can (with different castings) produce all five. Satisfied with that, the attendant gave her a card permitting admission. With that card, she could take in one additional person, which was Orryk, of course.

Team Library rides again. 

The rest of us, Mo, Imaktis, Taman and Joybell (Team Gettin’ In Trouble) headed down to the Old Lament district. We had a few research interests -- we wanted to see the slave pens and talk to a slave or two, if possible. Mo wanted to know how closely held the slaves are -- are any free-roaming people that we could talk to or are they always closely accompanied by their masters We wanted to see what we could learn about the five Corporations -- their reputations, the distribution of their emblems on houses, etc. Joybell wanted to find a temple and talk to the priests/clerics inside just to get a sense of the religious life of the city. 

Joybell: Even bad people need religion. 

We went from the Heights, through Thani’s Truth (a bit out of the way, but it let us see more of the variety in the city), to Old Lament to get a bit of perspective on the city and its people. 

Observing the Corporate affiliation plaques we noticed that the residences and buildings have them. In the Heights the representation was pretty balanced. In Old Lament, C&C and Ammidorse & Sons were perhaps over-represented and the Brass Giant (as at the Flaming Quill) was perhaps under-represented. The plaques seemed to go in clusters or seams - all the houses in a row or block seemed to have the same ones. 

Back at the library, Fiona was looking for information on the Severance and on pre-Severance history. Working together she and Orryk learned the following: 

    The first tidal wave in Pelsoreen was heralded by the sky going black. People heard a banging or a roaring out over the ocean and then the tsunami hit. This was the first notice anyone had of the Severance -- clerics couldn’t get spells to heal people and deal with the disaster by praying to their gods. Just before the sky went black and the tidal wave hit, prayers for spells had been answered as normal.
    There have been three tsunamis since the Severance have also been heralded by the sky going black and the banging over the ocean, but there was no additional supernatural effect like the Severance. 
    Inside one of the history books, Fiona finds a small piece of very old vellum that has written on it, in Celestial, “I’m sorry”. This is the same handwriting as a letter (or document) that Fiona found when she was adventuring with a dragonborn friend in a temple in an abandoned village. The document describes a group of people from another plane finding a stone table with names of the gods carved on the table. 
Orryk was interested in the Outer Chaos and in Orcus, and in Joybell’s masked monsters. Working together on that, they learned: 

    The Outer Chaos isn’t a plane -- it is (or it lives in, it’s a little unclear) the space between planes (like between the Material Plane and the Astral Plane). In mortal time scales it is not aware of us at all and it doesn’t appear to be reacting to mortals at all. Contact with it makes mortals crazy. (When we talked about this at dinner Joybell would have been wondering how warlocks make pacts with something so entirely indifferent and possibly not even sentient. But she didn’t raise the question.)
    There was no new information about Orcus. 
Before we got to what Orryk learned about the mask-wearing, Wold-destroying monsters, we went back to Team Gettin’ In Trouble. 

As they were going along toward Old Lament, Joybell spotted a temple of an Order she was unfamiliar with, The Purveyors and Wrights. They were priests of the Forge and Travel and appeared to be a temple of merchants -- people who make and transport things. We went in to talk to the priest there.  Joybell asked the priest what kind of religious life the people of Pelsoreen have. 

Priest: As expensive as they can afford.

Joybell gave him a gold piece. 

He chuckled and said that some pay to have questions answered (pocketing the gold), some pay to be seen by others, some pay to be seen as people who come to the temples, some pay to make social and business connections among other merchants and manufacturers. Some pay the temple for services they can actually provide -- healing, assistance making things, curing diseases. And some legitimately come out of religious sentiment to pray. 

This pragmatic religious life is typical of the people here -- certainly a plurality if not a majority of his parishioners are there for reasons other than religious sentiment. 

Joybell asked him about getting to the druid circle on the island that she’d heard about. He said that there are almost always vessels for hire both Currentside and Waveside -- we just need to hire a ship with a captain who knows where to go. He recommended a captain who was one of his parishioners -- Captain Doyard of The Elephant, who docked at Waveside. At the least, he wouldn’t take our money if he couldn’t actually take us there. 

As we left, Mo hung back to talk to the priest privately, handing him 5gp. Mo asked after an apothecary or alchemist that is discreet and doesn’t ask questions. Whoever would be discrete about what he’s going to be looking for. The priest gave him two names: A rock gnome alchemist in Stonetree named Burnocka and a wood elf herbalist in Bloom Cliffs named Turalee. One or the other of them should be able to help with whatever Mo is looking for. 

Then we continued on our way to Old Lament.

As we were walking around, Taman pointed out a store with a sign in the shape of a blank mask hanging from a sign bracket. The sign was hanging out in front of a building that was one of a row of mostly businesses. There were no windows, only a closed door, at the street level. Taman went up to the door and poked his head in. The room was small, with a door in the back wall. As he looked in, three Goliath-sized people wearing masks, armor and with sheathed longswords turned to look at him in unison. 

Taman: I was wondering what kind of store this is. 
Masks (in unison): This is not a store. We do not sell goods. 
Taman: Then your sign is misleading.
Masks (in unison): It is who we are. 
Joybell, peeking in under Taman’s arm, saw that the masks looked like the mask that’s on her card now. 

Taman apologized for disturbing them and we left. 

So we’d remember where we were, because Orryk had the map he’d bought from Jorly in the library with him, Mo used the Flute of Scribing to write, in Dwarven, on the sidewalk across the street: “You are here” in non-glowing letters. 

Joybell looked around at the building and the near environs of it -- there are 10’ wide alleys on either side of the house, which is on a narrow lot. There are five houses on either side of it, with alleys separating them, on this block. Joybell went down one of the alleys to see what was there. There were no windows on the ground level even in the alley. The back of the building had a fenced yard, but the fence was not well-maintained. Through some missing slats we could see that there is a back door (still no windows on the ground floor, though there are some on the 2nd floor). The fenced yard ran back to another fenced yard which was behind another similar building that faced onto a different street. That street seemed to be more residential. 

The building was under the protection of C&C, with a silver sign. 

Joybell wanted to watch over the house and see the masked people coming and going -- to get a sense of numbers and movements and maybe what they’re up to. 

Imaktis: It’s their town. 

Instead, we continued on our walk around in Old Lament. Mo was keeping his eyes open for any slaves, but we hadn’t seen any we were sure about. We’d seen some people walking together where there was an apparent disparity in wealth and/or power, but we weren’t positive we’d seen slaves out with their masters. 

We tried to figure out if there was some way we could tell which people were slaves -- but we didn’t notice anything like brands or tattoos. 

(Joybell was also looking for people in masks, but didn’t see any.) 

We made our way toward the Courthouse and found ourselves going by some of the slave pens. These were open sided buildings, just roofs without any walls, with prison-like hallways between rows of cages with varying numbers of people in them. The slave pens are open to the public (one supposes so that people can shop) and we were able to walk around and look at the people. There were slave pens under the protection of each of the corporations, so there doesn’t appear to be any corporation that is not involved in the city’s slave trade. 

There we noticed that all the slaves have pink eyes -- the irises, not the whites. Imaktis and Joybell consulted about this -- Imaktis contributing knowledge of medicine and Joybell contributing knowledge of herbs and they figured out that this is caused by a medical/herbal concoction that works on every humanoid race. While it might make the slaves a bit more docile, its primary effect is to make the visible mark of slavery. It has to be re-administered every few months, but there is an antidote that can end the effect early if one’s period of servitude ends before the effect wears off. 

Once we knew what to look for, we could see slaves doing all kinds of work -- those who were slaves due to debt were using whatever skills they had to pay what they owed. Those who were unskilled were working doing physical labor, repairing buildings, hauling materials, and so on. 

Mo was watching to find a slave he could strike up a conversation with -- one that was moving freely without supervision or observation -- but there weren’t so many of those in this part of town. Perhaps in a nicer part of town we’d find more of that. 

We went into a bar near the courthouse to talk to people, listen to people and generally gather some information. We were hoping that we’d find lawyers in a bar near the courts. Mo wanted to learn if there was an abolition movement or if there is any instability or insurrection. Joybell wanted to learn more about the mask-people and the different reputations of the various corporations. (What she really wanted to know if there was one that was maybe secretly Not Bad that we could interact with without fear or guilt.)

Mo singled out the most fancily dressed person to speak to. Before he went to talk to him, he asked Taman to keep Joybell away from his conversation, because he was going to be lying and didn’t want her interfering. So Taman and Joybell played darts, while Taman listened to the buzz around the bar.

The person Mo spoke to was a city employee who worked in the courts. His job was to keep track of balances owed to the city. Those balances owed to the city usually start as unpaid fines but if, after several opportunities to pay, the debtor doesn’t pay their fines, the city owns them until that debt is paid off. Slaves owned by the city are generally fairly fortunate, because the city does not sell their slaves. The slaves who owe a private debt can be sold to others and often change hands many times. 

Mo asked if the slavery is permanent or if it is just for a term of service. The gentleman said that some unfortunates accrue enough debt that it cannot be paid off in their own lifetimes, so their children are enslaved until it is paid off. 

Mo asked if there are any groups that have issues with the system or is the city stable? The gentleman said that the city is stable because the city is prosperous. And if there were problems, the Corporations are capable of working together when they need to in order to solve a problem. 

Mo: It’s good there’s no insurrection. We’ve had those in our city and it’s been a real problem. 
Gentleman, looking at Mo curiously: Tash is having problems? 
(He had apparently recognized Mo’s accent.)
Mo: Yes, but don’t let the news out. It would hurt trade. 
Gentleman: Yes. Yes it would. 

The gentleman then went on to say that the only problems are when slaves are bought from the genies. No one knows how much debt to attach to them. The genies don’t keep records and have no idea of paperwork. The Dao or Efreeti might have just captured them, so the slave isn’t sold with an amount of debt attached. Fortunately genies don’t sell their slaves very often. 

Mo: How many genies are there in the city, approximately? Hundreds? Dozens?
Gentleman: Dozens, at most. You don’t need many genies before you have too many genies.
Mo: You can’t tell me that enough. Where do they live? 
Gentleman: Mostly in the Heights or around the causeways. They probably don’t live in the city, though -- they probably have gates that take them back to their home planes. 

Then the gentleman asked: You’re in town looking for bardic gigs? 
Mo: I’m always looking for bardic gigs. 
Gentleman: And your armored friends? 
Mo: The roads are dangerous, It’s good to have defense. 
Gentleman: Self-defense is always a defense. Vendetta sometimes works too. 

While this conversation was going on, Taman beat Joybell handily at darts, though it wasn’t as lopsided as Joybell, at least, was expecting. They were going to be listening for some buzz in the bar about the corporations and their different reputations. Joybell got kind of caught up in cheering for good shots and commiserating with Taman when he made bad ones. Taman, who was listening, got the sense that there is not a lot of difference between the Corporations -- they all have a lot of tentacles in every kind of pie in Pelsoreen. Some people have good experiences and some have bad experiences with any of them. All five of them are all about maximizing profit. 

Joybell, once the dart game was over and Mo had rejoined us, looked around for anyone in masks, but didn’t see any. She did find a nice looking drunk guy to talk to. As she sat down, Mo looked at the guy with the Eyes of Charming and suggested that he wanted to answer her questions. 

He was extremely drunk, but still the first thing he did was ask for a drink. Joybell asked Taman to take his time going to the bar to get another drink -- because it seemed like if he had too much more to drink he wouldn’t be able to talk to her. 

Joybell asked about the building they saw that had the sign with the blank mask. It looked so curious, but there were no shop windows or anything so she couldn’t see what they were selling. The drunk guy told them that’s the House of Masks -- if you want someone made dead and don’t care about whether or not there’s a mess left, they’re really good at that. They’re also really good at collecting living children. 

Mo: How much for an assassination? I want to know how much value is placed on a human life.  
Drunk: 20,000gp for killing. 
Mo and Joybell: They value life very highly, apparently. 

The drunk told us that it is less for kidnapping or leaving people alive. Getting living children is less expensive than an assassination. 

Joybell: If we wanted someone killed, how would we arrange that? 
Taman: Walk into their shop, I suppose. 
Drunk: He has the right of it. 
Joybell: So how do you get them to take children for you? 
Drunk: They get children who won’t be missed or looked for. 
Joybell: <<didn’t scream>> <<didn’t hit him with her flail>> <<took a deep breath>> I guess you go to their shop for that too, huh?  

In the background, Mo and Imaktis started talking about this.

Mo: We’ve killed a lot of people. 
Imaktis: Maybe we’re not charging enough. 
Joybell: We’ve mostly killed things that are already dead, actually.

Mo cast sleep on the drunk guy and we left the bar. On the way out, Joybell gave the bartender a silver piece and told him to give the guy a drink when he woke up. 

Taman: You’re too good for this town.
Joybell: I told him I’d get him a drink. 

We head back toward the Heights and the Demasthy library we’d left Orryk and Fiona at. 

Back in the Library, Orryk was finding some information about the House of Masks (Joybell’s mask-wearing monsters). 

    There is no record of how they came to be, but they’re known to have been in that house in Pelsoreen for a few hundred years.
    It has never been known that there were more than six or ten in Pelsoreen. 
    They have been recorded north of Auriqua and in many cities and various wilderness areas all over Urnod. They only have an open and obvious storefront in Pelsoreen (because Pelsoreen is the only city where this kind of operation can work so openly). 
    When paid 20,000gp for an assassination, they will do anything they have to do to take that one person. There are records of them showing up by the dozen to get to a particularly well protected target. 
    This wasn’t from the library, but Barnett told us that he saw them robbing a caravan up north of Auriqua. They weren’t especially interested in killing people or stealing children. They took what they wanted and left. So either they needed something that the caravan was carrying in order to get to an assassination target or     they sometimes take jobs other than assassination or kidnapping. 
Team Library and Team Gettin’ In Trouble met back up outside the Demasthy library at this point. The people at the Demasthy told Fiona and Orryk about three smaller libraries with much more specialized collections (presumably ones that are of relevance for to the practical and historical bent of the Demasthy) and what we need to do to get in. This was just for information and does not count as the referral or reference they’d need to actually get in.

    The Steel Crucible - to get in you need to be able to make something
    Carveen’s - to get in you need to give them a blood sample that they don’t already have (so your own blood would work for the _first_ visit, but then you’d need to give them someone else’s blood).
    Black  Irnod’s - to get in you need to give them a corpse or corpses. The more corpses you give them, the longer you can stay doing research. There appears to also be some sort of consideration of the quality  of the corpses in this corpses-for-time calculus. 
Mo asked someone (maybe at the library, maybe he asked Jorly at the Flaming Quill when we went back for dinner, my notes are unclear) about whether there’s a mayor or administrator of Pelsoreen outside of the heads of the Corporations. He was told that there are some limited functions, like the courts and other infrastructure maintenance, that are the City as a whole. The Corporations fund them equally and they are expected to be neutral. Each of these is, in a way, its own fiefdom -- the guy in charge of the city’s sewers doesn’t answer to anyone other than the Council -- which has representatives from the corporations. 

At dinner, we talked about all that we’d learned and discovered during the day. 

Orryk: The question you haven’t asked yet is who hired the Masks to take the children from the Wold.
Joybell: <<silence>><<anger>> That is a good question. 
Orryk: Whoever hired them may have wanted specifically the children from the Wold. Or may have wanted generic children and they chose that village themselves. 

After dinner, Joybell wanted to go back to the House of Masks just to look and see if we could see a pattern of activity. If there were lights in the windows. That sort of thing. Everyone said that she couldn’t do that, because they saw her and she’d be obvious. She wasn’t planning on being right outside the door, or across the street, just down at the end of the block maybe. 

Fiona: You can’t do it. You don’t have the skill set. 
Taman: I was assuming I’d do it.

Orryk worried that the whole organization would know who we are. Joybell tried to make it clear that she wasn’t going to do anything -- just go be down in the vicinity and see if there was anything she could see from a distance away. She just wanted to gather information, so we have information to know if there’s anything we can do. 

So, after dinner, we headed out on our scouting mission. As we left, Orryk put on the Gloves of Swimming and Climbing, just in case. 

As we left the Heights going toward the House of Masks in Old Lament, we found ourselves going by the back of Black Irnod’s library. There was a cart parked near the open door (the tradesmen’s entrance). Three of the Masks were there -- one of them was getting a small orc child out of the cart. The other two were standing guard.

We saw this when we were still 100 to 120 feet away. There weren’t any visible guards around, and even if there were they might not have been inclined to help. 

Joybell kept on moving in that direction, while the rest of the party stopped to plan. Riding Scooby, she proceeded along, a member of the public on the public thoroughfare, moving at Scooby’s normal pace, not hurrying or charging. When she got about 30’ away she could hear more children from inside the open door -- the masked figure had put the child over his shoulder and was walking to the doorway. 

Taman drank his Potion of Invisibility and moved up 90 feet with his move, dash and bonus dash actions. Orryk turned down an alley to see how big the building was and to see what people on the other block were doing.  

As Joybell got to about 30 feet away the Mask had the orc child over his shoulder and was turning toward the open door of Black Irnod’s. 

Joybell: Hi! It’s a nice night! How’s the kid? He’s sure squalling a lot. 

All three Masks turned silently to look at her, then two of them went back to what they had been doing while one continued to stare at her.  

Taman snuck up to the one with the child and plucked the kid out of its grasp. Because of the invisibility, the child immediately became invisible when Taman grabbed it. Taman then ran up the street and used the Cape of the Mountebank to dimension door around a corner behind a building. 

Joybell, not sure what was going on (all discussion of plans and ideas happened while she was being a member of the public on the public thoroughfare), but guessing that her friends were involved, started freaking out and shouting. Really loud. 

Joybell: The kid! He just disappeared. Did he run off!? I’ll help you look for him! 

The Masks appeared baffled, confused and disoriented. They were having a moment of utter inability to deal with the changed circumstance. (“Norman, coordinate.”)

Down in their hiding place in an alley, the orc child whispered to Taman in common: “What happened? Big men with masks came through our village. There were six of us in the cart.” 

Joybell, “frantically” looking around for the missing child, got a look in through the door -- there were five more orc children in there, all looking terrified, ranging in age from five to ten years old. There was also one guy in a robe. 

Joybell: Look at all those kids! Maybe he’s in there! Did you see a missing child, sir? He just disappeared. 

Then she cast Moonbeam near the cart (not near any of the Masks -- this was not an attack)(at this time) and blathered about needing more light to find the kid by. 

Mo moved up and cast blindness on the two nearest to him. Both failed their saves. 

Orryk, not having any non-combat options appropriate to the situation, and unwilling to get in combat, turned into an alley a couple of buildings away to see how people were reacting over there. Taman had taken the child to an alley far even further away and instructed it to stay hidden behind some crates. Fiona, also lacking non-combat options appropriate to the situation, went into the alley behind Orryk. 

Despite the blindness the two nearest Masks were able to move up on Mo and attack. One missed but the other hit -- though Mo’s Stone’s Endurance reduced that to a just a scratch. Unfortunately the other one hit as well. At the end of their turn they got another chance to shake off the blindness. One succeeded, but the other didn’t. 

Through all of this, the Masks still hadn’t said anything. Their only noises had been athletic grunts of exertion while swinging at Mo. 

Joybell did some more screaming and yelling (playing “worried auntie” to the hilt), then noticed that the guy in robes inside the house was radiating vibes of having done something his boss may literally kill him for. All the commotion had what appeared to be a naturally sun-tanned and swarthy man scared pale.  

Seeing that, Joybell started yelling, loudly: Is there someone else in there? They can come help too! Help! Help! We have a missing child out here! Please, anyone inside, come help!

Imaktis, who’d been moving up this whole time, was finally able to cast a spiritual weapon just behind the blinded one (the weapon missed) and shillelaghed his club. 

Mo cast hold person on the two right in front of him -- the one who’d shaken off the blindness failed to save against the hold, but the other one did. Then he moved toward Joybell on the other side of the cart, despite drawing an attack of opportunity from the one that was still blinded. 

Fiona (after failing an Int check with advantage) continued up the alley after Orryk and cast a Mage Armor on herself. 

Joybell continued screaming and carrying on and playing worried auntie -- trying to get the wizard inside to come out and help look for the child, trying to get the Masks to help look. Then she sent her Moonbeam around the corner of the building (to get more light over there), parking it on top of one of the Masks. 

From inside the building, both Joybell and Mo heard someone say: Tarly, what have you done?

The young man in robes in the vestibule looked even more scared at that. 

Orryk emerged out of the alley into the street on the other side of the building. The people on the street over there were all studiously ignoring all of the commotion from the other side of the building. No one was going to come help people find a missing child. But no one was going to come interfere with us rescuing them either. 

The Mask nearest to Mo swung at him -- Joybell used her shield to protect him from the first attack, but the second one got through. The one in the Moonbeam took some small amount of damage from the spell. 

Joybell: I’m sorry! I’ve never cast that spell before. I didn’t know it would do that! 

The young man inside, apparently Tarly, turned around and said to the person inside: J-just some beggars…

It was not a persuasive lie. 

Imaktis moved his spiritual weapon to the held one, but missed with it despite swinging at a paralyzed opponent. He did hit with the shillelagh. 

Orryk continued to the front door of Black Irnod’s library. The door was unlocked and inside the door was a reception desk with a bell. He began to ring the bell. 

Mo quaffed a greater healing potion and then cast healing word on himself and moved to a new position behind Joybell, which made both of them feel better. 

Fiona continued up the alley and came out onto the other side of the building. 

With the child hidden in an alley, Taman moved up to range and took a shot at the held one -- got a crit on a sneak attack and did 14 points of damage. 

Joybell continued the frantic worried auntie routine, going carefully around the Mask standing nearest to the door (so she could not be interpreted as attacking him, and so she would not draw an opportunity attack) and went right to the doorway. She didn’t go inside, because that might be wrong and she’d said she wasn’t going to do anything wrong. 

As she got to the door, an interior door opened and a tall guy in comfortable looking robes came into the mudroom. He was livid. 

Irnod: Tarly, did you do a deal with the Masks? Why are there living people here?
Joybell: I’m so glad you’re here, sir! There are all these children here and another one just went missing from outside! I was hoping he’d come help look. 
Irnod, to the Masks: Your delivery is accepted. You may go.

At that the Masks got onto their cart (when Mo released the Hold spell on the one) and drove away. 

Irnod, to Joybell: Do you know where these children belong? 
Joybell: No, but I’m sure we can find out and we’ll be happy to get them to a safe situation. 
Irnod: There are probably places or people in the city who can help. 
Joybell: We’ll make sure they’re taken care of. 

Joybell and Mo got the children out of Black Irnod’s, gently and without being unnecessarily scary. Taman went back to where he hid the child he rescued and brought him back to the group.

Orryk continued ringing the bell at the desk for a minute or more. Eventually an interior door opened, with a whiff of burned flesh, and Irnod came through. 

Orryk: I heard that you take corpses, but I just saw a delivery of a live child at the back door. Is there a different fee at that entrance?
Irnod: My apprentice was making an error. He will not be making another one. 
Orryk: Very good. Is there any usual way to obtain a corpse for the entrance fee? 
Irnod: Self-defense. Here in Pelsoreen, vendetta is also a reason. The corpses we receive don’t come back. 

Orryk asked what the library specialized in and was told anatomy and medicine. 

Down at the back entrance, Taman, Imaktis, Joybell and Mo were gathering up the (probably) orphaned orc children, the Orcphans, and getting ready to take them back to the Flaming Quill for the night. 

Mo, joking: We could sell these children to a genie. 
Joybell: Mo W. Kang!!


----------



## prabe (Sep 26, 2020)

Session 12: Vendetta for the Wold!        

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM: - Everyone Else


19 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 20) (immediately after the previous)

Everyone reassembled on the street outside the back entrance to Black Irnod’s -- with the Orcphans now safe with us.

As we walked back to the Flaming Quill, Joybell talked to the child, Turlk, who could speak common about the situation they were now in. She was trying to convey to them that they were safe with us -- though starting that off with “Bad things were about to happen to you” may not have been the best conversational gambit.

Turlk told us that they were from a tribe called the Jagged Swords. The Masks came and grabbed the children. Turlk remembered seeing them torching the village as they were being carried away. They traveled for a week or so from the village then they met up with a weird looking person who made a teleportation circle and they appeared in the House of Masks in Pelsoreen. (That is not how Turlk described it.)

Which means we can’t glean from that where they’re from.

Imaktis asked how Turlk learned to speak common. He said that some members of the tribe had parents or grandparents who were half-orcs and they were traders with the surrounding villages and spoke common.

Orryk pulled out a map and asked Turlk if he knew where on the continent his village was, but it was apparent the kid had never seen a map before and/or didn’t know the geography of the continent. He was able to tell us that there were mountains and they could see snow-caps on the mountains. And when they arrived in the teleportation circle in Pelsoreen their ears popped.

Unfortunately, there are a number of mountain ranges on the continent where they could be from and since a teleportation circle was involved in getting them to Pelsoreen, we have no way of knowing where their village was.

Mo asked Turlk if they’d like to go back to their village or if they’d like to go to another orc village or what. Turlk and the other children were just...overwhelmed by the whole situation and unable to give a solid answer to that.

When we got to the Flaming Quill, we arranged for a second room across the hall from our room (because six adults, six children, and a large wolf in one room seemed like it would be a tight fit). We also arranged for food for the children.

Imaktis suggested seeing if Jorly would raise the kids in exchange for them working at the inn, but the rest of us were not fans of that idea. Joybell wanted the children with orcs, so they’d be raised in their proper culture. Mo wanted them out of Pelsoreen, because it’s awful.

We asked Jorly if he knew of anyone who could help us and he told us about a tribe of orcs and half-orcs in Pelsoreen at the base of Bloom Cliffs near Ovverway. They’re called the Cracked Shield tribe. The tribe mostly makes a living by working as mercenaries. Jorly had done business with them and found them to be good to work with.

Imaktis expressed some concern at taking them to become part of a tribe of mercenaries.

Mo: I’m not sure what the difference is between us and mercenaries.
Orryk: Mercenaries get paid up front.

Mo then called for a party caucus regarding what our moral line was.

Mo: Are we okay with children being slaughtered.
Joybell: NO!
Orryk: I’m not okay with taking on a continent-wide guild of assassins unprepared.


20 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 21)

The next morning we had breakfast then took the children to a temple of The Joyful (an order focused on the Life, Luck, and Nature domains) to see if they could watch the kids for a few hours while we went to check out the Cracked Shield Orcs to see if they’d be able to care for them and if we were comfortable giving the children to them.

The cleric in the temple spoke to the children in Orcish and they lit up at hearing their own language.

We spoke to the cleric a bit about orcs in general, about the Jagged Sword Orcs the children were taken from, and the Cracked Shield Orcs in Pelsoreen. He told us that orcish culture was devastated by the Severance, because they were so connected to their gods. Historically they had been driven by their gods to violence and sort of continual war against the other races. Since the Severance they’ve been in more of a struggle to survive and remain orcs without that. He said that they fit in well here in Pelsoreen, for what that’s worth. Mo asked if they own slaves and we were told that they don’t make enough money to buy them (other than occasionally buying an orc and manumitting them or otherwise arranging their freedom) and they don’t appear to take debt slaves -- if someone shorts them in a deal, they just kill them.

We headed off to the Cracked Shields -- into a neighborhood where the houses were more spread out. We found a compound with several houses inside one large solid-wood fence. From what we could see over the fence,the houses looked about the same as the others in the area architecturally. On the outside of the fence, we noted copper plaques for all five Corporations.

The fence had an actual door in it, so Joybell knocked on the door. A half-orc answered almost immediately. We told him that we’d rescued six orc children from the House of Masks. He growled in response.

We asked to speak to a tribal leader or council perhaps, because we want to make sure the children will be well cared for and we needed help with that.

He told us to wait then went inside, leaving the door open. Inside the door was a room built into the fence that was somewhere between a reception room and a guard room. It appeared that they generally have someone on duty at the door.

He came back about five minutes later with an elderly orc who introduced himself as Rask, as he stepped out onto the street and closed the door behind him.

Joybell: Do you know anything about the Masks?
Rask: [ground-rattling growl]
Joybell: I’m right there with you! Exactly!

Joybell told Rask that we had rescued these children from the Masks. We made it clear that we wanted the children to go to a very good home where they’d be cared for and learn how to be orcs.

Joybell: They say they’re from the Jagged Swords. Do you know where they’re from?
Rask: They’ve come a long way.

We told him that we believed that the village was destroyed. Or perhaps that it was there available to be moved into if the tribe wanted to leave Pelsoreen. Rask didn’t seem to be overly interested in that, though he said they’d consider it.

Mo: Is the tribe strong and healthy?
Rask: Mostly. We are mostly a tribe of people brought here against our will. We are former slaves who have bought ourselves free. We are cracked in various ways, but we have not been broken.
Mo: Are you accepting new members?
Rask: We are always accepting new members.

We asked a bit about how they live in the city and Rask said that they have learned to fit in but that they also do what they can to remain orcs.

We had a really good feeling about Rask and the Cracked Shields as a new home for the children, so we asked if perhaps some people could come with us to meet the kids -- perhaps an older child so they’d feel comfortable and safe. We were afraid of walking with them through the city and being attacked and having to defend them.

Rask went away for a bit, then returned with a younger orc woman and a couple of children, about the same age as the Orcphans. He said there were some warriors getting ready to come with us and they were preparing a cart.

While we were waiting for them, we talked with Rask about the House of Masks. He began growling again and was obviously Angry With Rage. He said that many members of the Cracked Shield had had occasion to tangle with the Masks, but they had never done so in Pelsoreen.

Some members of the tribe doing mercenary work outside of Pelsoreen had encountered them. He said that they are monstrous -- they heal like trolls, but fire and acid have no effect on them. Taman mentioned that they appear to think with one mind. Rask agreed with that and said that they work as one -- if many of them gang up on one target then it goes badly.

When Rask encountered them, there were spellcasters who slowed down the Masks, which are Goliath sized, holding them off and allowing the rest of the group to escape. They were braver, he said, than he thought spellcasters could be. There was an elf woman who cussed more than he thought possible and he heard the ringing of many many bells.

(We recognized those as Vicious Mockery and Toll the Dead -- which means psychic and necrotic damage. That confirms what Barnett told us about necrotic damage being good against them.)

Orryk: Because you fought them in one place, do the ones here seem to recognize you as a threat?
Rask: They don’t seem to.

That’s good news.

The escort then arrived -- 8 orcs and half-orcs in splint and chain armor with weapons out. Rask, the woman (to whom we were not introduced) and the kids rode in the cart and we all walked together to The Joyful Temple. Taman and Orryk kept watch around us for any problems.

At the temple, we asked Turlk and the other children to come outside. The greeting with the Cracked Shield Orcs was full of joy and warmth. It was a happy moment and Joybell cried with joy and relief for the children.

Mo: If you need us you can reach us via Administrator Alighieri in Embernook.
Joybell: Please send us a message from time to time letting us know how they’re doing.

Rask agreed to keep in touch.

After the orcs and Orcphans left, we walked down the street that the House of Masks was on -- simple pedestrians walking -- to see what was on the the street around them. Across the street from the House of Masks were a haberdashery/millinery store, a pantry/dry goods store, and a leather worker. None of which was at all helpful for Fiona and Orryk hanging out for a couple of hours and observing the place. Dang it.

It was early afternoon, so we went to Thani-Breel, the library with the collection focused on magical theory and the planes. We knew that there was a test of knowledge to get in, which was five essay questions on aspects of magic -- magical theory, magic in history, magic’s interaction with religion and how magic and nature affect one another. Mo, Imaktis, Fiona and Orryk sat for the test, while Taman and Joybell went to talk to Black Irnod about the Masks, since he seemed to know something about them.

Before Joybell and Taman left Thani-Breel, Mo gave Joybell some questions he wanted her to ask Black Irnod. What did Tarly (Irnod’s apprentice) want with them? How much did he pay? And who else buys children? Joybell committed those to memory.

The testing took most of the afternoon. Orryk, Imaktis, and Fiona passed and got library cards that would allow them to return whenever they wanted to. Mo alas did not.

Meanwhile, at Black Irnod’s, Joybell went to the reception desk inside the front door and rang the bell. When Black Irnod came out, she pulled out the jar of Gribbly Monster Bits she’d collected at Harl’s house in Kalmarn before the monster’s remains disappeared into a mist.

Joybell: Hi. We met last night -- you gave me the orc children that the Masks brought to your assistant, Tarly. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about them. I don’t have a corpse, but I have these pieces of a monster that had tentacles and a nasty beak. It was with some cultists who worship (or something) the Hunger Between Worlds.

Black Irnod told her that he’d heard of the monster and that it’s called a Starspawn Mangler. Which is probably a better name than Gribbly Monster. He said he’d never gotten a chance to look at one.

Once he accepted her payment, Joybell asked him questions about the House of Masks and how they operate. As we had gotten from the drunk in the bar the day before -- hiring them is just a matter of going to their “storefront” and placing an order. They usually get paid some money up front and more when the job is finished. Tarly, the assistant who ordered the Orcphans, had clearly paid before any of the children were taken into the building, because the Masks left without requiring any further payment.

When asked why Tarly wanted them, Irnod said that he assumed Tarly thought he would learn something by vivisecting them. He had no idea how much Tarly paid for them. When asked why people might want children he said that people might need children for a ritual element, perhaps. Or they might have them kidnapped for ransom. There are also elements here who keep slaves where it is not a matter of paying off a debt. Genies might pay to get kids. The Dao in particular might be interested in children of more subterranean races to work in their mines.

Then they had one of the most important conversations of Joybell’s life:

Black Irnod: Why are you asking about them?
Taman: Because we want to kill them.
Black Irnod: That’s refreshingly honest.
Joybell: They destroyed my village.
Black Irnod: You can claim vendetta.
Joybell: I can?!?! Really?

He reiterated the advice we’d gotten before about not letting them surround you. At this Joybell remembered Barnett’s description of being in a “swarm of Goliaths”. He said to make sure we have spellcasters.

He also told us that they will react differently to psychic and necrotic damage than we might be expecting, but not to be discouraged by it, because that is the key to dealing with them.

We then thanked him and left.

Back at the library, having failed the test to get in, Mo walked out the door and around the block, casting invisibility on himself when out of sight of the library. He walked back to the library and entered. As soon as he walked in the door, his clothing and gear all became visible again, though Mo himself remained invisible.

Mo: Well, this is suboptimal.

Then he turned around and left without missing a beat, going back to the Flaming Quill to play some music to make a bit of money. He met up with Joybell and Taman relaxing there.

Fiona, Imaktis, and Orryk got a bit of an introduction to Thani-Breel - just enough to learn that it’s as big as the Demasthy, but the layout is a bit different. Thani-Breel will let them bring in a guest when they return.

Then they joined up with the others at the Flaming Quill and we shared information about what we’d learned. Including that Joybell had an actual legit vendetta against the Masks and we could kill them. We began to start making plans to do so. Including sorting out who had what spells that would be useful. Imaktis had Toll The Dead, which does necrotic damage. Mo had Vicious Mockery, which does psychic damage. Both cantrips they could cast all day. Joybell had Wrathful Smite, which does psychic damage, but she could only cast that four times.

We decided to have Orryk go in and talk to the Masks to see if he could learn anything. And to give Taman an opportunity to try and get into the building invisibly. He wasn’t going to lie and pretend that he was ordering a bunch of kids, because he isn’t a good liar. Instead, the plan was for him to talk to them truthfully and give Taman a chance to get inside. Taman used his potion of invisibility and had the Cape of the Mountebank, so he could dimension door out of the building if he got into a tight spot. If it got really bad, the plan was for him to grab Orryk before bamfing out, if possible, otherwise he was to go and leave Orryk to get out on his own.

The rest of the party was in the alleys on either side of the building, out of sight.

Orryk went into the House of Masks, holding the door open for an extra moment to let Taman enter. There were two Masks inside, one standing about 10 feet from a desk with two chairs and the other near a closed inner door that lead to the rest of the building. They turned to look at Orryk in unison.

Orryk: Do you deal in information? I’m looking for items that control elementals.
Masks (in unison): That is not something we do.

While they were talking, Taman sneaked over to the desk to see if there were any papers on top of it, but there was nothing especially interesting to him. The interior door was the only way out of the room other than the main entrance, and that door was closed with a Mask standing about five feet in front of it.

Orryk: If I find information about the location of something of interest to me, do you do acquisitions? I won’t be able to acquire the items myself if they are heavily defended.
Masks (in unison): You want burglars. We do acquisitions, but not of that nature. We do wetwork.

Taman snuck around to the side of the room near the interior door, hoping to be able to pass through if one of them opened it. One of the Masks turned to look directly at Taman. In response the other moved to immediately in front of the door and began looking around.

(Note: So the one sensed Taman (probably heard him) and the other knew he’d picked something up, but didn’t know what. Which means that they share thoughts but not senses.)

Orryk: That’s unfortunate. Can you recommend anyone?
Masks (in unison): We cannot help you.

Orryk, having taken the conversation as far as he could, started walking toward the door. After he left, the Mask that had sensed Taman looked at him and they said, in unison: It’s time for you to go

Taman went.

We all went back to the Flaming Quill, keeping an eye out for anyone to be following us. Which no one was.

Taman decided to go hide on a roof across the street from the House of Masks to keep an eye on things and see if he could learn anything. In preparation for that, Orryk gave him the party's Gloves of Climbing and Swimming. We rested for an hour at the Flaming Quill, during which time Taman attuned with the gloves.

Orryk also reminded us that we had a Potion of Clairvoyance, so we could get a peek inside the House beyond that closed door before we went in.

While we were resting and talking, we decided to see if the Cracked Shield Orcs wanted to help us take on the Masks. We also decided that we were going to move first thing in the morning. An open and legitimate vendetta doesn’t need to be pursued under cover of night.

While Taman was heading off to watch the House of Masks for a while, the rest of us went to talk to the Cracked Shield. On the way, we agreed that Mo would do most of the talking because he’s the most persuasive of us.

When we got to the door, Mo asked the door guard (a different half-orc than earlier in the day) if we could speak to Rask. The door guard went to get him.

When Rask appeared, Joybell jumped in before Mo could talk.

Joybell: Before you get started, I want to say first that I found out that I have an actual legitimate vendetta against the Masks so we’re planning on going and busting them up some and you know killing them and the children may have a vendetta too and maybe you want to help and I’m gonna let Mo talk now.
Mo: So...what are you doing tomorrow morning?

Rask asked if we were sure we had the right kind of magic. We assured him that three members of our group would be able to cast the right kinds of magic.

At that, Rask said that some members of the Cracked Shield had a vendetta against the Masks. Some of their orcs would meet us at an inn between their place and the House of Masks at first light.

On the way back to the Flaming Quill, we went to Turalee, the herbalist in Bloom Cliffs that had been recommended to Mo by the priest of the Purveyors and Wrights

Mo: I’ve seen some poisons that do damage that’s necrotic in nature. I was wondering if you have anything like that.
Joybell, whispering: Nice! Good thinking.
Turalee: I don’t have anything like that, though there are poisons that do it.

She also didn’t have, or wouldn’t admit to having, poisons that did paralysis or that made people unconscious.

Fiona and Mo bought potions of healing and we returned to the Flaming Quill to wait for Taman to show up.

Taman stayed on the roof for a couple of hours and, seeing nothing of interest, returned to the Quill. Once he was back with the rest of us, Joybell gave him and Orryk each one of the potions of healing she made.


21 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 22)

Mask-killing time!!

Mo and Joybell were so excited!!

We met up with six orcs of the Cracked Shields at their chosen place and discussed tactics. The tactical decisions we made in advance were that we wanted to focus fire on one at a time because reducing their numbers would be important. Orryk pointed out that we don’t know how their “moving in unison” works, so if one seemed to react or move little bit, even a split second, before the others we wanted to focus on that one because that might be a coordinator or hub of the collective.

While we were at the bar, Orryk quaffed the Potion of Clairvoyance, putting the sensor just on the other side of the door from the House of Masks front room into the unknown rear of the establishment. He could see what looked like a storage room with shelves of rations and a cabinet with doors. Outside the room was what looked like a large open area and a small cart, possibly the one we’d seen them transport the Orcphans in, parked inside the building.

As he watched through the clairvoyance, Orryk could see Masks walking around and doing things - getting rations off the shelf, moving things around. He got the impression that maybe there were four of them inside. But he wasn’t at all sure.

At the building, we decided to split our forces, so we wouldn’t get bottled up trying to get through the door from the front room into the back. Mo, Joybell and four of the Cracked Shield went to the back door, breaking some boards out of the fence as needed to get through. Fiona, Orryk, Taman, Imaktis and two orcs went to the front door.

When we were all in place, Joybell yelled, “Vendetta for the Wold!! ” at the top of her lungs, then kicked in the back door.

When he heard the yell, Taman opened the front door. There were 3 Masks in the front room. Taman, throwing caution to the wind, ran into the room and held his attack until one of the party was engaged with a Mask.

In the back of the building, Mo cast vicious mockery on the nearer of the 2 Masks (running total: 5 Masks) in the large back room. The information we’d gotten about psychic damage was clearly correct, because it got a derpy look on its face and Mo thought he could see a wisp of smoke coming out of an ear. It also was stunned and unable to do anything.

Awesome!!

Joybell moved in and got a nice big crit on one, kneecapping the goliath-sized humanoid that towered over her.

Unfortunately, then she found herself surrounded by both of the ones in the back, though one of them missed with both of its attacks and the one that had been mocked just stood there, smoking a little, coming to after a few seconds (at the end of its turn).

Taman was in a much worse position, surrounded by all three of the ones up front. The first one attacked twice. Taman used all of his dodging ability and his luck to try and avoid the damage. The second one, hitting in unison on the same places, dropped him. The third nudged him with a boot, shrugged, then turned to look at the door.

Orryk went in, acrobatically tumbling over the desk and beat on one of them, landing a stunning strike that immobilized it. Sweet!! Imaktis followed that up with some healing words for Taman, then cast toll the dead on another one. Toll the dead had a similar effect to Mo’s vicious mockery -- leaving the Mask stunned for a time.

Taman, healed and conscious again, took his held attack from the ground and missed.

Then the Cracked Shield Orcs went in -- four in the back and two in the front, all raging in a mighty berserker fury. In the front, one jumped nimbly on the table in the front room, hitting high. The other one also got a good hit after going around the table.

In the back the four orcs moved in on the stunned Mask and pounded on it with two crits and another regular hit, badly injuring that one.

In front, Fiona dropped a fireball into the front room (from well outside the door of the building), elegantly sculpting the flames to avoid the party members and the orcs but doing a lot of damage to the Masks, none of which saved. The one Orryk stunned fell, smoldering, to the ground with smoke coming out of his ears..

Taman finally got to stand up, disengage from the combat, and move out of the scrum so he could take a healing potion.

In the back, Mo viciously mocked the same Mask again, stunning it and leaving it vulnerable to the orcs’ pummeling. Then he moved inside the building and found a good spot behind his “new orc best friend”.

Joybell cast wrathful smite, which would do one of the right kinds of damage on a hit, only she missed with both of her attacks. Fortunately, the Mask in front of her missed with both of its attacks as well.

In front, Imaktis used a shield spell to hold off an attack but took a crit from another one.

Another Mask appeared at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor, but wasn’t able to get into combat. (Running total: 6 Masks)

With one down in the front room, Orryk moved to a second one, but missed with all of his attacks, which totally sucked. (The Masks were hard to hit. And had regeneration and some vicious advanced pack tactics. Nasty.)

Imaktis cast toll the dead on the one that Orryk had attacked and missed, stunning it, though he noticed that the actual damage wasn’t as much as he would have expected.

The orcs in the front room attacked the one Imaktis had stunned  -- one got a crit and the other got in a really good hit. In the back, there were three hits from the four orcs, including a crit that did maximum damage, dropping one of the Masks (though it hadn’t taken any psychic or necrotic damage this round). It was a good round for the Cracked Shield.

Fiona, still outside the building, fired a Melf’s Acid Arrow at one of the Masks, but the arrow missed.

Taman snuck in on one that was already engaged with other party members and got in a good hit, but it didn’t fall. It was wobbling, but stayed up.

Mo viciously mocked the one that had dropped in the back, to prevent it from regenerating this turn.

Joybell, with the wrathful smite still going, missed with her first swing but hit with the second. The psychic damage stunned the Mask and the wrath of her smiting left it afraid of her.

Then the Masks got their turn. In the back room, one died, and the one in front of Joybell was too stunned to attack. The Mask at the bottom of the stairs charged at the orcs, hitting one with a big swing. We could also see another take its place at the bottom of the stairs (running total: 7 Masks).

In the front room, one was stunned and unable to attack. It shook that off at the end of the round. The other one regenerated, and attacked Orryk twice for a lot of damage, but he was still standing.

Orryk then swung back at it and got a stunning strike in on it with his first attack. Then he focused on attacking that one while it was stunned. After that, he moved through the door toward the back room, figuring that the orcs and the rest of the party could handle the situation in the front room.

Imaktis cast toll the dead on the other one (the one Taman had left badly hurt and which had not regenerated) and it fell over twitching briefly before finally subsiding.

The two Cracked Shield orcs in the front room attacked the one that Orryk stunned, one of them moving around the Mask so that both of them could attack and take advantage of it being stunned. Despite both of them hitting (one with a crit) they didn’t actually manage to drop it.

The four orcs in the back focused their attack on the one which had just charged into the fray (#6), which was otherwise unhurt. Two of them missed but two hit.

Fiona, still outside, cast magic missile on the one that Orryk stunned, but it still didn’t drop. Then Taman moved to it and got a lucky crit on a sneak attack. It dropped, but was going to regenerate.

Mo, realizing that while he could stun one with his vicious mockery, it would recover immediately after on their turn, held his spell until after the end of their turn.

Joybell seeing that she had two of them on her, maintained concentration on the wrathful smite (so that the fearful one would be at disadvantage attacking), but missed with both of her swings.

On the Masks’ turn, one of the two in the front room died. The one that was just dropped by Taman’s sneak attack regenerated, but was still prone and stunned (by Orryk’s stunning strike) and neither attacked nor stood up.

The one in the back that the Cracked Shield were focusing on moved away from them, drawing three opportunity attacks from them, to Joybell. Unfortunately, only one of those attacks hit. The one that had just gotten to the base of the stairs the previous round also moved up on Joybell. Then that pack of three attacked her, moving in unison and hitting her over and over in the same place -- two of them each did one hit but the third, the fearful one, hit her twice (despite the disadvantage) and Joybell got dropped by the swarm of goliaths.

Another Mask appeared at the bottom of the stairs (final total: 8 Masks).

Orryk came through the storeroom into the back room and threw one of the beads from the Necklace of Fireballs so that it caught two of the ones that had dropped Joybell and the new one at the bottom of the stairs. It was a big fireball (30 points of damage) and dropped the one that Joybell had smote. The other two were able to dodge out of the way, but still took damage.

Imaktis cast toll the dead on the Mask in the front room that had regenerated the previous turn, then he went through the door into the storeroom heading to the back.

Mo viciously mocked the one on Joybell that hadn’t been involved in the fireball, using his held action.

The orcs in the front room finished off the one remaining Mask up there -- one of them critting it while it was prone and stunned. The other hit it in his rage as he went by, then both of them headed into the back of the building, the front having been cleared.

The orcs in the back focused their attacks on the one Mo stunned with his vicious mockery, but only one hit.

Fiona entered the building!

Taman, still injured, found a position behind the orcs and threw a dagger at one of the ones that had been in the fireball, but it went wide.

Mo healed Joybell then mocked the one that had been dropped by the fireball so it would stay dead. Joybell, really, really angry now, stood up, cast wrathful smite again, and hit the one in the pack on her that wasn’t stunned. Which left all of the three surrounding her stunned and unable to attack on their turn. (Which was very good because she was still badly hurt.)

On their turn, one of the Masks, the last one to come down the stairs, healed some of the damage it had taken from the fireball and moved up and attacked one of the Cracked Shield, but missed.

Thank goodness, because the Cracked Shield Orcs were amazing and made this whole vendetta-raid on the House of Masks possible.

Two of the Masks died (the last one in the front room and one on Joybell) and two of them that had been stunned recovered, but couldn’t attack. At this point only three remained (of eight). Of the three one looked about half gone, one looked lightly singed by the fireball and one was not badly hurt.

Orryk went to attack the more badly hurt of the remaining three -- only one of his hits got through but he was able to get a stunning strike with that hit, disabling it for the round. Imaktis then moved into the room and tolled the dead on the same one, leaving it even more damaged, thoroughly stunned, and with its regeneration disabled for the round.

Then the Cracked Shields went -- the two that had been in the front room came into a situation where there was no room for them to get into combat, so they ended their rage and moped off to the side. Two of the other four hit hit on the stunned one, but two missed. That Mask was looking badly hurt, but not at death’s door.

Fiona did a double move to get to where she could cast spells into the back room.

Taman attacked the slightly singed looking one, but missed. Mo decided that doing a lot of damage to both would be better than stunning one, so he blew his flute and cast shatter (at level 3) on the two least damaged looking ones. Then he inspired Joybell.

Joybell hit the most damaged looking one (the one that Orryk stunned and the orcs were focusing on), dropping it (it had taken a toll the dead and would not be regenerating), then cast wrathful smite and hit the other one she could reach (the least damaged of the ones remaining), stunning it with her wrath.

On the Masks’ turn one died, one was stunned, and one regenerated. The one who regenerated turned and attacked Taman, missing once. The second swing would have hit except Mo said some cutting words to him and his swing faltered and ultimately missed.

Out of Ki points, Orryk threw some darts at the one Joybell stunned with her wrathful smite, hitting with both, then he moved out of melee.

Imaktis moved into the room and cast toll the dead on the one that had regenerated, stunning it and leaving it vulnerable. Immediately, two of the orcs attacked it, one of them hitting it. The other two attacked the one that Joybell stunned and one of them got a hit.

Joybell, seeing that the two orcs who had been in the front room were uncertain how to help, asked them to bash up the teleportation circle we’d seen when we entered the back room. They got to work on that.

Fiona cast a very powerful fireball to get the two standing Masks -- both of them were stunned and failed their saves, taking 38 points of damage. One of them fell, smoldering, and would die on their turn.

The other remained standing and Taman took a swing at it, doing 21 points of damage. Despite looking like it was about to fall over, it stayed up. Then Mo used two charges off his Wand of Magic Missiles and dropped it.

Both of them died a few seconds later (on their turn).

We all took a deep breath and Mo took the mask off one of their faces. Underneath was a Goliath-sized human, but one with acromegaly (note: think Andre the Giant). Looking at all of them, we could see that the faces were not identical.


----------



## prabe (Oct 4, 2020)

Session 13: The Aftermath and The Primal Atoll


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


21 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 22) (immediately after the previous)

After the combat with the Masks, we spent some time in the House of Masks.

Immediately after Mo took the masks of a couple of the Masks, Joybell closed and locked the front and back doors. Orryk collected vials of blood from five different Masks (in case we need to get into Carveen’s library at some point).

Mo argued strongly for burning the place down to send a message -- there would be something very satisfying if their house was burned as they had burned so many villages. And it would have delayed their return to Pelsoreen. He described in glorious detail how the masonry walls of the building would work as a chimney to let the flames leap through the house, without spreading to neighboring structures.

Mo gave Taman some inspiration for his investigation of the house. Joybell searched the front room with the desk and found nothing there. There were no papers on or in the desk. No papers anywhere.

How do they keep track of what has been ordered and who has ordered it without any records?

In the cabinets in the storeroom between the front room and the large back room where half the fighting took place, we found some treasure. While we were doing the searching, Fiona cast detect magic and swept the whole place. We found:

2 small boxes of jade animals (250gp each)
3 gold bracelets (250gp each)
1 magical shortsword
1 magical pair of bracers
1 magical pair of boots
1 magical staff

To our surprise the masks themselves were not magical. Neither were the Masks (the people).

Despite the masks not being magical, Joybell wrapped one carefully in a cloth without touching it and asked Orryk to put it in the bag of holding. WIthout touching it.

On the shelves in the storeroom (and in the back room) there were some bags of rations. Also money. To wit:

1000 cp
4000 sp
1700 gp
100 pp

We put one of the bodies in the cart along with the bags of rations (for the Cracked Shield) and looked around upstairs.

Upstairs was a barracks -- ten bunks, a washroom and a toilet. The whole thing was very spartan -- there was food (basically grains for making gruel), water, stark beds, etc. The Masks were not concerned about comfort.

The fact that there were ten beds and we’d only killed 8 Masks had us concerned until Taman confirmed that two of them hadn’t been slept in for a while.

We also found 8 longbows and 160 arrows upstairs.

We also looked around for any iconography or symbols or anything written at all and found nothing. There may have been some in the nook with the teleportation circle, but the Cracked Shield orcs who’d gone to work on that area did a Very Thorough Job and destroyed everything they saw that had a symbol on it.

As we were going through all of this, there was first a knock, and then a pounding, on the front door.

Mo answered, with Joybell and Taman in the room with him. Joybell stayed quiet, just there in case the person who had the actual vendetta was needed for this conversation, but happy to let Mo handle it.

Guys at door: Corbus & Coldin, let us in!!

Mo. playing the role of “The only sober guy at the frat party”, opened the door to see two men dressed as guards.

C&C Guards: You’re not who we were expecting.
Mo: Who were you expecting?
C&C Guards: Big folks in masks.
Mo: They don’t live here anymore.
C&C Guards: We heard there was fighting going on here.
Imaktis, listening from the back room: There was!

Joybell was biting her lip to stop herself from explaining that we’d been pursuing a vendetta. But she kept quiet and let Mo do the talking.

The C&C Guards made it clear that they were more concerned with protecting the building itself than with the Masks or their possessions.

Mo: Silently dies inside.
C&C Guards: Some people might be thinking about burning the building after looting it.
Mo: People do the wildest things. Incidentally, what about imploding it?
C&C Guards: That would be willful destruction of property.

As it turned out, the Masks didn’t own the property -- they had a mortgage or a lease or something.

Joybell: Can we write on the walls?
C&C Guards: You can redecorate as you see fit.

After a bit more conversation, the Guards left.

Mo, closing the door: Well, that was the fuzz. That went well.

Joybell looked around for ink or paint or anything to write on the walls with, but couldn’t find ANYTHING. So Mo used the Flute of Scribing to write:

CHILD SALES CANCELED. ALL INVOLVED DEAD. USE PSYCHIC OR NECROTIC DAMAGE. THANKS CRACKED SHIELD.

Then we hitched up their horse and took the cart to the back door of Black Irnod’s. After a few minutes of knocking, Black Irnod appeared. Joybell explained that we had a Mask body and wanted to know what made it a Mask instead of just a human, which is what it appears to be. We gave him the body in exchange for a report after he did his dissection and autopsy.

When Irnod agreed, Joybell picked up the body of the Mask (slinging it across her shoulders with hands and feet dragging on the ground) and said, “Where do you want him?”

Irnod led her into a very cold room with small doors or hatches all over the walls. He opened one high on a wall, pulling a long shelf out of the cupboard. He then looked at Joybell, closed that one, and opened one at floor level. Joybell dumped the Mask onto the shelf.

Joybell: Thanks so much. When you have information, you can get in touch with us at the Flaming Quill.

As we left Black Irnod’s the Cracked Shield Orcs, awesome to a one, went back to their compound with the horse-and-cart and the food and such of the armor as was not damaged beyond usefulness.

We went back to the Flaming Quill, and headed toward our room, asking Jorly to please bring us Second Breakfast, or Elevenses, or whatever morning meal would be appropriate.

While we waited, and then while we ate, Fiona identified the items that we found in the cabinet at the House of Masks.

1 Short Sword of Warning (Joybell)
1 Pair Bracers of Archery (Orryk)
1 Pair Boots of the Winterlands (Taman)
1 Staff of the Python (bag of holding to sell or trade or whatever).

After Fiona identified the Boots of the Winterlands, Imaktis speculated that Irnod might be working with the Masks -- drawing a connection between the cold room (the morgue) at Irnod’s and the Boots of the Winterlands. Also on the grounds of general suspicion of someone who takes in bodies.

As it was still fairly early in the morning (we’d attacked the House of Masks just after first light), we discussed what to do with the rest of the day. Fiona, Imaktis, Orryk and Mo (as their guest) planned to go to Thani-Breel library to do their research.

There was some discussion of Joybell and Taman heading out to the druidic circle she’d heard about, but that idea was rejected. Orryk and the others wanted to go to the druid circle as well. So Joybell and Taman planned to go to the Cracked Shield -- Joybell felt very strongly that they’d earned a share of the treasure. We could not have done it without them and they deserved to reap the reward for their labors as well. No one else agreed with her about that, so she planned to give them her share of the coinage (which came to 166 cp, 666 sp, 283 gp, and 16 pp).

Mo: Now that we’ve attacked a bunch of assassins with a hive mind, maybe we shouldn’t let party members get too far.

We also agreed that maybe we shouldn’t talk too much about having killed the Masks. We’d let the Cracked Shield decide if they wanted to talk about it, but we weren’t going to do so.

At the entrance to Thani-Breel, on discovering that in addition to passing the entrance exam, there was a charge of 100gp per day to research there, Imaktis decided not to go into the library and to instead spend the day with Joybell and Taman.

Before Orryk, Fiona and Mo went into the library, Imaktis asked them to look for publications by Black Irnod, to get a sense if he’s a legitimate researcher or not.

Team Library (Fiona, Orryk and Mo) had a very productive day.

With regard to Imaktis’ question about Black Irnod, the library did have some works that Irnod had written on biology. And some other works that cited his research. He appeared to be part of an intellectual community doing a scientific classification of beasts and living things (a la Linnaeus, only in a world where the biology is complicated by magic and extra-planar entities and so on).

Orryk was looking for information about places with portals to the various planes, information about infusing elemental energy into items. Mo was looking for information about the genies and their relationship with and history in Pelsoreen. Also the best way to kill them. Fiona was doing general research of the “find a book and read it” variety.

Orryk learned that there aren’t any permanent portals around Pelsoreen. There are intermittent ones -- when the river floods, when one of the volcanic mountains (or volcanic islands) to the east or south erupts, or when there’s a large and powerful tropical storm there will be portals in those places. Extreme events bring about temporary portals.

He did find information about some permanent portals to the Plane of Earth in the Dunnimar Mountains (the older, more Appalachian-like mountains to the west of Pelsoreen, known informally as the Green Quilt). He even found some hints to the location of one of those -- not an x-marks the spot treasure map, but information that can be pursued further to get more detail.

When Orryk looked into infusing elemental magic into spells and items, he was told about another small library in town -- The Amber Flame. The price for entry there is a magical item. And reminded of The Steel Crucible, which we’d heard about before, where the price for entry is making a magical item (though they don’t want the item itself). It seems like the Crucible, which has information about making magical items, might be the more immediate interest.

Looking into Mo’s questions about the Genies, they learned that Genies are Elementals, but they have more in common with each other, culturally, than they do with other elementals from their own planes. All have slaves, all have solid egos that they love to massage -- the Genie Nobles are powerful creatures that can re-write reality with their Wish spells. The Genies may have originally come through those intermittent portals to the Elemental Planes, but they have been known to be here since Pelsoreen was founded. They only started dominating the city’s culture after the Severance, however, and that’s when slaving became a strong part of the city’s economy.

The Genies in Pelsoreen are not interested in governance or ruling the city. There aren’t many of them -- not much more than a dozen at any given time. And those are generally not the Genie Nobles -- they’re just ordinary Genies.

There are four kinds of Genies -- Marids, from the plane of water, Djinni from the plane of air, Dao from the plane of earth, and Efreeti from the plane of fire. Pelsoreen mostly has Marids and Efreeti -- because of the proximity of the volcanic islands and the sea. The Dao are the biggest slavers -- they need a lot of workers in their mines in the Great Dismal Delve.

There are no genie-specific vulnerabilities. Each kind has immunities or resistances that are appropriate to their elements -- Dao are immune to the petrified condition. Djinn are immune to lightning and thunder damage, Efreeti are immune to fire damage, Marids are resistant to acid, cold and lightning damage. None are resistant or immune to poison.

Fiona, on entering the library, found a book and started pursuing a research chain that led her to learning about High Ritual Magic. At its most basic, this is conducting hours-long, or longer, rituals as a way of casting spells that otherwise would not be able to be cast as a ritual. For example, instead of casting teleportation circle in the same location every day for a year to make a permanent circle, one could perform a high ritual that lasts 8 hours to make one. There are ritual materials and high costs involved, in addition to the time. (Fiona remembered that Black Irnod told Joybell that people might order children from the Masks to use them in ritual magic. Presumably by sacrificing them.)

The librarians told Fiona about another small library -- The Quiet Room, which focuses on this high ritual magic and wants 300gp a day as an entry fee.

She also learned about a library called Urlott’s that wants a service as an entry fee. And she learned that Carveen’s (the one that wants a unique vial of blood) focuses on information regarding summonings - so that one may not be of much interest to us.

While Team Library did their research, Joybell, Taman and Imaktis went to the Cracked Shield. When we knocked at the door, they let us through the waiting room and into their compound. Inside the compound, we could see several houses and children, including the Orcphans, playing. Their play consisted of hitting each other with sticks and throwing rocks, at least in part, but they weren’t being drilled or trained in war -- they were just running and playing in a big, fenced yard.

Joybell gave Rask her share of the treasure, because they earned it and deserved it. He was somewhat overwhelmed.

Joybell: It’ll help y’all support the children. Or relocate to the Jagged Swords’ territory if you decide you want to leave Pelsoreen and do that. Or just to give y’all a bit of extra if you need it.

Joybell didn’t ask if she could be a Cracked Shield, please. She wanted to. But she didn’t.

They then left the orcs and went to find a bar in Old Lament, near the House of Masks, just to have a beer and listen to see if there was any buzz about the Masks being wiped out. As we walked into a bar frequented, we believed, by employees of the city, Taman noticed that there was a moment of quiet as we walked in, then a buzz of conversation. He got an “Oh, naughty word, it’s Those Guys” vibe from it.

Joybell ordered beer for all of us and we took a table. We drank in the weird quiet, waiting for normal bar-buzz to resume.

Over in a far corner, we heard a game of rock-paper-scissors. Then a nebbishy guy, who looked like one of the City’s administrative workers, a paper-pusher of some sort, walked timidly up to us, occasionally shoved in the back by his peers to keep him moving.

Nebbish: So...you killed the Masks?
Joybell: Yes, with some friends and some of the Cracked Shie...Oops, I wasn’t supposed to say that.
Nebbish: Ummm...Wow.
Joybell: The trick is necrotic and psychic damage. Tell everyone. Got it?
Nebbish: Ummm...yes?
Joybell: Necrotic and psychic.

The nebbish then walked away and went back to his table. Imaktis followed him back.

Imaktis: How do you feel about us doing this? Is this a big deal for the town?
Nebbish: Most of the people who’ve seen them fighting think they’re really tough and didn’t think they could be defeated.
Imaktis: You can stand up to them. Anyone can. You just need to know the trick.
Taman, from our table: Don’t let them surround you.
Joybell: Nobody’s mad?
Nebbish: Someone’s going to have a vendetta if you kill enough people and leave survivors.

Joybell wasn’t sure if he was talking about her having a vendetta against the Masks or about some surviving Masks having a vendetta against the party. It was a bit unsettling.

Imaktis came back to the table and we continued to drink our beers. Eventually the bar-buzz began to build back up again and we could hear some people talking about “Psychotic damage” and “necromantic something” and “what’s that?”.

Joybell sighed and we headed back to the Flaming Quill and commenced to drinking with more intent. Imaktis cast lesser restoration on Taman so he’d be able to drink more and avoid alcohol poisoning. Eventually Team Library joined us there.

Over dinner we discussed which of the smaller libraries might be useful to get someone into. The Quiet Room (high ritual magic) could be interesting, but is expensive enough that we probably only want to get one person in. Joybell pointed out that she can make healing potions and those are magical, so she might be able to get into the Steel Crucible. We’d have to ask to know if that would count for them.

After dinner, Black Irnod showed up and told us that the body we’d taken him was thoroughly disposed of and had been thoroughly examined.

The body was of a human female (we’d noticed absolutely no secondary sexual characteristics on any of the Masks) with gigantism. Despite the oversized body mass, the individual had never gone through puberty. He detected signs that there had been extensive exposure to necromantic magic along with scarring on the bodies. He said it wasn’t exactly this, but it was not unlike someone had tried to make a flesh golem out of a living child.

He found some tumors in the brain that were in similar locations to where structures exist in telepathic species. The species with those telepathic brain structures were those with short-range telepathy -- mental powers that didn’t extend much beyond a mile, perhaps. From that he figured that it was unlikely that Masks elsewhere on the continent would know us or our faces.

We asked who could do this sort of thing? Would it take a necromancer or some other sort of spell-caster?

He said it would definitely need magic, but he was not aware of a necromantic spell or process that would do that specific thing. He thought that high ritual magic might possibly be involved. Otherwise it was some sort of weird magical effect outside the normally known magics.

He said he would write us letters of referral for two of the smaller libraries - The Quiet Room and Urlott’s, which specializes in literature about weird magic. We might be able to find information about the process to create the Masks in those libraries.

Remembering that Urlott’s wants a service as its entry fee, we asked what kinds of services they ask for. Irnod said that the services vary, but he’d never known them to ask for something beyond the capabilities of the person who seeks entry. He also said that one always has the option to decline to perform the service if it is not something that one wishes to do.

He said he would have letters recommending Fiona to the librarians ready for us in the morning.

He also said he was going to get the other bodies out of the House of Masks, in order to examine those as well. Joybell offered to help with that, since he didn’t have an assistant anymore, but he declined the offer. We asked that if he learned anything different from those, please let us know.

He agreed to that and then departed.

Eventually, we retired to our rooms. Fiona cast alarm on the room, but we also decided to keep watches overnight, just in case there was some sort of fallout from fighting the Masks. The first, second and third watches (Fiona, Joybell and Orryk, respectively) passed without incident. The fourth saw Mo and Imaktis standing watch.

Imaktis heard some unusual activity and voices from the tavern downstairs than we’d come to expect as usual. Mo heard nothing. So Imaktis headed down the stairs to see what was going on while Mo woke the rest of us up.

He caught sight of Jorly talking to a couple of well-dressed looking individuals -- two of them, a man and a woman, who looked very much alike. They were both larger than average humans, though not goliath sized, and a little thick of build. They had earthy brown skin and brick red hair. Both were dressed very expensively and well. Imaktis got the sense that they were potentially very dangerous individuals, but that they were not there to do violence at that time.

Imaktis listened to the conversation as best he could and heard them asking Jorly about six people who match our descriptions. Jorly said that we’d been eating breakfast at the inn and they could wait for us in the tavern. Jorly wasn’t exactly subservient to them, but he was clearly talking to someone several stations above him.

Imaktis passed all of this information on to Mo using message spells. Fortunately the two earth genasi were busy talking to Jorly and didn’t notice Imaktis on the stairs.

They were not expecting a giant turtle to sneak up on them.

Fiona: Few do.

We took the time to get dressed and armored up, then went down en masse (Scooby as well). In the tavern we went to them and asked if they were looking for us.

They introduced themselves as Ixal (the man) and Lixa (the woman). Ixal did most of the talking.

Ixal: We represent the Brass Giant. We would like to have you work for us.
Orryk: We weren’t looking for permanent employment.
Ixal: We would pay 50 gold pieces a day to each of you. Any items you found would be yours, but the Brass Giant would expect to be given all coins recovered.
Mo: That’s a terrible deal. Anyway, we’re not looking for a patron.
Ixal: Very well.
Joybell: If you have an individual job, we’d consider it.
Ixal: We’re looking for long-term loyalty.
Joybell: We don’t plan to be here long-term.
Imaktis: The Cracked Shield were great and very helpful in the fight. You might consider them.
Ixal: We will think about that.

Ixal and Lixa then left and we ordered breakfast.

After breakfast, Jorly came to us and told us that we couldn’t stay at the Flaming Quill any longer. The Brass Giant corporation is the Flaming Quill’s protector -- Jorly wasn’t in any trouble because we said no to the offer to work for them, but he would be in trouble if he continued to let us stay there.

Well, naughty word.

So we gathered up our things after breakfast and headed out. Our plan for the day was to go visit the druid circle on the island, stopping by Black Irnod’s to get the letters of recommendation. We also decided to take a detour by the Steel Crucible to see if making healing potions would be sufficient to get admission to the library.

Joybell to Black Irnod: Did you recover the other bodies?
Irnod: I got enough. There was one that was very well burnt.

(In the background Fiona and Orryk began discussing whose fireball had done that.)

Irnod: I didn’t do as thorough an autopsy on the others. I can tell you that two were female and the rest were male. They had the same combination of gigantism and prepubsecence as the first one I looked at.
Joybell: Can the process be undone? Can we save the children that this has been done to?
Irnod: This appears to be a one-way process.
Joybell: If you have further information for us, we won’t be at the Flaming Quill any longer.
Irnod: Ah. They came and talked to you?
Joybell: Yes. We said no. Can you recommend another inn, perhaps, in this neighborhood? One that’s not affiliated with the Brass Giant?
Irnod: I have heard good things about the Iron Steed.

He then gave us the letters of introduction to the Quiet Room and Urlott’s. As we walked away, Imaktis, concerned that Irnod was sending us into an ambush or some other setup, read the letters. They were standard-looking, boilerplate letters of introduction addressed to the librarians at the other libraries recommending that “a half-elf female named Fiona” be allowed to do research in their libraries. They were both signed and sealed under his name.

At the Steel Crucible, Joybell spent some time talking with the librarians and convinced them that she actually understood the process and the theory of making healing potions and did not merely follow instructions by rote. She was given a card that would allow her and one other admittance to the library.

Then we headed down to Waveside to look for Captain Doyard and the Elephant, the captain and ship recommended by the priest at the Order of Purveyors And Wrights when we first arrived in Pelsoreen. We found the slip where the Elephant would tie up, but the ship was not there, so we went to the office for the docks.

The clerk, a water genasi, said that Captain Doyard would be available the next day. We told him we wanted to get to the druid circle on the island. He said that it is called the Primal Atoll and that it's more than half a day’s sail away, so going there is not a day trip. When asked if they’re amenable to visitors, he said that they do get them from time to time.

Apparently part of the island is an active volcano. Which is cool.

We asked if he could recommend anyone as honest as Captain Doyard. He recommended Captain Whit of The Lilac a couple of slips down. He said he hadn’t seen The Lilac set sail yet today. (We got a reasonable sense that this guy was being straight with us and wasn’t sending us to some crooked friend of his or anything.)

Captain Whit agreed to take us to the Primal Atoll. It would be an overnight trip -- the crew and he would stay on the ship overnight. That arrangement had been okay with the druids in the past. Some of The Lilac’s crew were human, most were water or air genasi.

Joybell checked for the corporation logo on the ship -- C&C, which we thought would be fine.

Joybell wanted to take Scooby along, but the captain looked a bit non-plussed at that. And said that the charge for the trip would be 10gp per pair of legs. So Joybell had a little chat with Scooby and said she was going to temporarily dismiss him, but she’d bring him back as soon as possible. Then she scritched him behind the ears and sent him to wherever celestial wolf-mounts go when they’re not in the prime material.

Then we boarded the ship. Joybell found an out of the way place to sit on deck and watch. Taman sat up there with her. The crew strongly suggested that she remove her armor for her own safety. Joybell wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, so they agreed to tie a lifeline to her so if she went over she could be pulled back on board.

Joybell spent a lot of the trip trying to talk to the various flying fish and dolphins she could see as they went by. She got some hellos from various animals, but wasn’t able to have a good conversation.

After a few hours of sailing, the ship approached an island that sloped gradually up from the sea. After another little while, the ship pulled into a pier on the island. We could see a cloud of white smoke billowing from the far side of it. Lots of smoke.

Orryk and Taman both immediately thought that the druids’ village was burning. Joybell figured it was the volcano.

We followed the path from the pier inland. The path went gently up for about a mile before arriving at a small settlement, which was not on fire. This island, though a volcanic lava shield, had been here long enough that it was forested so the village was made of nicely chinked log huts, irregularly distributed.

In the middle of the village was a clear circle defined by four carved logs placed at the four cardinal directions. Each was carved in the shape of a stylized representation of one of the elements -- a flame in the south, a wave in the north, a cluster of crystals in the east, and a cloud in the west.

There were people about, fairly casually dressed. When they saw us, one, a female water genasi, stepped forward and introduced herself as Irlua.

Irlua: What can we do for you?
Joybell, after seeing if Mo wanted to talk: I grew up in the Wold and trained at the Basalt Henge. I just wanted to visit your circle. My friend, Orryk, is interested in all things elemental and it seems this is a place for him to learn.
Irlua: Here we are far more interested in keeping the balance between the planes stable.
Joybell: Is it unstable?
Irlua: The planes always want to move. We try to keep any one elemental plane from becoming dominant over the others.
Orryk: At the Basalt Henge, they’re trying to reduce the elemental influences in the area.
Irlua: We understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. Keeping Dao and Efreeti away from the city makes sense. We maintain balance.
Joybell: How?
Irlua: We keep track of how many portals there are and how...influential those portals are. How hard are the portals pulling our world in any direction. We’ve been maintaining a stable balance for about a century, but recently there has been a lot of pull from fire. Water is not as strong at the moment.
Mo: Do you do rituals to bring about balance?
Irlua: We sometimes set up temporary portals, to increase the pull from a plane. We occasionally use similar rituals as they perform at the Basalt Henge to weaken or destroy gates.
Joybell (or maybe Orryk): Do you have any idea why fire is getting stronger?
Irlua: We think that there’s a big volcano going to erupt, perhaps pretty far away. It might be under the ocean or on the continent.

Taman and Joybell went to meditate in the circle.

Orryk cast mold earth near the earth log on the east side of the circle. Unlike at the Basalt Henge, the spell worked like normal.

Mo: Are there any open portals on the island?
Irlua: Deep in the caldera of the volcano there is a portal to fire. Getting there is fraught.
Orryk: Do you have interactions with entities from other planes, like the Wind Dukes?
Irlua: Not the Wind Dukes. We have occasionally dealt with genies. Of course, every single genie is, in its own mind, the most important being in the Universe.

Irlua then mentioned that 100 years ago, water had gotten too strong and they’d had to bolster fire for a while to maintain the balance.

Joybell, distracted from her meditation: Are you interfering with someone’s plans with the work you do?
Irlua: Sometimes we are. They don’t always like us much.

Then Joybell, Taman and Orryk did all meditate in the circle.

To Joybell, it felt like a druidic circle much like the ones she’d known in the Wold and at the Henge. With, of course a more elemental feel to it.

Orryk, on the other hand, could feel the threads of the elements woven through, like an open weave. It had the sort of elasticity of cheese cloth -- stretchable and malleable.

After meditating for a while we had an early dinner and then asked if we could go to the volcano. Irlua said that they usually require visitors to walk to the volcano, but she was going to make an exception in our case.

Irlua: Today is beautiful. Tomorrow won’t be. And the view is worth it.

She cast transport via plants and took us to the top of the volcano looking over the caldera. It was just after dusk, so we could see the volcano at night.

Joybell asked Taman to hold onto her belt and leaned way over the edge to try and see the portal deep in the caldera, but couldn’t. She asked what it would look like and Orryk told her that a standing portal would look almost like a whirlpool with the lava moving and churning around it.

And there we ended -- shortly after dark with us on the edge of the caldera.


Treasure:

1 Short Sword of Warning (Joybell)
1 Pair Bracers of Archery (Orryk)
1 Pair Boots of the Winterlands (Taman)
1 Staff of the Python (bag of holding to sell or trade or whatever).

2 small boxes of jade animals (250gp each)
3 gold bracelets (250gp each)

1000 cp
4000 sp
1700 gp
100 pp

I don’t believe we’re planning on selling the jade animals or gold bracelets here in Pelsoreen, so I’m not including those in the coinage distribution -- those were put intact into the Bag of Holding.

The coinage divides up thus:

166 cp (with 4 left)
666 sp (with 4 left)
283 gp (with 2 left)
16 pp (with 4 left)

Note: We’ve paid for two more nights of rooms at the Flaming Quill since the last Party Kitty Update. So taking out 12 gp for lodging there and adding the leftovers from the coins as above, the party kitty currently has: 5 pp, 2gp, 10sp, and 12 cp.


----------



## prabe (Oct 10, 2020)

Session 14: Slave Eyes


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


22 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 23)

We spent the night back in the druid village -- Irlua transported us through the plants again. They had some huts available for pilgrims and visitors so we were able to be accomodated. Orryk asked if he could sleep in the circle. He spent some time meditating and then slept.

[Note: His dreams were discussed around the table, but the player said Orryk wouldn’t be sharing them, so they aren't included here.]

Joybell just enjoyed being in a druid place again.

Taman spoke with one of the druids about mixing a military combat style with a druidic style -- with a thought to opposing other planes, or protecting against incursion from them. He talked with someone and got some encouragement along that route.

Joybell asked if there were going to be any rituals, particularly the ones they’re using to balance fire and water right now, but they said there weren’t any at this time.


23 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 24)

In the morning, food and breakfast were provided for us, because we’re kindred spirits (at least some of us) with questions.

Joybell asked if there was anything we could do for them, but they said no. She was a bit disappointed.

So we got back on The Lilac and began our cruise back to Pelsoreen. The captain had been told about the oncoming storm by the druids, so he set sail and set course to stay ahead of it. When we were aboard Fiona and Taman noticed that there was a bit of a cold going around -- some of the crew were sick and snuffly. Orryk also noticed that two of the crew had pink irises, like the slaves have. They didn’t have them when we left Pelsoreen.

When this was pointed out to the rest of us, we went to find Captain Witt.

Mo: What’s going on with those people over there? (Pointing to the two people with pink eyes.)
Captain: I don’t have slaves -- the sea is too risky to force people to be sailors.
Mo: They were free when we left Pelsoreen.

We went and talked to the two guys, Gullin and Inder.

Mo: So...what’s up with your eyes?

They said that they’d been a little draggy and sick the day before but were fine today.

Fiona: Did you get visited by anyone?

They said that we were the only people on the boat other than the regular crew. The druids never came aboard.

Mo: Did you owe anybody money?

They said they don’t owe anyone -- they’re free and their families are as well.

Taman was certain they were being truthful -- but they’ll be treated like slaves as soon as they get back to Pelsoreen.

They had colds (like many in the crew) the day before.

Taman wondered if the pink eyes could be just a symptom of something...though they did look just like a slave’s pink irises. Fiona took ten minutes to perform the ritual to cast detect magic, but whatever the effect was, it was not magical. Talking to the ship’s doctor was not helpful either -- he was pretty much a sawbones (patching up injuries from falls and so on).

Joybell laid on hands to cure Gullin’s disease, just to see if it would work. She was slightly surprised to find that it did work. In a similar vein of experimentation, Imaktis used the lesser restoration bead (from the prayer necklace) on Inder -- that also worked.

The total crew of the ship was 12. Five of the others were sniffly and had those mild colds. The other five seemed unaffected.

Joybell went around and, with permission, cured the diseases of four of the five with the sniffles. The fifth one, Nicklin, she left sniffly -- with the idea of seeing if the sniffles did in fact lead to the pink eyes. Captain Witt said that Nicklin could stay on the ship, rather than going ashore into Pelsoreen as a potential slave. The next morning we could come and check on him.

For the rest of the sail, we talked about what else we want to accomplish in Pelsoreen -- we want to get Fiona in to do some research in the Quiet Room, Taman indicated a potential interest in going to Carveen’s to learn about summoning fey. Joybell and Orryk wanted to go to the Steel Crucible. And we may want to get into the Amber Flame if we have time.

If we had to leave in a hurry, we could skip some of those, but we definitely wanted to get into the Quiet Room and the Steel Crucible.

Joybell suggested to the others that she could summon Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl, Defender of Henge and Wold back as a mastiff or small pony or something. So we’d look less like our group, maybe. But Orryk (and the others) looked around at the group and said it really wouldn’t make much of a difference.

As for where we’d stay when we got back to the city, Joybell suggested that we could ask if we could stay with the Cracked Shield (she still wants to be an honorary member), but Imaktis emphatically rejected that idea.

As we approached the pier, Joybell started casting Find Steed, so that Scooby would be waiting on the pier for us when the ship tied up.

Taman volunteered to stay on the Lilac with the Captain and Nicklin, but the Captain didn’t want to have outsiders on the ship in port. However, he reaffirmed that he’d be able to find work for Nicklin to do on board.

As we pulled up at the pier, there were four guards waiting from us -- they were from C&C, the corporation that protected the House of Masks (or at least their building) and also the Lilac.

We started getting ready to disembark, while listening to the Captain’s conversation with the guards. The guards were checking to make sure of the “status” of the employees of the organizations they protect.

Joybell (to the others): Do they do this regularly?

But of course we didn’t know.

Captain Witt was once again very firm that he doesn’t own slaves and won’t force anyone to go to sea.

Watching, it was clear to Mo and others that the Captain was annoyed at the situation -- he had to answer the questions, because he has responsibilities to C&C.

Taman wondered if the guards seemed like they were bored doing a routine inquiry or if they were expecting stuff to go down. Watching them it was clear that this wasn’t routine -- though they weren’t prepared for battle or anything either.

Mo and Joybell wandered over to see what was going on…

Mo: How are things, Captain.
Captain: Fine. I can vouch for my crew.
Mo (to the guards): Is this a regular inquiry? Do you hassle all ships with passengers?
Guard (staring at Mo): We’re not hassling the passengers. We’re just talking to the Captain about his crew.
Guard: We’ve had incidents with slaves turning up in places they don’t belong and insisting that they’re not slaves.
Mo: What did you do with them?
Guard: Put them in the slave pens, of course.
Joybell: What happens if you find someone who looks like a slave and you can’t figure out who they’re slaves to?
Guard: That’s a question for someone further up the chain than me.
Joybell: I...forgot something downstairs!!

Then she scampered below and cured Nicklin, rather than waiting until tomorrow to see if his eyes turned pink.

Another lie from Joybell.

Black Irnod had recommended an inn in Thani’s Truth called the Iron Steed, so we headed there directly we got off the boat. Joybell once again happily riding Scooby.

Taman, Orryk, Imaktis, and Fiona noticed, as we were proceeding, that we were being shadowed by two pairs of operatives (two separate pairs). It was clear to Taman that they were so busy trying to hide from each other that they were not doing so well as all that at hiding from us. They weren’t doing anything to interfere with us, just shadowing us.

Orryk: If a group of people came into our town and killed an organization of tough hired assassins, I’d probably want to keep an eye on them for our own safety.

Taman also noticed that there were a lot more guards in the street than usual and pointed that out to the rest of us.

Joybell was concerned about the people suddenly showing up as slaves and if things were going to be horribly unfair and unjust for them, but we weren’t sure what or how to deal with it.

At the Iron Steed (protected by Dallington’s), we spoke with the innkeeper, a tiefling woman with violet skin and yellow hair and pronghorn horns named Borma. She was dressed pretty conservatively. The room rates at the Iron Steed are the same as the Flaming Quill, 6gp per night. We paid for the first night out of the party kitty.

They had a tavern with food. Orryk pulled a bag of rations out of the bag of holding. Imaktis logged everything he ate. Taman and Mo ate normally. Joybell ate and drank normally -- but something different from what the others ate.

Mo looked around the room to see if anyone was sniffling or showing signs of a cold in the room. He didn’t see anyone. Taman was watching for it, a bit, while we were walking -- though he was mostly paying attention to our tails -- but he did get the sense that there was a mild cold going around. And new since we left early the day before.

The tails didn’t follow us inside - which suggested to us that neither of the groups were from Dallington’s.

Up in our room, we planned what we wanted to do the next day. One part of it was going to be library research in the morning -- Fiona was going to the Quiet Room and Joybell and Orryk to the Steel Crucible. While the research was going on, Mo, Imaktis and Taman would be doing some poking around in the city -- Team Gettin’ in Trouble.

Fiona set an alarm spell and Joybell had her sword of warning. And the night passed without incident.


24 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 25)

Come the morning, no one in the party had pink eyes. Which was reassuring. Fiona, Taman and Imaktis were all sniffly. Joybell laid hands on Taman and Fiona, curing their sniffles, but Imaktis declined to be healed or to heal himself -- he wanted to see how this would play out.

We had breakfast in the tavern -- there were ten to twelve other people in there eating. We noticed that two of them had the sniffles. Taman pulled a bandanna over his nose to use as a face mask.

After breakfast we headed out together to take people to the libraries, before Team Gettin’ In Trouble went off to do their thing. Taman noticed that there were now three groups of people waiting for us to leave the inn.

As we walked to the Quiet Room, we noticed that there were lots of businesses with closed signs and far fewer people on the streets than we’d seen before. We also noticed more guards on the streets. Though slaves had always been less common on the streets in the Heights than elsewhere in the city, there were none on the street at all today.

Mo stopped to talk to one of the guards: What’s up with the city today? Is an orc invasion expected?
Guard: There’s a cold going around and some people are being laid lower than others.

Mo got the sense that the guard was not lying -- he was relaying what he’d been told -- but that he had his doubts.

Mo: I can understand why you have a lot of guards out in the event of a cold.

Then we left.

We noticed as we continued that the guards were from all of the corporations.

We took Fiona to the Quiet Room - the outside of the building was nondescript, but inside was a normal _looking_ room, but it sounded weird. (It was an anechoic chamber.) She showed them Black Irnod’s letter of reference and paid them 300gp (to which everyone contributed).

Joybell: Good luck! Have fun!

At the Quiet Room, Fiona was looking into basics of High RItual magic and perhaps into how the Masks might have been created.

The basic rules of HIgh Ritual Magic:

You need accoutrements and ritual gear -- and those need to be individual and custom made (ideally, at least -- it is possible to use someone else’s gear but it is much harder). These are things like candleholders, knives, etc., that can be used repeatedly. These are very expensive (approximately 1000 gp).
There is a skill check with a difficulty based on how much of an effect you’re trying to create. The amount of time and the cost in consumable material components (separate from the ritual accoutrements that are not consumed) also scale based on the size of the effect (the level of the spell). For example a fairly basic ritual to create a permanent teleportation circle would be a DC15 Arcana check, take 5 hours, and require 1500 gp in material components that would be consumed during the ritual.
Some material components are hard to find. Some are just unpleasant (sacrifices of living things, for example, or lots and lots and lots of blood).
This is an old, ancient even, kind of magic. Perhaps a form of magic that evolved into “modern” magic as people learned how to control it.
When one finds the instructions for a high ritual to create an effect there are requirements for casting it; You have to have slots of the spell’s level (if it’s a ritual emulating the effect of a spell). You can’t have cast any spells since your last long rest. You have to have ritually cleansed yourself. If it is a normal spell, you can get advantage on the check to cast the ritual by having the spell prepared.
High RItuals are not like casting spells (such as Alarm or Detect Magic) as rituals -- those take an hour or several minutes. High Rituals take hours and generally have more wide-ranging effects. They are also more difficult and expensive. That said, you have to be able to do ritual casting (either through a class feature or the feat).
After learning some of the basics, Fiona then went on to look for information about a ritual that could have created the Masks. She didn’t find anything like that here.

She also looked into anything that might be related to the disease that’s popped up in Pelsoreen. She got some hints of maybe a clerical High RItual that could have been used to create a new disease, based off the Contagion spell.

She ended her library time looking to see if there was a ritual that would allow her to make some sort of communication item -- something that would allow two way communication any number of times a day. She found some hints that points to a ritual based off of Rary’s Telepathic Bond, a fifth level spell. She got a sense of what she’d need for the ritual, but she’d need to do more research.

Taman: Wouldn’t that create like a hive mind?
Mo: Oh, snap!

(However, Black Irnod said that the Masks had a tumor-like growth in an area of the brain where telepathic species have an organ. So while that may be connected to how the Masks get their hive mind, it’s probably not that simple.)

That was Fiona’s day.

After the rest of the group dropped her off, we proceeded on to the Steel Crucible. Joybell produced the card she’d been given the previous day and got Orryk in as her guest. Joybell was interested in doing some research on higher-level healing potions, other things she could create with her herbalism kit proficiency. Also communication devices.

She learned that she can make higher level healing potions, but of course the cost and time to make them go up as they get stronger. To make a greater healing potion would cost 100gp of materials and take a week. To make a superior would cost 1000 gp of materials and take 5 weeks. And a supreme would take 10000 gp of materials and take 3 months. She took good notes on the greater healing potion instructions and figured the others were unlikely to ever be relevant to her life.

She also looked into the communication magic for Fiona and found some information about making a set of webbed sending stones. She made notes on how to do that to give to Fiona.

Orryk at the Steel Crucible was looking into how to work magic into clothes and about weaving elemental magic into items. He learned that you can make a magic cloak out of any cloak, it doesn’t need to be one you wove yourself or anything. Same with tapestries.

[Note: At this point the players went into a fun conversation about how it would totally be possible these days to make a Get Smart-style shoe phone -- with panels that regenerated the battery while walking.]

As for elemental magic -- working it into items is not particularly affected by the elemental connection. Making a flaming sword is the same process as making any other magic sword. Creating weapons with specific kinds of damage is all the same. So Orryk did some looking into how to go about that -- what it takes and the tools involved -- he could work with someone else to cast the spells. Orryk learned some techniques of how this all goes together and is able to help someone make a magic item.

Elemental magic is not unique to the other kinds of magic, though it is possibly older or more primal.

That was Joybell and Orryk’s day.

Team Gettin’ In Trouble, after dropping off the library kids, decided that since the guards were taking people with pink eyes down to the slave pens, they’d head down that way. Imaktis wanted to try curing (or restoring) a slave to see if that would fix the eyes.

They thought about trying it on someone they met along the way, but they didn’t see any slaves on the street -- which was unusual.

The slave pens down in Old Lament were closed -- when we went by there before the sides of the buildings were open (or at least large garage-like doors on each side were) and the public was free to walk through (shopping, I suppose). This time the doors were down and there was a guard presence in the streets, especially around the pens and the doors.

Mo wanted to sow a bit of confusion, and see what would happen, by changing the color of one of the guard’s eyes to pink.

They found a group of three guards together on the street -- Taman hid around a corner (quite effectively), Imaktis hid behind a hitching post (large tortle, small post, not so effective). Mo’s spell had a short range, 10’, so he walked by the guards playing his flute.

As he walked by, one of the guards noticed him.

Guard: Why are you here?
Mo: I’m in town on business. I have no idea where everyone went. Apparently you are having a plague. So I took a walk.
Guard: You can’t be hanging around tootling your flute around here.
Mo: Okay. I’ll see if I can arrange my business elsewhere, then. Perhaps in another city.

Then Mo continued down the street and around a corner.

Taman, watching from his hideout thought that perhaps one of the guards had pink eyes.

Mo was going to meet up with the others, but he couldn’t see Taman (who hid really well) so he joined up with Imaktis. As nothing was obviously happening with the guards, Imaktis went over to talk to them.

Imaktis: You guys are doing a great job. My uncle was taken and his eyes were never pink before. I’m sure you’re just overwhelmed...I’d like to see him if possible.

The guards clearly didn’t believe him -- but then Imaktis pointed out that one of the guard’s eyes were pink. The other two guards looked at the guard with pink eyes…

Pinky: Guys! You know me!

There was a brief tussle as the two other guards grabbed Pinky.

Imaktis: If it’s a sickness going around and you are manhandling him, you might get it.
Guards: A sickness?
Imaktis: Yes : coughing:: and Imaktis was actually sick)

One of the guards got a weird look at that - like a light-bulb went off. Then the other one frogmarched Pinky toward the slave pens while the one who had the light go off started walking, double-time, toward The Heights.

The guard escorting Pinky pulled out a key and opened the door to the slave pen -- there was a lot of noise and chaos inside. And a lot of people -- far more than we’d seen when we were here before. All the people started yelling as soon as the doors were opened. The guard looked inside, then closed the door without putting Pinky in.

As the door closed, Imaktis and Taman both heard someone say, “My eyes aren’t pink anymore! Let me out!”

Mo and Imaktis contemplated putting the guards to sleep with a sleep spell and letting people out, but decided against.

Instead, Mo turned Pinky’s eyes purple and they all walked away.

As they walked, they contemplated what could be going on -- this could be a distraction for something else (certainly the whole city is very distracted). Or an attempt to get a lot of people into the same place.

On the way back to the Iron Steed, Taman looked for the operatives that had been following us -- how had they dealt with people being dropped off at the libraries. (We also recapped what he’d noticed during the day.) When Fiona got dropped off at the Quiet Room, one person from each team stayed there and were still trying to stay hidden from one another. When Joybell and Orryk got dropped off at the Steel Crucible, there was some puzzlement -- the two libraries are at enough of a distance from one another that one person couldn’t watch both entrances all the time. It ultimately broke down this way:

The Blink Toad’s representatives kept one person bouncing between libraries and the other following Team Gettin’ In Trouble.
The Brass Giant’s representatives had one person at the Quiet Room and one at the Steel Crucible. Team Gettin’ In Trouble got in trouble un-watched.
C&C’s representatives left one person at the Quiet Room and one continued following Team Gettin’ In Trouble.
So operatives from C&C and the Blink Toad saw the shenanigans with the guards at the slave pens -- or at least interaction with those guards. (They had gone to the Brass Giant’s slave pens, so those were the guards they’d interacted with.)

Both Teams Library were still doing their research, so after that Mo and Taman spent the day drinking, then eventually picked up the library folks later in the day.

When we left the libraries, the guards that had stayed outside were still there and we were still being followed. Though one of the C&C agents was gone.

Orryk: We’re going back to the Iron Steed.
Joybell: The food was really good. You should eat there too.

We headed back to the Iron Steed with an entourage of five -- still trying to hide from each other and us.

We shared notes on the day and had dinner. Orryk ate rations again.

After dinner, Taman slipped outside without telling anyone. None of our tails had come into the inn for dinner. He saw four sets of operatives out there and walked straight up to one of them -- the agents from the Blink Toad. They tensed as he approached.

Taman: I want to ask a simple question. What does the Blink Toad know about the pink eye epidemic that’s sweeping the city? We’re very concerned and we assume you are too.
Operative: If it were just an epidemic of pink eyes it would be less problematic.
Taman: What do you know? We don’t want to just stumble in the dark.
Operative: Part of the problem is that if a slave catches it, their eyes aren’t pink anymore. We threw people who got it into the slave pens and now some people in the pens don’t have pink eyes.
Taman: Thanks for providing some insight. We’ll be staying in for the night, so come on in and have dinner.

Taman returned to the rest of us, who were unaware that he’d gone anywhere, and relayed what he’d learned.

Taman: Apparently when a slave catches it, their eyes aren’t pink anymore.
Mo: That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
Orryk: It seems like someone is trying to mess with the slave trade.
Joybell: Bless their little hearts. How do we help them?
Taman: I’m of a mind to let this play out.

We discussed our next steps -- talking to a cleric (we’ve got previous contacts with two here in the city -- the one from the Joyful who took care of the Orcphans and the one from the Purveyors and Wrights who recommended a ship for us) because Fiona’s research indicates that a ritual could have been done with a contagion spell that could have to do with this. Imaktis wanted to try to use lesser restoration on an actual slave to see if that makes the pink go away. We also discussed going to the Blink Toad corporate offices.

And then, with the alarm and the sword of warning, the night passed without incident.


25 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 26)

When we woke up, Imaktis had pink eyes. Joybell wanted to lay hands on him to fix that, but he wanted to stay that way just in case it would be useful in the future, so Mo used prestidigitation to turn his eyes back to normal. (He also wanted to see if the pink eyes from the contagion will ever change back on their own.)

When we left the inn, Taman noticed that there were only two sets of operatives (he could see) outside this morning, one from Dallington’s and one from Ammadorse & Sons.

Taman pointed/shoved Mo in the direction of the Dallington’s agents.

Mo: Hi. How’s it going? I hope you guys are having a good time surveilling us.
Agent: I’ve had worse assignments.
Mo: What do you guys know about the pink eye problem?
Agent: I know there’s something going on.
Mo: We’re interested in finding out what’s going on. Do you think your bosses would be interested in talking to us about finding out. Like right now?
Agent: I can take you to HQ, but I can’t promise that anyone there will talk to you.

So we followed the Dallington’s agents (the other group continued to follow us) to their corporate office. The building had a double door with the bighorn ram’s head logo of the corporation inlaid in platinum. Very nice. One of the agents opened the door and gestured us inside, the other staying close by. Inside there was a nice office lobby.

The agent we’d been speaking to left to find someone to talk to us. He returned a few minutes later with a human man in his fifties -- dressed very nicely.

He looked us over, then turned to Mo.

Dallington (to Mo): You’re the one who does most of the talking. I’m Etra Dallington. Why don’t we go talk?

He led us all into his office and closed the door.

Dallington: On the one hand, I think I should apologize for having you surveilled. But on the other hand, all the other corporations were, too.
Mo: Can I ask, just to confirm, is there any particular reason why you were surveilling us?
Dallington: Well, we know that you turned down an offer from the Brass Giant. We know that you got the assistance of the Cracked Shield. We know that you took out the House of Masks. And we know that you’ve only been here a few days.
Mo: We’re not here to talk about ourselves. We’re here to talk about the pink eye disease.
Dallington: You know it’s a disease?
Fiona: We think it’s maybe a ritualized clerical spell.
Joybell: The precursor cold is treatable with healing magic.
Mo: Are you interested in hiring us to help?
Joybell: Strictly on a one-time, freelance basis. We’re not interested in a contract.
Dallington: I’m not sure that will be necessary.
Mo: Are you not interested in seeing this solved?
Dallington: If it’s a disease, we can probably solve it ourselves.
Orryk: But that doesn’t tell you who did it or why they did it. You can possibly fix this, but can you stop the next thing? Or the one after that? That third one is going to be really bad.
Dallington: This is, as it is, destabilizing the city.
Joybell: There are so many possibilities as to what’s going on…
Orryk: Is there another player in town other than the corporations? All of the corporations are being equally affected...so who benefits?
Dallington: I can think of no organization in Pelsoreen that would benefit.
Joybell (interested in the careful wording): What about outside of Pelsoreen?
Dallington: The only city we have a problem with is New Arvai, but this isn’t the kind of thing they do.
Mo: What entities in Pelsoreen would have this kind of power?
Etra: Other than some genies, I can think of no one who would casually have this kind of power.
Mo: What about the genies? Are there any new ones? Are any of them acting strangely?
Dallington: We don’t have direct dealings with the genies.

Taman suggested testing to see if cure disease would affect the normal pink eyes given to slaves in the ordinary course of things. Etra Dallington agreed that would be useful to know, so we left for a moment and came back with a house slave.

Joybell asked permission and then laid on hands to cure disease. The slaves eyes were still pink. Imaktis used lesser restoration from his prayer necklace and that didn’t change anything either.

Mo cast prestidigitation and changed her eyes to blue, just before she left.

We left, discussing options. Orryk wanted to go to the Amber Flame (paying with the Staff of the Python which we don’t need) and Fiona wanted to go to Urlott’s (where they want a service as payment for entry.

As we walked out, Taman saw that the operatives who followed us from the inn had left and we have a whole new set -- five groups were following us (four groups of three and one of two).

We left Orryk at the Amber Flame to learn about some theoretical magic and went with Fiona to Urlott’s to learn what the service they required would be.

At Urlott’s they first asked what Fiona wanted to learn -- about the contagion ritual and whatever magic could have created the Masks. Then they asked who would be performing the service -- which we said would be the five of us (since Orryk was at the Amber Flame).

To do research into the kind of magic that goes into making the Masks, they want the head of a Gorgon. As fresh as possible. We asked if they knew where a gorgon might be located -- they told us the southern end of the mountains to the east has gorgons. This is about one week travel, overland, each way. They will permit us to add Orryk to the group performing the service.

To do research into the Contagion, they sent us to the Quiet Room.

At the Amber Flame, Orryk paid with the Staff of the Python and looked into how Elemental magic is created. He found himself looking into some druidic texts, written in Druidic. Elemental magic and the elements themselves are structural blocks of reality. The purest elemental magics are druidic in nature -- there weren’t Elemental Gods before the Severance because the elements predate the gods. When the world makes magic, it makes elemental magic. The druids are the ones who really do a lot of shaping of elemental energies and make magic closest to natural magic.

He also started looking into theoretical magic about the contagion.


----------



## prabe (Oct 17, 2020)

Session 15: Leaving Pelsoreen (For Now)


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


25 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 26) (immediately after)

We began where we ended last time with Orryk in the Amber Flame researching elemental magic and how elemental items are created. He also was looking into some theoretical magic about the contagion and the pink eye disease in the city.

The rest of the party had just left Urlott’s library with a mission to bring them a fresh Gorgon head as the charge for being allowed to research the kind of magic that might be involved in making the Masks. We spent some time talking about what we know about Gorgons and have the following knowledge among all of us.

Gorgons look like bulls but their skin is steel plates and their breath turns people to stone, in a 30’ cone. They live in the mountains (below the treeline) and are, unsurprisingly, immune to petrification. In addition to the petrifying breath they also charge and gore, They live outside and not in caves, They eat their petrified prey -- crushing and chomping on the stone. It is a matter of constitution to save against the petrifying breath. (Note: In game terms, it’s a constitution save vs. the petrification. On a failed save you’re restrained -- then a second failed save leads to petrified.)

At the library, Orryk learned that the Contagion spell, which is what we suspect is the underpinning of the pink-eye contagion in Pelsoreen, creates a limited number of possible diseases and none of them are similar to the pink-eye disease. So apparently the Contagion ritual here went pretty well off the rails of the normal spell. The librarians then pointed him back to the Quiet Room -- and told him exactly where in the stacks there to look.

Joybell wanted to talk to the cleric of the Joyful who watched the Orcphans about the plague. (His name is Tormaz and he’s a human.)

Joybell jumped straight to the point.

Joybell: What do you know about the disease that’s causing the pink eyes?
Tormaz, almost creepily cheerful: I’ve heard about it.

Joybell asked if he knew anything about high ritual magic. He’d heard of it but never done any.

Joybell: I’m sure there aren’t that many religious officials in the city so you probably know most of them, at least by reputation. Do you know of anyone who would be capable of casting a high level spell and also have knowledge of high ritual magic?
Tormaz: You want to talk to the people at the temple of the Lightbringers. They’re the knowledge people.

The Temple of the Lightbringers is located in the Heights, unsurprisingly near the universities and libraries.

Mo: Are there any groups you know of working to upend the social structure here?
Tormaz: It is not uncommon for people to come in from outside the city and try to do something about it, without having adequately considered the ramifications.

Joybell studied her boot tips and focused her attention on Scooby.

He went on to say that from time to time one or another of the Corporations in the city gets the idea to change the rules to reduce the prevalence of the debt slavery in the city. It doesn’t usually last long because doing that puts the corporation at a competitive disadvantage.

Mo: On an unrelated note, do you have anything we could take with us that would help us deal with getting turned to stone?
Tormaz: What are you going to be doing?
Mo: We need information from Urlott’s and they want a Gorgon head.
Tormaz: That sounds like Urlott’s. I might have something.

He stepped into a back room and came back a couple of minutes later with a couple of bottles or vials. They contained a magical oil that protects from petrification -- it takes 10 minutes to apply and renders one immune to petrification for an hour. Mo bought both bottles.

Joybell: What does Urlott’s get out of having us do this? Is it just fun for them to send people scurrying around?
Tormaz: They probably want to examine the head of the gorgon to see what makes the petrifying breath.

As we left, Mo filled up the poorbox outside the temple with silver. Unlike the coins he donated that were left out there for people to take if they needed them, Tormaz collected the majority of them and brought them inside the temple. He explained that otherwise people would be tempted just to steal them all. Mo was satisfied with this.

We headed off to the Lightbringers. As we entered we were greeted by a novice.

Joybell: Hi! I think we’re going to need to talk to one of your superiors.

She was thinking in terms of religious superiors but it was a very awkward moment. She then explained about the contagion spell and the high ritual magic and if the Lightbringers might know who in the city could do that.

Novice: Let me take you to someone more senior.

He took us to Brinora, a female high elf and a senior cleric in the order in Pelsoreen.

Joybell: What do you know about this disease with the pink eyes? What do you think? We’re really concerned, but we’re not from here, Thank goodness.

After her second social blunder of the day, Joybell tried to cover for it by explaining about the disease and the contagion spell and the high ritual magic.

Brinora: What makes you think it’s a high ritual?
Fiona: The research I did at the Quiet Room suggests that this scope and size of effect would be consistent with that.
Brinora: I don’t know of a ritual that would do that.

Mo got the sense that she’s not precisely _lying_ but there is more to what’s going on that she’s not talking about.

Mo: Can you think of anything similar?
Brinora: I can think of rituals that would be analogous -- spinning a spell to get a result not normally in its range.

She told us that there are a couple of clerics in town who have done high rituals.

Joybell: Paladin magic is very straightforward -- it’s all about hitting things better, But I know that when casting a spell you can change things -- tug on the magical energies in different ways, Who would have the knowledge of magic to know how to pluck a thread or change a stitch in a high ritual to change things? And have the ability to cast contagion.
Brinora: I don’t know of a cleric in the city who would have the motivation to do this.

(Mo, Fiona, Taman and Imaktis all got the sense that she was again speaking the literal truth.)

Imaktis: No good can come of this.
Brinora: Maybe someone felt there was a lesson to be taught.
Joybell: There are terrible injustices being done -- people are in danger of being sold to the genies who have never owed anyone a copper.
Brinora: I’m pretty sure that the people who did this aren’t in Pelsoreen anymore.
Mo, Joybell and Fiona (sort of all at once and finishing each other’s thoughts): We just want to know if we should stop it, or help it, or just have an answer for our curiosity.
Brinora: You don’t work for any of the Corporations?
All of us: No.
Brinora: Okay. There are a couple of identical twin rock gnomes in the order who are firm believers in education through trickery.
Mo: I like these people! They sound great!
Brinora: Even by gnomish standards they’re kind of giddy and scattered. Irresponsible. No offense.
Joybell: No, it’s okay.
Brinora: They were trying to make a statement about the arbitrariness of the system of slavery here.
Mo: Where does the order stand on it?
Brinora: We don’t have much political power or venue to share our opinions, but we’re against it. There is nothing to be gained by forcing people to work against their will.
Mo: I’m inclined to agree.
Joybell: Me too.
Mo: Do you know where they’d hole up?
Brinora: I don’t know where they’d go, but I’m pretty sure they were in Anestri before they came to Pelsoreen. I don’t expect they’d go back there - but I don’t know they wouldn’t. They had some other people with them in their group.
Joybell: How do you think this is going to play out in the city?
Brinora: If the Corporations haven’t yet figured out it’s contagious, someone will. Once someone figures it out, they’ll look for a high ritual to fix the disease. At least in Pelsoreen. One or more of the clerics from the Enthroned will take care of it.
Joybell: What if only one Corporation knows? Would they play it to their benefit?
Brinora: Probably they’d extract some sort of payment from the others for the service.
Joybell: So in the interest of fairness, should we make sure that all of them know?
Brinora: Are you sure that one knows?
Joybell and Mo: Oh, yes. We’re sure.
Mo: It was a failed negotiating tactic.
Joybell: We didn’t come here to disrupt things, Or, well, some of us did. I’m not committing to anything in that regard. But whatever we were thinking about that, it wasn’t this way.
Brinora: If you want to protect the balance of power, maybe you should tell the rest.

We decided that we weren’t that fond of the status quo ante in Pelsoreen and didn’t feel any need to work to re-establish it. Our curiosity satisfied, we decided to leave things to the people of the city to deal with.

As we left the temple of the Lightbringers, Joybell got concerned about the Cracked Shield and whether any of them had been turned pink-eyed and taken to the slave pens. So she and Taman headed down there to make sure they were okay and see if they needed any healing. Taman mostly went along to keep Joybell out of trouble.

When Joybell knocked at the door to the compound, the priest-hole door opened (at orcish eye-height).

Joybell: Hi!
Cracked Shield: I hear you, gnome.
Taman: :oints down::
Joybell: Hi! I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, There was this disease going around and it turned people’s eyes pink.
Cracked Shield: Yeah, It started as a cold, And we’re a small, tight-knit community, Everyone got it. We’re not taking visitors.
Joybell: Oh, no! Is anyone in the slave pens?
Cracked Shield: No! But we’re staying holed up. We have supplies here.
Joybell: It is our understanding that it will be dealt with in the course of things. So just stay holed up, If your clerics can cure diseases with magic, that will take care of it.

After asking after the Orcphans (they all had the cold and now have pink eyes, but they’re settling in well), Joybell and Taman left and joined up with the others, including Orryk.

We caught him up on what we’d learned. He was on board with the idea that the pink eye contagion was none of our problem.

So we started planning the Great Gorgon Hunt.

We did some shopping for supplies. Mostly trail rations. A rope. And a cart with two horses.

Orryk: One horse will get petrified and one will be eaten.
Joybell: We could get another horse and use it … Oh, no! That would be horrible!
Orryk: Did you just suggest getting a horse to bait the Gorgon?
Joybell: I started to, but that would be horrible!

We also got a map of the southern end of the mountains east of Pelsoreen. And some grain and a bag of horse treats.

The Ovverway causeway will be up in the morning for two hours starting an hour after sunrise.

We went back to the Iron Steed to rest, still being tailed of course. Joybell, excited, was bouncing all evening. After dinner she went outside to talk to the horses, using a speak with animals spell. She reassured them that we’ll do our best to take care of them and keep them safe, She also reassured them that Scooby is a well-behaved wolf and wouldn’t do them any harm. They weren’t entirely convinced. But they were also not very bright, so they may not remember any part of the conversation later.

We then went to bed and set up our usual precautions and the night passed.


26 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 27)

We woke up early and headed toward the Ovverway causeway. Joybell paid the fee for everyone in the party to cross and get out of Pelsoreen. The operatives who were tailing us stopped following us when we got on the causeway.

Joybell noted that it was sloppy of them because we could have crossed and crossed back into the city without them knowing.

Once across the river, we look at our map and decided that the best way to get to where the Gorgons are at the southern end of the mountains was to go along the coast to the mountains. There are several mountain villages out there where we can talk to people and get information to guide us on our Gorgon Hunt. It seems certain that villagers would know if there was a Gorgon in the vicinity.

So we followed the road in that direction. According to the map, there are small waysides and travelers’ rests at about half-day intervals.

Before we left the small landing wayside at the other end of the causeway, Imaktis cast animal friendship on the horses to make them a bit more tractable and trusting when it comes to animal handling checks.

We proceeded with Joybell riding Scooby well in front of the horses pulling the covered wagon -- for their peace of mind. Imaktis was driving the cart with Taman riding shotgun. Fiona and Orryk were in the back of the wagon exchanging notes and discussing ideas based on their library work. Mo was sort of zoning out on their voices.

We traveled for about half a day and, as expected, arrived at a small wayside called Ivvereen. It’s kind of like a truck stop -- traveling supplies for sale, food and lodging available. Most likely the only permanent residents are people who work at the shop and inn.

We stopped to stretch our legs. Joybell asked one of the workers how far the road went into the mountains. She was told that it goes another couple of days into the mountains and then the road ends at a town called Rodzun, though smaller tracks continue into the mountains connecting settlements and villages. There are smaller roads branching off the main road along the way as well.

Joybell: We’ve heard there are Gorgons.
Barkeep: There are many things in the mountains.

We resumed our trip for the next half-day trek to a slightly larger village called Tummeleen. There we confirmed with the innkeeper and the map that there are two more small villages and then Rodzun, the end of the main road.

The inn in Tummeleen, the Sterling Scythe, was comfortable enough and seemed like it would be a better night’s rest than sleeping on the ground in the Leomund’s Tiny Hut. Mo offered to play in the inn for our stay for the night -- he got us a reduced rate for the night’s stay. And made some tips for himself.

Joybell and Fiona got the money they’d stashed in the bag of holding back out (since we were out of Pelsoreen).

With our usual precautions, the night passed without incident.


27 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 28)

The next morning, we headed out on our way for another full day of traveling. After a couple of hours, the terrain was getting more hilly and terrain-y. Over one of the hills ahead of us, Taman heard a crunching sound. He signaled Joybell and she circled around to parallel the cart.

Taman snuck ahead to look over the hill and see what was going on. When he came back he told us that there were 4 ogres menacing a merchant cart,

Joybell: Are the merchants in danger?

At that moment, we heard screaming.

Joybell urged Scooby into a run immediately, without waiting for the others.

Over the hill, there was a single cart with a dead horse. There was a halfling on the cart screaming and another one was sheltering under it. A few feet away from the cart there was another halfling lying still on the ground. Unfortunately, one of the ogres was holding a dead halfling by the leg and chewing.

Taman kept pace with Joybell as she ran up, with Orryk just a bit behind them. Imaktis stayed with them, for the most part. Fiona and Mo were hanging back.

Taman moved up to just inside shortbow range and fired at the nearest one with a shortbow -- hitting, Orryk took two shots with his shortbow at the same one and did a great deal of damage (21 points).

Joybell moved on Scooby to about 10 feet away, then dismounted and attacked the one who was eating the halfling (the same target as the others), taking two swings and hitting.

Imaktis took a shot with a fire bolt. After all of that it was looking a little rough.

Mo used 4 charges from the wand of magic missiles, One of the darts went to the same one everyone else had been targeting and three went to the one near the unmoving halfling on the ground. Unfortunately, ogres are tough and the one missile wasn’t enough to drop the one that was previously injured.

The very damaged ogre that everyone had been hitting on, who was holding the halfling corpse and eating it, disengaged and moved away down the road past the cart, The one near the body on the ground stepped on the body as it walked to Joybell and attacked her - hitting her. The two that had been threatening the cart both moved up on Joybell and attacked, doing rather a lot of damage.

Fiona dropped a fireball that hit the three ogres that hadn’t fled and missed the halflings and Joybell and Scooby. One of them (the one Mo hit with 3 magic missiles) saved and the others did not -- but Ogres are big bags of hit points.

Taman took a shot at one of the ogres engaged with Joybell, which could have been a sneak attack except he missed. Orryk took a shot at one of the three on Joybell and did a lot of damage.

Joybell swung at one of the other ones, missing with her first swing but smiting with her second - destroying its pelvis and dropping it.

Imaktis picked off the one fleeing with a fire bolt - it fell in the road smoldering.

Mo cast a shatter spell, placing it so that it hit the two remaining ones and missed Joybell and the halfling on the ground. One saved and one didn’t.

The two remaining ogres, not being very bright, didn’t flee but instead attacked Joybell -- both missing.

Fiona moved up a bit and cast Melf’s Acid Arrow -- hitting and doing some damage now and more in the future. Taman dropped that one before the additional damage could come to pass -- sneak attacking it with his shortbow.

Orryk moved right up on the last remaining one and did a stunning strike, leaving it incapacitated. Then he followed up with a flurry of blows, disassembling the ogre’s knee. Joybell then dropped it with her first swing.

She immediately went to the halfling on the ground -- he was still alive so she laid hands on him to heal him up.

His eyes immediately flew open in terror and he saw Joybell smiling over him.

Joybell: Hi! I’m Joybell. They’re all dead now,

His scream died as soon as it started.

We looted the ogres’ bodies, but found that all of their loot came from the halflings and their wagon, so we gave it back to them.

It turned out that the halflings were a group of siblings, two brothers and a sister surviving, now grieving and in shock from the loss of the brother the ogre had been eating (beyond saving by the party). Joybell asked where they were heading and they said they were on the way to Tummeleen.

We hooked their cart to one of our horses and went with them back a couple of hours to Tummeleen, with the remains of their brother. In the village, they’d be able to get a new horse and find someone to either properly and appropriately handle the corpse, or perhaps get their brother raised or resurrected.

They were traveling artisans with a variety of skills, who went from village to village in the mountains repairing small items of all sorts. Their cart was filled with many kinds of artisan’s tools, They made their living traveling between these little towns and villages doing repairs and small jobs, then moving on.

Since they had a lot of contact with the various villages in the mountains, Joybell (perhaps a bit insensitively since they’d just lost their brother) asked if they’d heard anything about Gorgons in their travels. They said they’d heard some stuff in Rodzun about homesteaders who’d had their homesteads torn apart by something apparently very tough and nasty.

A place to get started asking around.

After we took them to Tummeleen, we turned around and went back on the road toward the next town -- Orlimmun. Our net travel for the day was one town (a half day’s worth).

We found an inn in the town called the Talking Tree and stayed there. Taman and Joybell noticed that the art on the walls depicted treants. Joybell was very excited about that. Mo played for our supper again -- or at least for his supper and for half price lodgings for us,

WIth our usual precautions, the night passed without incident.

Or at least with the only incident being that we all went up to level 6.


----------



## prabe (Oct 24, 2020)

Session 16: Land Shark


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


28 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 29)

The next morning we headed out on the road toward Rodzun -- all of us feeling stronger and more capable.

As we were proceeding we discussed important issues such as whether there is a market for gorgon parts. Joybell would like to try harvesting some of the armor -- it might be possible to make into armor for her.

Around lunchtime we passed through the town of Lunn. Joybell asked about the homesteads and settlements we’ve heard about being torn apart by something large and voracious. That was confirmed, though we got no further details beyond “It’s big” about what was doing it. We did learn that ogres and other creatures like that have been more active -- or at least there have been more incidents of attacks on the road than usual.

Joybell, to bartender: Do you have any idea why?
Orryk: Because we’re out here.

Mo asked of they’d heard of any people or animals being turned to stone, but they had not.

Mo: We need to keep going until we find gorgons.

And on that thought we continued on our way to Rodzun. As the afternoon wore on, Taman noticed that there weren’t any birds around. None. Not even vultures or the usual sorts of things one would expect to see circling high in the sky. He pointed this out to the others.

Joybell found a little chipmunk and asked if he’d noticed the birds being missing. He said no. She asked if there were anything new and scary around and he hadn’t noticed that either. Apparently chipmunks aren’t as bright as rats.

The road was travelling through woods and still skirting the coast, though at this point there was a lot of relief. The coast was down a sheer-ish cliff to our right and the forest and increasingly rugged mountains were to our left and in front of us.

About an hour after Taman noticed the lack of birds, he saw some things flying in our direction -- they had wings but also arms and legs and horns. They started coming from the left (the forest and mountains) and circled around us so their final approach was over the cliff and the bit of scrub between road and cliff.

Taman noticed that their bat wings didn’t appear to be really catching the air -- the membranes weren’t flexing -- though the creatures were flying. We finally recognized them as 6 Gargoyles.

They flew in low -- about 10’ off the ground -- and weren’t at all subtle about their intentions. This was an attack.

Taman, on the cart, took a shot at one -- hitting but not doing as much damage as he expected. Mo cast faerie fire, catching four of them in the sparkly cloud of dust he blew out of his pipe. All 4 of them failed their saves, so we had four sparkling gargoyles to fight (with advantage). Then he gave inspiration to Orryk.

Orryk took two shots at one with his magical bow -- getting two hits and doing the expected damage this time. Joybell noticed the difference between the damage level of their hits and had an idea, saved for the future, that magical weapons hit them better. Orryk moved around to the side of the cart where the gargoyles were approaching from.

The gargoyles flew, really fast, and got right up to the party, skimming over the ground, in no time. Two of them attacked Taman -- one hit him twice, but Mo used cutting words to reduce the damage down to nothing. The other one on Taman missed. One landed on the back of one of the horses and attacked Imaktis, missing him. One attacked Mo and missed. Two of them didn’t make it into combat this round.

(This is a preview of how the GM’s evening went -- failed saves and missed attacks.)

Fiona cast slow on all six of the gargoyles -- and all of them failed their saves and could only move or attack (not both) and had other nasty impediments.

Joybell stayed on Scooby to attack the one on the horse (otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to reach it) and swung with her flail, hitting twice. Imaktis cast Toll the Dead on that one, but it saved.

Taman dropped his bow and attacked one of the faerie fired ones attacking him with his rapier, getting a good hit (18 points of damage, which all got through because the rapier is magical). Then he rolled off the side of the cart near Joybell.

Mo got three of them in a big shatter spell -- one of them saved -- then he inspired Joybell and retreated back to where Fiona had positioned herself -- way back out of the front line.

Orryk moved up and started punching one -- he got a hit and a critical hit with his first attack and could see some cracks in its stony form. Then he did a flurry of blows and, inspired by Mo, hit with both of those punches as well. He punched it into absolute rubble. With his hands.

One of the gargoyles moved to Orryk, but couldn’t attack because of the slow, though it snapped out of that at the end of the turn. Another one of the two that had been unengaged moved up to Joybell, but couldn’t attack. (So there were two on Orryk, two on Joybell and one on Imaktis. Four of the five were still slowed and a different four faerie fired.) None hit with their attacks.

Fiona cast Melf’s Acid Arrow on the one on Orryk that didn’t shake off the slow, critically hitting it in a vulnerable spot and leaving it smeared with acid that would do more damage in the future.

Joybell attacked the one on the horse again - she’d promised the horses she’d protect them - getting two hits.

Imaktis tried to inflict wounds on his but missed, just barely.

Taman moved up and stabbed the one on Imaktis and got in a good sneak attack on it, because its attention was focused on Imaktis. Then he jumped back off the side of the cart.

Mo used his wand to cast magic missile on the one on Orryk that had shaken off the slow - the three darts did a total of 8 damage. Not the wand’s best moment.

Orryk punched the slowed one (that was Melfed by Fiona) and got a crit. Then he followed up with a flurry of blows. Unfortunately that didn’t drop it, but it looked like the acid damage from Fiona’s spell would.

Indeed, when the gargoyles attacked Orryk the one that had shaken off the slow got both of its attacks and missed with both. The slowed one missed with its attack, then it shook off the slow spell, moving normally for just a moment before the acid damage dropped it. The ones on Imaktis and Joybell all missed. Then all of them that were still under the slow effect failed their saves to break out of it.

Fiona firebolted the one on Orryk -- that was the only one not under the slow, but it did have the faerie fire on it. The thermal shock left it looking really rough.

Joybell hit the one on the horse twice, again, and again it failed to drop. She regretted not having used a divine smite. Imaktis (having as rough an evening as the GM) cast shillelagh on his staff and then missed with his attack.

Taman again jumped on the cart and stabbed the one on Imaktis with his rapier, doing a lot of sneak attack damage and dropping that one. Then he moved around beside Joybell and Scooby.

Mo used the wand to magic missile the one on Orryk, blowing huge chunks of stone away with the first two missiles and crumbling it to rubble with the third.

Orryk climbed back onto the cart and used his fists of unbroken air to get a crit on the one on the horse, and another hit, dropping it! Yay!

The last remaining gargoyle got a hit on Joybell, but Mo used his cutting words to reduce the attack damage to nothing. It was still slowed, so it could do nothing other than the one attack.

Fiona moved up next to Mo and cast Magic missile on the one remaining, slowed and faerie fired gargoyle. Joybell hit it for 11 points and once again regretted not smiting it. Imaktis cast toll the dead but it saved.

Then finally, Taman got in a sneak attack in it and dropped it!

After the combat, while we were regrouping and Imaktis was checking on Horse 1 (the one that had been landed on), Orryk was stretching his hands and checking his knuckles.

Joybell: Are your hands okay?
Orryk, with a slow smile: Yeah. I’m good.

Then he bent down and gathered up some of the rubble from the gargoyles he had punched to death with his bare hands.

Other than some sentimental rubble, the gargoyles had nothing of value. Imaktis wondered if they had been looking for us specifically, but Taman, remembering how they’d approached us, didn’t think so. It looked more to him like they’d been out flying around and seen us and came in for the attack.

We continued on our way, with Mo taking a short rest in the back of the wagon. As we proceeded we talked through what we know about gargoyles -- they’re not really part of any ecosystem. They don’t happen naturally and to see them out in the woods or in the mountains is really unusual. Usually they are either summoned or created by someone and they’re almost always chaotic evil.

Mo: They’re a sign that someone is up to some hijinks.

We continue on our way. Mo’s short rest finishes about when we get to Rodzun. Rodzun is definitely the Big City in this part of the world -- It has three inns, Gorni’s, the Melodic Mushroom and the Brass Boulder. It also has three tracks, or one lane roads, out of town -- one to the east, one to the north and one to the north-east.

As we walked through the town we tried to get a sense of whether the people in town were stressed or panicking or anything like that. We didn’t see any signs of panic, but we overheard people talking about folks having been attacked by moving statues.

Joybell was about to make a pitch for the Melodic Mushroom, because that sounded pretty, when Mo noticed a sign in the window at Gorni’s that said, in Dwarvish, “real beer served here”. So we chose Gorni’s.

We parked the cart and horses at a livery and went into the Inn.

Mo, in Dwarvish: Hi! If you want someone to play, I have some songs you might like.

Gorni gave Mo the same deal he’d gotten elsewhere -- half price lodgings for us and free food for Mo. Mo also ordered around of real dwarvish beer for all of us.

Joybell found some people who looked like they were from the mountains and more distant villages and settlements to talk to. She found one who was talking to a local and asked if any of them had heard anything about a Gorgon. Neither of them had, but they had heard about whole villages being torn up to the north and east of Rodzun.

Mo: How long have these attacks been going on?
Dude: The last few days.
Orryk: A few days. That’s surprising.
Mo: Are people in the town tense?
Dude: We’re nervous. Rodzun isn’t a big town and we don’t have a lot of defenses.

They started talking about people being attacked by moving statues and Joybell told them about being attacked by the gargoyles on the road. They said that the moving statues are different -- they don’t have wings. The gargoyles can sometimes be evaded if you’re on a track going through the woods, because you can get under the trees out of sight and away from them.

After this conversation, Mo played some dwarvish songs he knew. He played with conviction, but the Dwarven beer had clearly gotten to him, because he was not having a great night. The response was more polite than enthusiastic. He was convinced that he was great, however!

Joybell, with Taman to keep an eye on her, slipped out of the bar to pay a visit to the temple of the Hearthkeepers to talk to a Nature cleric about Gorgons. Joybell figured that if there were Gorgons in the area someone in tune with the natural order in the are might have a sense of where. The cleric told us that there have historically been gorgons in the area to the north and east, however that doesn’t mean it will be easy to find them. They are large and voracious predators that have a tendency to depopulate a region of suitable prey, then move on to another territory. The cleric had heard of settlements and villages up in the mountains being attacked by something large and voracious, which at least sounds similar. We asked which of the roads out of town we should take and the cleric recommended the north road.

Taman asked if there was anyone in town who might have a map we could purchase, but the cleric couldn’t think of anyone.

We went back to the inn and told the others about the conversation.

Orryk: Maybe the first thing that attacks us in the morning will have more information.

We spent the rest of the evening in the inn listening to Mo play (though not to his usual standards) and drinking the real beer. Because we were on the road in a new city, Taman got buzzed but not really drunk.

We retired to our rooms and with our usual precautions we slept. The night passed without incident.


29 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 30)

While everyone was getting breakfast, Joybell spoke privately with Gorni and got a small keg of the good Dwarven beer and some extra-nice food to take with us. She stashed all of that in the cart.

As we were finishing our breakfast and Joybell was making her purchases, we heard a bustle and movement outside in the street. The door to the inn opened and two young halflings, a boy and a girl, who looked like teens (or at least about at the developmental stage of human teens) came inside. They looked as though they’d been running all night.

Joybell: What’s the problem?
Kids: We’ve been running all night to get here. Our settlement was attacked just about dusk last night. Something dug into the cellar of the house and came up through the floor and started attacking people.

Joybell was ready to immediately go to check this out and asked Gorni if the kids could stay there while we investigated. The kids weren’t interested in that -- they wanted to go back with us to see how their village had fared.

Joybell: Okay. You can ride with us and tell us how to get there…

The kids were cousins -- Tilia Boughweave and Allard Softfoot. They had run all the way from their village Tall Orchard by themselves through the night. When they left, about eight hours ago, there were still people alive in the village and it was not totally destroyed. But that was eight hours ago.

We decided to move quickly, making it harder for us to see possible dangers along the way, but also allowing us to get there in six hours. We hoped. Imaktis rocked his animal handling, so Horse 1 and Horse 2 were very willing to go as fast as they could through the more mountainous terrain on a track not much wider than the wagon itself.

As we proceeded, Taman started walking along through the woods near the cart, keeping as much of an eye out as our speed would allow. Orryk was jogging along behind the wagon, keeping up with no problems (getting his miles in).

About four hours after we left Rodzun, still two hours or so away from Tall Orchard, Taman sensed something...a vibration under the ground heading toward the cart.

Taman: Alarm! Burrowers.

After giving the alarm, he moved toward the cart. Mo hopped off the cart, which Imaktis brought to a halt, and moved backwards so that he was behind Orryk, then held a vicious mockery spell in case a target presented itself. The children followed Mo, as much as their movement would allow, anyway. Fiona cast fly on herself then flew up 25’ and ended up just behind where mo was, but up in the air. Joybell kept her position next to the cart on Scooby and cast bless on herself, Taman and Imaktis.

Orryk used a new ability he’d developed, Patient Badger Listens, and moved up from behind the cart until he could sense the tremors of the beast. He told all of us that it was moving toward the cart and about to come out of the ground.

About when he said that a Bulette leapt up out of the ground and landed on the horses and Taman. (Like those breaching Great White Sharks only on land.) The creature was very large (size large, in fact) with hard scaly plates across its back and large beaky jaws kind of like a snapping turtle. When it landed, it pushed Taman several feet and did him a considerable amount of damage. The horses were dropped unconscious and pushed out of their traces and to the side of the road. (And that’s after they all saved.)

Mo’s vicious mockery went off and it did not make its save, so it had disadvantage on its next attack.

Imaktis cast spiritual weapon and attacked with it, but missed, then he cast sacred flame and that did some damage. Taman attacked and got a hit, but not for a lot of damage.

Mo moved to a position where he could see the beast without the cart in the way, then he used the wand to cast magic missile on it. Then he inspired Orryk. Tilia and Allard ran to hide behind Mo. Fiona cast a firebolt, but missed.

Joybell got off Scooby, sending him into the woods, and attacked twice. Orryk attacked twice, missing with both attacks, then he used some of his ki for patient defense.

The bulette then turned around and bit at Joybell, missing entirely. (Note: My notes here are cryptic. It says “The crit misses and it misses entirely.” I have no idea what would have made the crit miss, though. So it’s a mystery.) (Turns out it was attacking with disadvantage because of Mo's Vicious Mockery. Nat 20 and a 7.)

It then jumped away and as it moved to do so Orryk, Joybell and Taman all got attacks of opportunity on it. And all of those attacks hit. Then it leapt 30 feet away and burrowed into the ground and disappeared.

Mo, to Orryk: You should burrow after it and punch it. That would be amazing.

Imaktis cast healing word on one of the horses and stabilized the other one. Joybell laid hands on the stabilized one, healing it and helping it to its feet. Taman moved up into the forest and climbed up a tree. Mo moved forward to Imaktis, telling the kids to stay there. Which they did. Fiona, still flying, moved up to a position sort of over the cart and held a cantrip in case a target appeared.

Orryk moved around a bit to feel out with his patient badger tremorsense, but he didn’t pick it up. He told us the last he sensed it, it was moving away. He pointed out that we’d done it a lot of damage.

We pooled our memory and research about bulettes and remembered that they like especially to eat halflings. Joybell went to the kids to help them get back onto the cart and off the ground. Joybell stayed on Scooby, walking beside the cart near where the children were. The kids confirmed that this looked like the same sort of thing that had attacked their village the night before.

Imaktis cast guidance on himself, then went to handle the horses, which were thoroughly freaked out by the whole experience. Fortunately he was able to get them calmed down and back in harness so we could resume proceeding after a short rest.

We got to Tall Orchard in the mid-afternoon. The town had once had 50-60 residents, in eight extended families. There were only 20 survivors of the attack the night before, so the people were all pretty traumatized and freaked out by it. They were still trying to collect themselves and figure out what to do.

Fortunately, Tilia and Allard were able to find surviving family members to take care of them.

Asked, gently, about the attack, the villagers said that this was the first time that a monster like that had attacked Tall Orchard. They, like us, didn’t really have any way to track it, though we could see the “mole holes” where it burst through the ground.

We also didn’t know if it would come back to this village again. Orryk didn’t think it would, but Joybell was a little hopeful that after being pretty badly damaged, it would come back to a village of its favorite prey to build its strength back up. It was certainly worth trying.

We decided to set up the Leomund’s Tiny Hut in the center courtyard of the town. There were three intact buildings on one side and three that had been reduced to rubble on the other. On the far side of the rubble was a long barn. We put Horse 2 in there. One of the intact buildings had a small outbuilding, and we were allowed to put Horse 1 in there. (So they wouldn’t both get eaten by the bulette.)

(Note: The GM ruled that Leomund’s Tiny Hut has an impervious bottom as well as the domed top, which made it a really safe place to stay for the night.)

Joybell recommended to the halflings of the village that they stay the night up on the second floor of a building -- off the ground -- if they have any. There was an intact large warehouse with a second floor that was big enough for all of the villagers to stay there, so that’s where they slept. It was a bit away from the central square in the village, not easily visible from the hut, but not so far that we wouldn’t know if the beast emerged at the warehouse.

We spent the night in the hut, with watches as follows: Joybell and Fiona, Mo and Scooby, Taman and Orryk, and finally Imaktis on his own.

During the third watch, Taman felt the ground vibrating and started waking people up. Imaktis blessed Joybell, Taman and himself as soon as he woke up. Fiona cast Mage Armor. Mo cast haste on Imaktis. Joybell cast Shield of Faith on Taman.

As all of this was going on, Taman figured out that it was moving toward the small barn with Horse 1 in it, so he stepped out of the tiny hut and did a tap dance to attract its attention.

Which totally worked -- it changed course and burst out of the ground right next to him. At which point Taman realized that there might have been a problem with his plan. Fortunately, it all worked out because the bulette missed with its attack.

Fiona stepped out of the hut, causing it to disappear, and cast slow on the bulette -- we watched as the spell took hold on it and cheered. Then Mo cast faerie fire on it and it was too slow to dodge out of the sparkling cloud.

Joybell moved over to attack, riding Scooby so she could get there.

Orryk ran over and proceeded to pummel it with his regular attack and a flurry of blows. With each hit he attempted a stunning strike. It saved against all of the stunning strikes but there were at least two critical hits in the battering and despite it shaking off the stun every time he did masses of damage to it.

Taman hit it with his rapier, then backed away out of melee with it. Imaktis cast inflict wounds -- hitting it because of his blessing. Then he bonus action cast shillelagh and hit it again because of the haste Mo put on him.

The bulette attacked Imaktis and would have hit but he cast shield and the massive bony beak skittered across his arcane shield.

Fiona cast Chromatic Orb, choosing acid damage -- which dropped it, the acid eating through one of the wounds on its head and into its brain.

Imaktis and Taman looked to see if that bulette was the same one we’d fought earlier. As they looked it over together they found scars and evidence of the wounds we’d inflicted on it in the afternoon. We also remembered that bulettes are very solitary, so it’s unlikely that there’s another one in the area.

Within a minute or so after the battle was over the residents of Tall Orchard emerged from the warehouse where they’d been trying to sleep.

Joybell: Is this the same one that attacked you?

The idea that there might be more than one clearly shook some of the halflings, but one of them recognized a very long scar on the side of the bulette.

As we took a look at that, we realized that it looked like the bulette had been gored -- the wound had healed, but not long before, maybe a week or two ago. An encouraging sign that there might be a Gorgon in the area.

Mo: Does anyone have speak with dead...animals?

Mo, randomly, to the halflings: This is not the monster we’re here to kill. This will not get us into any library.

They looked appropriately baffled at that.

Orryk, with Joybell’s help, worked on getting some of the heavy plates and claws off of the corpse.

Joybell also went to check on the horses, which were fine.

We finished our long rest, sleeping well into the morning.

Imaktis plans to spend 8 hours casting Plant Growth to enrich the land and help the halflings who remain grow enough food. It will boost crop yields for one year. But that will happen next time.


----------



## prabe (Nov 1, 2020)

Session 17: We are the Wonderful Band! Also, The Great Gorgon Hunt Gets Complicated


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


30 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 31)

First thing in the morning, Imaktis began casting plant growth on the lands just outside of Tall Orchard -- the spell takes 8 hours to cast so that it will improve the productivity of the land for a year, so we were going to be staying in the town for the entire day.

Joybell and Orryk, with the horses, dragged the bulette corpse out of the center of Tall Orchard to the edge of town and worked on removing the armor-like plates from it.

Mo tried to figure out who was the leader of the town, but that hadn’t really been determined yet -- the mayor and most of the elders had been eaten (or at least killed) by the bulette. Despite the horrible losses they suffered, they wanted to try to make a go of it staying there.

When Joybell finished helping Orryk with the bulette armor, she went to help the halfling villagers with whatever they needed a strong back for. As it turned out they were moving the possessions of families whose houses had been destroyed into intact houses left by families that had been killed. As she helped them move their possessions, she listened to them talk about and reminisce over their lost friends and relations, giving grief counseling as she could.

As she talked to the villagers and helped them, Joybell assembled something of a map of the small villages in the area of Tall Orchard. The next village to the north (the only road out of Tall Orchard) is called Greendle and there are villages to the north-east and north-west of that.

She asked if they’d heard of any of those other villages having problems with being attacked. They hadn’t specifically, but as they talked they realized that they heard anything from Greendle in several days.

While Joybell was doing that, Orryk helped them build a pyre and move the bodies of the dead to it. Taman scouted the area around the village.

Around 10am, Taman spotted five gargoyles flying overhead. It’s hard to estimate altitude from the ground, but he could tell they were out of arrow shot. They were coming from the north east. He gave an alarm -- so the party (all save Imaktis, just outside of town and busy casting the spell that would help the villagers remain in Tall Orchard) worked on spreading the alarm and getting the villagers into cover.

As that was happening, Taman saw the gargoyles circle lower to take a look at the village, as the villagers were running into the intact buildings. They circled down to 200 or so feet right over the village (not where Imaktis was casting his spell) as the villagers were running for cover then they flew back up and away in the direction they had come.

Mo and Orryk talked about trying to stop them from flying away, as they were doing so. Joybell, with absolutely no way to attack an opponent in the air, listened but didn’t have any ideas.

Mo: We once let a lot of warlocks pass us….
Joybell: And that didn’t work out so well.

After the gargoyles flew away, Joybell helped them reinforce the front of one of their houses built into a mountainside, using some of the rubble from the destroyed buildings, so they’d have a safe retreat to barricade themselves into. Once she’d gotten them working on the project, she went out to where Imaktis was performing his ritual to keep watch over him. Taman went with her.

An hour or so after lunchtime, the gargoyles returned, only now there were 8 gargoyles. They were coming in from the north(Ish), in generally the direction Imaktis was performing his ritual. Over the course of the three hours after the first gargoyle sighting, the whole party had moved in that direction. When the alarm went up, Mo cast rope trick and sent the eight halfling children still surviving in the village up into the extra dimensional space where they’d be safe.

The gargoyles were coming in lower and with clear intent to attack this time.

Taman took a shot at them as soon as they got in range and got a crit on one. Orryk and Mo also took shots at them when they got in range but didn’t hit.

Joybell, on Scooby but standing near Imaktis who was still casting his spell, cast shield of faith on herself. (It occurred to her later that she should have cast it on Imaktis, but as it turned out it didn’t really matter.)

Fiona held a spell (Fireball) until they got in range. When they did (on their turn), she let it go, catching four of them in the blast. They were still 130’ away and about 40’ up.

Taman took a shot and hit one, but with his nonmagical bow he only did a small amount of damage. Orryk did the same, but his magical bow did a bit more damage.

Then Mo stepped forward a few feet and said, “Look at the birdies!” before playing a little song on his pipe which emitted a hypnotic pattern of lights into the sky around the gargoyles. Four of them were caught up in the lights (we weren’t sure how many of them, if any, were the same as were caught in the fireball -- they weren’t in a static formation coming in). Three of them went still and glazed and then came crashing down to earth. One of those shattered on impact, breaking into rubble and gravel.

Joybell, with no ability to do anything at range, stayed near Imaktis on Scooby, waiting for developments to develop.

Fiona then moved up a little bit and cast slow on the ones that were still in the air. Three of them began visibly flying more slowly.

At that the four still in the air, three slowed and one moving normally, turned around and began flying back the direction they came from, leaving the ones that had crashed into the ground behind. The three surviving ones on the ground took off and began flying as well, trailing a bit behind the others.

Joybell (on Scooby), Taman and Orryk tried to follow them as far as possible but they apparently noticed that and split into two groups pretty quickly, one heading off to the north-west and one to the north-east. So the party members turned around and re-joined the others.

We contemplated the situation -- it had been about three hours between the initial flyover and the return with reinforcements. So they couldn’t have flown more than an hour and a half in each direction. Translating that from their airspeed into our overland speed, it seemed like about four hours, perhaps, to wherever they’d gone.

After another couple of hours, Imaktis finished his spell to benefit the fertility of the land around Tall Orchard.

When he was done, Imaktis suggested finding a cave for the halflings to shelter in, rather than the house built into the hillside Joybell had helped them reinforce with rubble, but there wasn’t anything suitable right in the town where they could get to it quickly.

We wound out suggesting to them that they stay out of the village for a little while until we investigated where the gargoyles were coming from. They decided to travel down to Rodzun the next morning -- some of them know Gorni the inkeeper and they hoped to arrange to stay with him for a few days. We can use a sending spell to let them know that it’s safe to return to Tall Orchard.

After sorting that out with our halfling hosts, Joybell pulled out the real Dwarven ale and fine wine and good food she’d bought in Rodzun.

Joybell: We’ve been traveling and working together for one month now, y’all! So happy anniversary!
Orryk: It’s amazing we’ve survived this long.

Someone commented that we’d been together for a month and didn’t have a name for our party yet.

Joybell: I really like the Wonderful Band, or Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Band. We’ve done wonderful things and really helped people!
Mo: I don’t mind that.

There was general agreement -- we are Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Band (just the Wonderful Band for short). Yay!!

We celebrated together and with our halfling hosts for the rest of the evening, before spending the night in a tiny hut Fiona made.


1 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 32)

In the morning, we headed north out of Tall Orchard (more or less the direction the gargoyles had come from and gone in, and the direction the road went). We opted to leave Horse 1, Horse 2 and the cart here in Tall Orchard, with access to plenty of food and water, so we’d have the flexibility to head off-track.

At the same time, the halfling villagers headed south toward Rodzun.

About four hours after we left Tall Orchard we came to a village -- Greendle -- with a few buildings (a couple with damaged walls) and a lot of statues scattered around. Some of the statues showed signs of damage -- chunks broken off and missing -- others are entirely intact. Mo said that when we see the Gorgon, he’d cast a rope trick so we could climb up and safely use the oil of preventing petrification.

We scattered a bit, looking around the first couple of buildings we came to. Joybell pinged for undead, but didn’t detect any then went to look in one of the buildings, calling out to see if anyone was in there. Imaktis and Mo headed around the corner of another building. Fiona went toward one of the damaged walls.

Taman moved up the central track in the city, looking for tracks. There were a lot of gorgon tracks, which looked like very large cattle tracks, all around.

All of a sudden some of the statues which were adjacent to party members started moving (3 living statues). Joybell wasn’t adjacent to one, so she wasn’t attacked. Because of the Sword of Warning, Joybell wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been, but she had moved far enough away from the rest of the party that it was unable to help anyone else. When her friends were attacked, Joybell remembered that we’d been told about moving statues (that were not the same as the gargoyles) when we were in Rodzun.

The one on Fiona hit her for a great deal of damage. Worse than that, her muscles locked up and the process of petrification had clearly begun on her.

The one near Taman missed him and the one on Mo and Imaktis missed Mo. Orryk, like Joybell, hadn’t been near one and wasn’t attacked.

Before any of us got a chance to do anything, Fiona wasn’t able to force herself to move and break out of the petrification and she was turned to stone.

Dammit.

Orryk went to attack the one on Imaktis and Mo, missing with his main attacks and hitting with only one of his flurry of blows. Though he thought it was only a glancing blow, he could see cracks in the statue as a result.

Joybell rode on Scooby as far as he could go, then jumped off and ran to the one on Fiona and attacked, missing with both of her swings.

Taman attacked the one in front of him with his rapier -- getting a good hit for 8 points of damage. Then he disengaged and moved to the one on Fiona. As he moved in that direction, he passed another one, which animated and took an opportunity attack. Fortunately that one missed. (Running total: 4 living statues)

Mo used a charge from the wand of magic missile to drop the one in front of him, then he inspired Taman. Imaktis moved over and shillelaghed the one that had turned Fiona to stone (which Joybell was also on), hitting it and exploding it.

Apparently, they’re vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.

Then the one that had activated to attack Taman, attacked Scooby but missed, thank goodness.

Another one activated and missed Imaktis. (Running total: 5 living statues)

Orryk, not wanting to get close to things that could turn people to stone with a hit, used his fists of unbroken air to hit one, blowing it apart with his air-punches.

Joybell turned to the one that was menacing Scooby, but missed with both of her swings. Scooby disengaged and ran back behind Orryk. Taman attacked the same one Joybell had, also missing.

Mo used two charges off the wand of magic missiles and sent two darts to the one Joybell and Taman were on and two to the one that had originally attacked Taman.

Imaktis took a look at Fiona and, seeing that she was fully petrified but that she looked odd somehow, turned and attacked the one that Joybell and Taman were on, missing with his shillelagh.

Another one in the street animated and attacked Taman from the back, but missed. The one that had originally attacked Taman, and the one that was surrounded by Joybell, Taman and Imaktis both attacked Joybell. Both missed. (Final total: 6 living statues)

Orryk again used his fists of unbroken air, this time on the one that had just attacked Taman from behind, and again exploded it. Nice!

Joybell took a swing on the one in the middle of the group, getting a crit that blew it into rubble and dust. Then she turned to the other one that had attacked her and exploded that one in to rubble as well.

Then all was quiet.

Imaktis, looking at petrified Fiona: We could leave her like that. She’s safe.
The rest of us: No.

So he used the Restoration bead from his prayer beads to bring her back. Which left the party without any way to deal with someone getting petrified until the next day.

Orryk and Taman set about making rubble of all of the remaining statues in the village. At the same time Joybell went to all of the buildings and looked for any survivors, but there were none. Mo looked for papers that might mentioned what had happened, or any valuables, but found none of either.

There was no sign of gargoyle tracks in town -- just the gorgon tracks and the tracks of the statues that had animated. Taman looked to find where it had entered and where it had left the village and was able to determine that. It moved through the forest knocking over trees leaving a very clear trail. It entered the town from the north-northeast and left to the south-southwest in the general direction of Lunn (the town before Rodzun on the coastal road).

The statues were clean and unweathered, highly detailed. We estimated that they’d been here for a couple of days, so the gorgon had a head start on us.

Joybell voted for going after the gargoyles -- they seemed to be a more immediate threat, and a warmer trail. Also, once we got the gorgon head we wouldn’t be coming back to deal with the gargoyle threat. And it wouldn’t be that hard to pick up the gorgon’s trail -- it moved through the forest without regard for trees or the underbrush, so it left a very clear trail.

We left town on the road to the north. Just outside of town it forked, with roads going to the northeast and northwest. The fork in the road was very near where the gorgon trail entered torn, so we decided to follow that instead of the road hoping it would lead us to the center of the outbreak of earth-magic badness.

We followed the gorgon’s path, like a bulldozer’s track, through the forest for about four hours. Taman noticed 10 gargoyles and we were not surprised by them, partly because of him and partly because of the Sword of Warning. Then he noticed something rumbling through the woods -- something large and bull-shaped with a dull, steel gleam (1 gorgon!)

Orryk used the wand of web to create a cube of webbing on the gorgon, then he used his bonus action to use patient defense and dodge.

As we had discussed in advance, Mo cast rope trick, but didn’t climb up. He planned to wait until everyone else had gotten up before climbing up himself.

The gargoyles came in at ground level through the trees and split up so that there were three on Taman, one on Joybell, two on Fiona (oh, dear!), one on Mo, two on Imaktis and one on Orryk. It wound out better than it might have -- Taman was only hit by one of the many attacks he faced. Joybell was missed. Fiona got hit by a claw and a bite, but Mo was able to reduce the damage with cutting words. Mo got hit once but was otherwise missed. Imaktis cast shield to avoid a hit. Orryk was dodging but still got hit by one attack.

Before any of the rest of us could do anything something humanoid in shape rose seamlessly up out of the earth -- it seemed almost xorn-like, but not quite. The best we could liken it to was an earth salamander. (The GM told us later that this was 1 myrriq -- we called it the earthamander through the combat. The notes will call it a myrriq.) After rising out of the earth, it did not attack.

The gorgon was not restrained by the web, but was unable to get out of the difficult terrain. So it breathed its petrifying gas on Taman, Joybell and Scooby. Fortunately we all saved.

As Taman got his turn, he was slowed as if under the slow spell. We figured out that this was an aura given off by the myrriq (and a big one - 40’ radius). He was able to retreat up Mo’s rope trick without issue.

Imaktis was not affected by the slow aura. He cast spiritual guardians, creating a protecting aura around his own self of tiny, protective glowing spirits that would damage any enemy that entered it. The spirit guardians were catching all but two of the gargoyles and the myrriq, but not the gorgon. Then he cast spiritual weapon on the gorgon, but it missed.

Fiona was affected by the slow aura and found herself in a pickle -- because she was slowed she couldn’t disengage from her attackers and move. Also with her movement slowed she could get to the rope but not up it. She ultimately decided to risk the attacks of opportunity from the two gargoyles on her and move to the bottom of the rope. Fortunately, only one of those two attacks hit.

Joybell was also affected by the slow aura, but fortunately Scooby wasn’t. So she rode him over to the base of the rope then climbed up, slowly. As she entered the extradimensional space, she told Scooby to try and get clear.

Orryk was also affected by the slow aura and decided to go up the rope. He faced four opportunity attacks, but again only one hit.

Mo, unaffected by the slow, lifted Fiona up into the extradimensional space, then climbed up himself.

Leaving only Imaktis (and Scooby) with what seemed like a million enemies around him, including a freaking gorgon. And that myrriq thing.

Eight of the gargoyles moved in to form a box around Imaktis, blocking him off from the rope. All of them, plus the two that couldn’t fit into the box, took varying amounts of damage from the spiritual guardians. The eight around him all attacked and, with the help of a shield spell, all missed.

The myrriq looked puzzled at the disappearance of almost all of the party and moved back a bit. The gorgon moved up so it was standing next to the myrriq but didn’t attack.

In the rope trick, Taman freaked out in slow motion and stayed slowed.

Imaktis missed with his spiritual weapon and then dodged because he didn’t feel he had a good chance of getting through the gargoyle between him and the rope without getting pummeled. Between his shell, his shield, and the shield spell, dodging seemed to him like the best way to survive.

As he stood there dodging and weaving all nimble-like, Joybell noticed that he dropped the prayer beads, with the greater restoration bead. If he got turned to stone, the beads would still be available to the party.

Scooby attacked the gargoyle between Imaktis and the rope, missing with his attack, then Joybell, still moving slowly, dismissed him.

Orryk did shake off the slow, but didn’t see anything useful to do in the situation, so he stayed in the rope trick.

Mo popped out of the rope trick to cast hypnotic pattern in a 30’ cube. The cube included Imaktis, but his wisdom is good and Mo felt he’d save against the pretty lights. All of the gargoyles but one and the gorgon, but not the myrriq were included in the effect. And most of them failed their saves, including the gorgon. Then Mo climbed back up the rope.

Almost all of the gargoyles were stunned, staring at the pretty lights -- unfortunately the damage from the spiritual guardians shook them out of their daze. Fortunately the guardians dropped some of them. The last gargoyle moved in to fill in the box around Imaktis, not paying attention to the spiritual guardians. Then all the gargoyles attacked Imaktis, but because he was dodging all the attacks but one missed and that one he was able to use his shield spell to hold off.

The myrriq, standing on the other side of the gorgon, was not in the hypnotic pattern. It was also apparently too smart to go into the cloud of tiny protective spirits. Instead it gave the gorgon a smack, to shake it out of being stunned by the pretty lights, then it spoke, in Terran to Imaktis, who (fortunately) knows another dialect of Primordial (Auran) and was able to understand and respond.

Myrriq: I do not believe your friends have actually abandoned you.
Imaktis: Oh, they know I can take care of myself. I dare you to breathe on me again.

The myrriq’s eyes flashed at that and it glared at Imaktis, doing a great deal of damage and slowing him. Then it dissolved into the ground beneath it as seamlessly as it had emerged and disappeared. The gorgon then turned away and started trotting up the trail.

With the myrriq gone, the slow effect on Taman, Fiona and Joybell in the extradimensional space faded.

Taman came out of the rope trick and moved into the woods, then he hid and fired an arrow at the gorgon, doing a fair amount of damage with his sneak attack.

Imaktis didn’t shake off the slow from the myrriq’s gaze, apparently that was more durable in the myrriq’s absence than the slow from its aura. Still in the middle of a box of gargoyles, he set himself to dodge their attacks.

Fiona, moving freely again, came out of the rope trick and cast fireball on the gargoyles, conveniently all in a cluster around Imaktis. Imaktis felt the heat of the fireball all around him as he stood in a calm center, completely untouched by it.

All but one of the gargoyles, the one closest to the base of the rope, died in the fireball. Or fire torus.

Joybell came down the rope and dithered about the right thing to do for a second -- she had no chance of catching up to the gorgon with Scooby dismissed -- and finally settled on attacking the remaining gargoyle, missing with both of her swings. Then she moved away from the bottom of the rope to make room for others to come down, grumbling all the way.

Orryk came down the rope and moved to a position away from the gorgon where he could shoot at it with his shortbow, and not be in Gorgon-breath Formation Alpha. He took two shots at it, but missed.

Mo came down the rope and blew the loud crashing note on his pipe that cast shatter on the gorgon. It failed to save against it and took 19 points of damage.

The last remaining gargoyle, still harassed (and damaged) by the spiritual guardians and having had absolutely no luck against the nimbly dodging tortle, turned to Joybell and bit her for a small amount of damage.

The gorgon, without the myrriq to guide it, and having been attacked and hurt twice, turned back toward us, moving toward and past Mo without attacking him and continuing on until it was closer to the party.

Taman hid in the woods again and took a shot at the gorgon, but merely bounced an arrow off its steely hide.

Imaktis shook off the slow effect and looked around himself. Seeing only one gargoyle now, he picked up his prayer beads and rushed the gorgon, ignoring the gargoyle and its opportunity attack. Then he cast bless, from the prayer beads, on himself, Mo and Joybell. His attack with the spiritual weapon missed.

Fiona cast fly on herself and moved up and away so she’d be out of range of the gorgon’s breath should it do that again.

Joybell, staring into the nostrils of the gorgon and with an injured gargoyle at her side, ignored the gargoyle and moved to the flank of the gorgon, away from the end with the petrifying breath. She cast wrathful smite and hit it, doing maximum damage from the spell. It failed its save against the fear effect of the wrathful smite and was now afraid of her. With her second attack she did a regular divine smite, which wasn’t as powerful but still wound out doing a fair amount of damage.

Orryk used the wand to place another web -- right on the gorgon on the side opposite Joybell. Unfortunately, it saved against being restrained, but the web still made difficult terrain that it was reluctant to enter

The gorgon saved against the spiritual guardians but because of its fear of Joybell (which it would have to take an action to steel itself against) it couldn’t move closer to her. So it was sort of wedged in between scary Joybell and the difficult terrain of the web spell with Imaktis in front of it and just a little off to the side. It was pinned between bad options and blamed Joybell for its predicament, so it attacked her with itshorns and missed.

Taman took a sneak shot at the gorgon and did a goodly chunk of damage to it.

The last gargoyle, determined to be the last one standing in this combat, didn’t fall to the tiny angry spirits.

Fiona cast magic missile on the gorgon but didn’t manage to drop it. Finally, Joybell hit it with another divine smite, dropping it at last. Then she moved to the last gargoyle and dropped it.

Taman, yelled into the sudden quiet: Come out, you dirt monster piece of naughty word!

But the dirt monster piece of naughty word did not come out.

Unfortunately, Orryk’s tremorsense wouldn’t be able to pick up the movement of the myrriq through the earth (earthglide doesn’t make tremors) even if it was within his 30’ range.

The party compared notes (well, everyone but Joybell who’d never heard of these things) and assembled the following information about the myrriq -- it slows people and that starts a progression. Anything slowed has a chance of becoming paralyzed. Anything paralyzed has a chance of becoming petrified. Then it can turn anything petrified into those living statues we encountered in Greendle. It’s an elemental from the plane of earth and can dominate anything that’s innately immune to petrification or that has a burrowing speed.

We cut the head off the gorgon in the waning end of the day and found, to our pleasure, that Fiona’s Tenser’s floating disk will be able to carry it (until we can get back to Tall Orchard and the cart and horses).

While Fiona performed the ritual to cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Taman scouted around the area and found that there was a trail for at least one more gorgon. And we don’t know where the myrriq went, but it clearly needs to be stopped.

Joybell pondered what we’d learned from this combat and her main takeaway was that 10 minutes in combat is an eternity. If we’d all gotten into the rope trick, the monsters (including the gorgon) would have all wandered off, bored, before we got the oil of prevention of petrification on. If a subset of the party started oiling up and another subset stayed out to keep the enemies occupied, the combat would be over one way or another before the oil was on. Either the party members would be dead or all the monsters would be.

On the other hand, the rope trick totally saved our butts with the slow effect from the myrriq. If we had not been able to retreat to a safe space to shake it off, we would have been in a really bad place.

So we can’t use it to make a safe space to put on the oil, unless we spot the gorgon (or the myrriq) on the horizon, less than an hour away but more than 10 minutes.

In the morning, Joybell will prepare Find Steed so she can bring Scooby back.


----------



## prabe (Nov 8, 2020)

Session 18: Earth Elementals Gone Wild!


Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


1 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 32) (immediately after)

Fiona, still flying after the combat, flew up to the top of the tree canopy, just poking her head out, to look around and see if there was anything that looked like a lair around. She saw the gorgon’s trail through the trees heading on in the same north-east-ish direction we’d been generally traveling.

Off in the distance, some miles away, she saw some rocks that formed a notable outcropping in the valley we were traversing.

When she came back and reported we decided to approach that outcropping of rock from a direction other than the gorgon’s bulldozed path through the forest.

Orryk: I’m in favor of not taking the ambush trail.

While we talked about this we got a short rest, during which Taman switched out his shortbow for a longbow from the bag of holding.

Fiona cast Leomund’s tiny hut and we rested for the night. Our watch order was: Taman and Imaktis, Joybell and Mo, and Orryk and Fiona.

The watch was mainly to keep an eye on what was going on all around us, because we were very safe inside the hut.

In the middle of the second watch, Joybell and Mo noticed that something was moving around under the ground -- it wasn’t so much that they felt tremors as that the trees around would shake as something disturbed their roots. After a moment they saw a big vaguely humanoid-shaped head made of rock and stone (not the myrriq) pop up out of the ground and look around. It didn’t seem to notice the tiny hut. It did however seem to be looking around, perhaps on patrol of some sort. We couldn’t tell if it was looking for us specifically or if it was just generally keeping an eye out.

Then it went away and the trees around stopped rustling, without us getting any sense that it had found us (or anything else that it was either looking for or needed to report).

We figured that it was probably an earth elemental, because that’s a creature that would be easily dominated by the myrriq.

When Joybell and Mo woke up Orryk and Fiona for their watch, they told them about the earth elemental and that it didn’t appear to have spotted us.

Indeed, the rest of the night passed without incident.


2 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 33)

The next morning, the first thing Joybell did was cast find steed to get Scooby back. She greeted him with a big hug and he greeted her with a lick on the cheeks.

Imaktis cast gentle repose on the gorgon head (to keep it from getting stinky and nasty) and then we buried it to keep it safe. We can come back and collect it when we’re ready to head back to Pelsoreen and Urlott’s to do research.

We headed out through the woods following a game trail (not the gorgon’s Ambush Alley, just an ordinary deer trail). Taman and Joybell were in the front, pretty much next to each other, with Imaktis close behind. Fiona and Mo were a bit behind them and Orryk kept watch from the back.

As we were proceeding, a gigantic vaguely humanoid thing, made of rock and earth, came up out of the ground right in the middle of the party. Fortunately the Sword of Warning gave us enough of a heads up that we weren’t _surprised_ by this. It looked like a big earth elemental, perhaps the same one Joybell and Mo had seen in the middle of the night, but it’s hard to recognize individual features on an earth elemental.

Mo thought about casting blindness on it, rejected the idea on the grounds that it probably had tremorsense and blindness wouldn’t slow it down much, and viciously mocked it instead. Then he inspired Imaktis: “Go get him, Turtle Guy!” Then he backed up behind Imaktis, provoking the elemental to take an opportunity attack. The attack hit, but Mo’s goliath endurance kept it from doing any damage to him.

Taman turned around and walked right up to it and stabbed it, getting a critical hit and a sneak attack on it, because its attention was on Mo and Imaktis. Doing a fantastic amount of damage to it (39 points!) with his magical rapier.

Orryk used one of his elemental powers, water whip, on it, trying to knock it prone, but it avoided that. So he used his fists of unbroken air to get a critical hit.

Joybell cast wrathful smite, her favorite spell right now, and took two swings at it. The first missed but the second connected and it failed to steel itself against her wrath. So the large elemental was afraid of the tiny gnome. With the glowing flail.

Fiona misty stepped away from the monster that had appeared right next to her. Then she threw an acid splash spell at it, but it saved so it only took a very small amount of damage. Imaktis cast toll the dead on it and it failed that save.

The elemental took two swings at Joybell with its stony fists, but missed both times.

Mo shot it with a magic missile from his wand, then inspired Orryk.

Mo: Punch the stone thing!
Orryk, with a smile: Okay

Taman stabbed it with his rapier, once again taking advantage of its distraction to make a sneak attack. That killed it and it fell apart into dirt and muck and rocks.

We sifted through the rubble remains looking for anything like a magical heart or some core essence of elemental that made this pile of rocks and dirt an animated and intelligent single _thing_. We found nothing.

We took a short rest and then resumed our way. Between Taman’s upbringing in the wildlands and his skills as a ranger, we were not in danger of getting lost, but we didn’t take the exact route to the rock outcropping that we were anticipating either. We were, however, staying out of the gorgon’s ambush alley.

Orryk hoped that we’d find something we can take back that could be made into an item that would grant control over elementals.

Mo: Or maybe we can sell something in Pelsoreen. This is the nature of spec work.

About five hours of walking through the difficult terrain of the forest later, 9 gargoyles flew overhead. They looked like they were patrolling more than looking for anything (us) in particular.

Taman: Do we want to get their attention?

We discussed briefly hiding under the trees and letting them fly away.

Orryk: But if we let things go, we’ll just have to fight them later when it will be worse.
Imaktis: They don’t see us.
Orryk: We’ve learned this lesson.

Orryk, Taman and Mo all started shooting at them. Only Orryk was using a magical bow, and the gargoyles were 200 feet away, so they didn’t take much damage. However, it did get their attention, which was what they were aiming for.

8 gargoyles wheeled around and came toward us -- even moving at their top speed it was going to take them more than a few seconds to get to us. The other one turned and flew in the direction of the rock outcropping. The gargoyles were clearly spreading out. They also had learned from prior experience and stayed out of fireball formation. They came at us in a large semi-circle pincer formation.

Orryk took a shot at the same one he’d shot before then backed up 30’ to keep them from getting up to him as quickly. He had expectations, perhaps, that the rest of the party would follow this very sensible approach. Fiona moved back as well and held a cantrip until one had moved into her range.

Taman took a shot at the one that was heading back toward the rock outcropping but missed. It really was a long way off (though in longbow range). Joybell readied a javelin and prepared to throw it as soon as one was in range.

Mo shot with his crossbow at the one heading away but missed it, then he inspired Joybell. “Be ready for gargoyles!”

The gargoyles then flew into range. Joybell threw her javelin and hit, because of Mo’s inspiration. Imaktis hit one of them (#6) with a firebolt.

Orryk took a shot at one coming in from the side (where they’d spread out to semi-encircle us), then moved forward again with a sigh, putting himself between the gargoyles and Fiona and Mo. We had not followed his sensible example. He then did patient defense.

Fiona cast firebolt on one of them on the other side of the pincer around us (#9).

Any hope of stopping the one flying back to the rock outcropping faded as he flew away out of all range, even the longbow.

Taman did his insightful fighting so he was able to sneak attack one of them (#5) even though no one else was in combat with it. It would have been a lot more damage done to it if he had a magical bow.

Joybell threw another (non-magical) javelin. She missed and waited for them to get in melee range.

Mo, to Orryk: Thanks a lot for having our back!

Then he cast haste on Orryk and inspired him. “Please kill that thing.”

The gargoyles moved from 80 feet away to right on top of us, though they were then unable to attack.

Joybell: Yay! They landed!

Two went to Orryk, three to Joybell, and one each to Taman, Imaktis, and Fiona. (Oh, dear!)

Imaktis cast spirit guardians and moved behind Taman and Joybell so his guardians, little flying turtles with wings and halos, would catch as many gargoyles as possible.

Orryk, hasted, started punching the one on him that was already damaged -- with his regular attack and his haste attack and he got a LOT of hits and dropped that one. Then he did an extra bonus attack on the other one, but missed it.

Fiona, looking at a gargoyle right in front of her, cast misty step and moved 30’ away, then she threw a firebolt at the one that had moved up on her.

Taman dropped his bow and drew his rapier, but he missed with his stab against the one he had insight against. Joybell then attacked that same one, the one menacing Taman, and hit it pretty solidly.

Mo cast shatter on that one and one of the ones that was just on Joybell. They both failed their saves. He inspired Joybell. “Joybell, go kill these things please.” Then he moved back to where Fiona had misty stepped to.

The gargoyles all failed their saves against the damage from the tiny angry flying turtle spirit guardians. The one that had been on Fiona, briefly, before she misty stepped away, went to Orryk, rather than following Fiona. (From its point of view, that was possibly a poor choice.) One of its attacks hit Orryk -- Mo tried to use cutting words to prevent the hit, but it still got through for a small amount of damage.

Joybell took a claw from one of the ones on her and a bite from the other, doing a chunk of damage to her. Then she protected Taman from one blow with her shield. Unfortunately he then took two more hits from the other one on him. None of them were able to hit Imaktis.

Imaktis cast shillelagh and hit one of the ones on Taman (#7) with it. Orryk attacked one of them (#1) for two hits, then he channeled some of his ki into patient defense.

Fiona observed that they’d abandoned the tactically-sound spread out pincer formation that they’d started in and were instead mostly bunched up around Joybell, Imaktis, and Taman (with a couple of outliers on Orryk). Fireball-formation.

Fiona: Huh. Well, then.

Then she cast fireball centered on Scooby and Joybell. This caught five gargoyles, but she was able to leave all of the party members, including Scooby, out of the spell. Two of them dropped, their stone forms shattered by the thermal shock. Another one looked really really rough.

Taman disengaged and moved around behind one of them and attacked it from behind (an actual backstab!) but missed. Joybell moved to the one Taman had disengaged from, sidling through another one’s threatened area without provoking an opportunity attack, then hit it for a goodly lot of damage. Mo used the wand of magic missiles on one of the ones on Orryk (the one that had gone to Fiona) for some damage.

The gargoyles then took damage from the spirit guardians. One of them (#3) dropped to the little winged turtles. One of them clawed Joybell and hit her. One missed Imaktis. Both of the ones on Orryk were unable to hit him through his patient defense.

Imaktis dropped one of the ones in that cluster then moved over to Orryk, taking the spirit guardians with him. Both of the gargoyles on Orryk were then forced to save against the spirit turtles.

Orryk, still hasted, took many swings at one of the ones on him but only hit once. So he used his bonus action to hit it again. Fiona firebolted the one that had come to menace her and shattered it with a firebolt.

Taman once again moved to attack one from behind. And once again he missed it. Fortunately, Joybell got a crit on that same one and it died very thoroughly to that.

Mo cast vicious mockery on the last remaining gargoyle. “All your friends are dead.” But it saved.

It then took damage from the spirit guardians and missed Orryk with both attacks.

Imaktis missed with his shillelagh. But Orryk shattered it with his second punch and just kept punching the gravel chunks out of the air as they fell to the ground.

Joybell suddenly put two and two together: Orryk! Your fists are magic weapons now?!! That’s amazing!

He confirmed that graciously, even though Joybell should probably have figured that out a few gargoyle fights ago.

Taman climbed a tree and looked around, but didn’t see anything else incoming. However, one of the gargoyles had definitely gone back to report. We moved half an hour off the game trail, then Fiona cast a tiny hut so we had a totally safe place to take a short rest.

We resumed on our way, after deciding to get off this game trail and loop around toward the rock outcropping from another direction.

After another couple of hours, we saw a grassy area with a few scattered clusters of trees between the forest and the rock outcropping. We found a safe place in the forest so Joybell and Imaktis could oil up with the oil of prevention of petrification. There was a bit of fun with the slickness on Imaktis’ shell. We believed that the oil would halt the entire petrification sequence from the myrriq - so they'd be immune to the slow aura and all of its additional effects.

Joybell peeked out through the trees, but didn't really see much except Orryk casting a minor illusion of a bush in front of himself looking out. Brilliant. She moved a few feet and did that herself but still didn’t see much.

Fortunately, when Orryk, Taman and Imaktis looked out from the shelter of the forest they got a good sense of the situation. We were looking at an approximately 120 foot wide grassy strip between the edge of the forest and a rocky scree covered slope with some huge protruding rock outcrops. There was a clear path in the scree leading up the slope and around behind one of the rocks. It was clear that one or more gorgon had rampaged around in the grassy area several times, clearing the underbrush and leaving only small groups of trees that provided some cover.

There were 10 gargoyles spread out on three different rock outcrops. (Note: My sketched map is below. It’s not great, but it’s not horrible either.)

We talked for a moment and remembered that the myrriq's slow aura only worked if you were on the ground - being in the air, or in a tree, or even mounted would keep you safe. From that anyway. So Orryk and Taman climbed trees and Fiona cast fly on herself. Joybell stayed mounted on Scooby. In retrospect, she didn’t really need to do that because she’d oiled up and that left Scooby vulnerable.

Orryk drank a potion of firebreathing.

We decided to stay where we were in the trees, at least on this side of the grassy area, and let them come to us.

Mo, Taman, and Orryk took shots, all at the same gargoyle (the nearest one, #5), hitting it for 14 points of non-magical damage.

(Note: Then we rolled for inits. Joybell, with the advantage on init rolls conferred by the sword of warning wound out with an init of zero. Two nat 1s. Oy!)

Taman and Orryk took shots again at the same one - both hitting.

Mo cast haste on Imaktis -- making him the fastest Tortle in the land. Then he inspired Joybell.

Fiona held a magic missile spell until something was in range.

As we prepared for the gargoyles, a gorgon came charging along the trodden path in the scree, coming just around the rock outcropping toward us.

The gargoyles moved up so they were flying over the no-man’s land of the grassy strip and taking cover in the clusters of trees. Fiona’s magic missile got one of them as it came into range and went into the trees.

Imaktis moved up 45’ into the grassy area and dodged, coaxing them to come to him. Joybell, on Scooby, moved up to right near him and dodged as well.

Taman took a shot at #10 -- it was in the trees and in some cover, but he could get a clear line on it from his position. He hit and did some damage, but the non-magic bow could only get so much through. Orryk shot again at #5, which was in cover but he still hit and did a good deal of damage.

Mo cast shatter on the group taking cover in the same clump of trees (4, 5, 7, and 8). Because gargoyles are made of stone, they had disadvantage on their save against the spell, though most of them saved anyway. But he still did a fair amount of damage to them.

Fiona, flying right at the edge of the trees, moved a little so she could get a clear shot then firebolted #8 and did a good chunk of damage, but didn’t drop it.

The gorgon charged right up to Joybell and Imaktis, but wasn’t able to attack that round. Then the gargoyles moved up so that six of them were surrounding Imaktis and Joybell (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8). The other four moved to different clusters of trees closer to the edge of the forest. Staying in cover.

Joybell, observing the knot of baddies that had formed: Oh, Fiona!

The four gargoyles on Imaktis all missed him with both of their attacks (eight attacks against him total), because a hasted, dodging Tortle is both armored and nimble. The two on Joybell also missed her.

Imaktis cast spirit guardians, because the winged, flying turtles are bad-ass. All of the ones around him and Joybell were in the cloud of guardians, but the others were not. Then he reached out and clawed at the gorgon with his powerful tortle-claws, doing 7 points of damage against it.

Joybell was unable to get to the gorgon because of gargoyle #1 right in front of her so she attacked it, missing with one attack and hitting with the other.

Taman and Orryk (acting on the same init) each targeted the gorgon with their arrows. Taman was able to sneak attack it while it was focused on Imaktis and did 30 points of damage to it. Orryk hit it as well, but not quite so dramatically.

Mo, about 20 feet behind Imaktis and Joybell and right in the way of the gorgon’s breath, cast shatter again on some of the cluster around Imaktis and Joybell -- he couldn’t get all of them and avoid the party members, but he did get the gorgon, and three gargoyles in it. Gargoyle 8 completely blew apart in the shatter spell, the others took damage. The gorgon took some damage but saved. Then Mo moved along the treeline toward where Orryk was in a tree, moving away from the gorgon and its petrifying breath.

Fiona flew closer to Orryk’s tree, which gave her a clear view of the fireball formation of gargoyles and gorgon around Joybell and Imaktis. She took the invitation and cast fireball on that cluster, doing a good deal of damage. (Note: I think she dropped #7 and #4, as I can’t otherwise account for them dying.) Then she flew higher, up above the tree canopy.

The gorgon took a step back, provoking a claw attack from Imaktis. It also took damage from the spirit guardians. Then, having lined up a better attack, it breathed on us. Because of the oil, only Scooby had to actually save and he had no problems (Nat 20!). (To anyone watching from the rocks, it looked like we all just made our saves.)

Then the gargoyles were attacked by the spirit guardians, which dropped #5 and #1, leaving only #2 of that cluster of six. It attacked Joybell and missed.

The gargoyles that had been taking cover in the trees moved out. Mo was attacked by #3 and #10 and one of them hit him but he was able to use his goliath resilience to ignore the damage. The other missed.

#9 and #6 found Orryk in his tree. The first one hit him, so he used his gnomish ability to fade away and go invisible, so the second one, unable to see him, missed.

Imaktis moved up to right in front of the gorgon again and attacked it twice. The first attack missed but the second dropped it. Yay!

Joybell dropped gargoyle #2, the last of that cluster, then moved on Scooby over to where she could protect Mo with her shield from the two on him. And hopefully draw some of their attacks.

Orryk in the tree had two gargoyles flying around him, #9 and #6, but couldn’t get both of them in a firebreath. So he punched #9, hitting once, and then did his patient defense, dodging their attacks nimbly, while perched in a tree.

Taman ran to the end of the branch he’d been perched on and leapt off, flipping through the air somewhat ungracefully, but landing behind one of the gargoyles on Mo and stabbing it in the back for a lot of sneaky damage.

Mo used the wand of magic missile to shoot #10 with three missiles, then he inspired Taman. “Please kill the things that came to kill me.”

Fiona, seeing that all of the flying monsters were occupied, flew over the grassy area and took a shot at #9 with a firebolt, but missed.

One of the gargoyles attacked Taman and Joybell tried to protect him from the first attack, but despite her interposing her shield the attack still got through to hit him The gargoyle’s second attack missed him and the other gargoyle they were facing missed her entirely.

The two on Orryk, who was dodging through the branches of the tree, both missed.

Imaktis moved up to where Joy, Taman and Mo were dealing with gargoyles #10 and #3, forcing them to take some damages from the spirit guardians. Then he missed with both of his attacks (regular and hasted) on #10. Fortunately, Joybell then dropped #10. Unfortunately, even with Mo’s inspiration (from early in the combat) she missed #3. Taman attacked #3 and, inspired by Mo, hit it, and did damage, but not as much as earlier sneak attacks.

Orryk punched #9 again, hitting once and missing once. Then, because he had two opponents on him, he spent a ki point for patient defense and went back to dodging through the tree branches.

Mo stabbed and #3 and got a hit, but because his rapier is not magical, it just knocked a chip off the gargoyle. Fiona took a shot at one of the two on Orryk with a firebolt, but missed.

#3, surrounded by Joybell, Imaktis, Taman, and Mo, and harrassed by the winged spirit guardian turtles, mussed with both of his attacks against Taman. Orryk, on the other hand, was hit twice, despite his athletic and graceful dodging in the tree.

Imaktis, still enjoying the effects of the haste spell, took a swing at #3 and did a good chunk of damage, but didn’t drop it. Then he went over to Orryk’s tree, provoking an opportunity attack which missed. The very large tortle then began climbing Orryk’s tree, his tortle claws gaining purchase in the tree’s bark, to get the gargoyles attacking Orryk into the cloud of spirit guardians.

Joybell attacked #3, missing once and then hitting for maximum damage, but it didn’t drop.

Orryk punched #9, getting a critical hit, then dropped it with his second punch. Now no longer outnumbered, he used his bonus action to punch #6.

Taman stabbed #3 for 23 points of damage, because he was able to sneak in the attack while it was focused on Joybell, dropping it finally. Then he moved to the nearest cluster of trees in the grassy strip and climbed into it.

Mo used the wand to magic missile the last remaining gargoyle, #6 on Orryk.

That gargoyle then attacked Orryk, hitting once for a small amount of damage, despite the harassment and damage from the spirit guardians.

Imaktis cast toll the dead on the final gargoyle. It didn’t save against the spell, but didn’t drop to the ringing of the bell either.

Joybell, figuring that Imaktis and Orryk had that situation in hand, moved (still on Scooby) into one of the groves of trees in the no-man’s land of the grassy strip, taking cover.

Before anyone could act, a shatter spell went off next to Fiona, floating in the air well above the grassy area. Fortunately she didn’t take a lot of damage from it and was able to maintain her fly spell.

Taman immediately looked around to see who cast the spell. What he saw was some rippling in the ground on the scree-covered hill, like something was diving back into the earth.

Taman: Earthmander!

Orryk, with a gargoyle still in front of him, punched with three strikes against the gargoyle, getting two hits, one of them a crit. He punched another gargoyle into rubble. His hands were covered in gargoyle dust and his clothes had chips of stone and dust on them.

Mo moved a little closer to the tree Taman was in and started dodging. Imaktis ran at full, hasted tilt across the grassy area, ending at the start of the path through the scree. Joybell moved up next to him and started dodging herself.

Two rocks (2 boulder creatures) started rolling toward Imaktis and Joybell, one from each rock outcropping flanking the path. Imaktis hoped they were creatures, because they'd take damage from the spirit guardians. They were apparently enemies at least, because one attacked Joybell and got a crit on her, even with her dodging. Ouch!

Then the myrriq came up out of the ground behind Imaktis and Joybell. Its eyes flashed and it flared its aura toward us in a potent cone attack. Only Scooby had to save against the slow and he was able to do so. Then it sank back into the ground.

Orryk, still in his tree, nocked an arrow and held his attack, waiting for the myrriq to appear again.

Taman took a shot at the boulder on Joybell, but missed. Mo moved up just a bit and took a shot with his crossbow at the boulder on Imaktis, but missed.

Fiona held a chromatic orb spell for the myrriq to appear.

Imaktis attacked the boulder-thing in front of him twice with his shillelagh, then attacked it again because of the haste. Joybell took two swings at the boulder in front of her but, unfortunately, missed both times.

The two boulders attacked. The one on Joybell got hit again for 14 points of damage. Imaktis was missed.

The myrriq appeared further up the path, higher on the scree-covered hill. Fiona, seeing that it was just barely in range, let her chromatic orb spell fly, but it missed. The myrriq did something and the earth around Imaktis, Joybell and Scooby erupted, rocks and gravel and large stones flying all around. Imaktis was able to avoid some of the damage, but Joybell and Scooby were not. Scooby disappeared, back to the celestial realm he comes from. Despite the damage, imaktis was able to keep his concentration on the spiritual turtle guardians.

Taman and Orryk both took shots at the boulder-thing attacking Joybell, who was looking a bit ragged, and both of them were able to hit. Because the boulder was focusing its bouldery attention on Joybell, Taman was able to make a sneak attack.

Mo moved up just a bit and cast healing word on Joybell, giving her some welcome relief from her injuries, then used the wand of magic missiles to shoot the boulder attacking her.

Fiona, not wanting to have to aim her spell the next time, held a powerful magic missile spell for the myrriq to appear again. That would definitely hit.

Imaktis hit his boulder twice. Joybell missed hers twice then cast misty step and moved away 25 feet, out of the difficult terrain created by the myrriq’s spell (the one that took out Scooby). Her plan was to lay hands on herself then get back in the combat.

The boulder that had been attacking her went to attack Imaktis instead -- not a great decision on its part, but it was a boulder, so okay. Both of the boulders took some damage from the spirit guardians. Then both missed with their attacks against Imaktis.

The myrriq popped up out of the ground right next to Joybell. It immediately took 18 points of damage from Fiona’s magic missile spell. It also clawed at Joybell, missing with one attack and doing a glancing blow with the other. That “glancing blow” did her 13 points of damage.

Taman shot the myrriq doing a lot of sneak attack damage (though it was non-magical damage). Orryk moved closer and took two shots, adding up to almost the same amount of damage as Taman did.

Mo viciously mocked the myrriq. “You look like a pile of dirt.” But the myrriq saved against the barb. Fiona tried again with her chromatic orb, and again the spell missed the target.

Imaktis disengaged from the boulder-things and moved to the myrriq. The spirit guardian turtles attacked it. Imaktis, still hasted, also cast guiding bolt, but that missed. Joybell cast wrathful smite and attacked but missed with both of her swings.

The boulders followed Imaktis, reentering the cloud of tiny winged turtles and taking damage from them. They both missed with their attacks.

The myrriq slashed at Joybell, who was once again very badly injured, with its rocky claws. One attack missed. The other almost hit but Mo said some cutting words that distracted it and saved her from the blow, which would certainly have dropped her. Whew!

Taman tried to use his insightful fighting ability on the myrriq, but it was able to remain inscrutable to him. He took a shot at the myrriq with his bow, using his luck to try and force the arrow to strike true, but even with what seemed like a lucky deflection off a branch, he still missed. Fortunately, Orryk was able to shoot it twice with his magic bow.

Mo used the wand to magic missile the myrriq then moved a little closer to the action -- but not too close and definitely still outside of the slow aura.Fiona cast a magic missile at second level on the myrriq and damaged it. Imaktis attacked the more damaged looking of the boulder-things, bludgeoning it with his shillelagh in his first attack, but his second attack missed.

Joybell, on her last legs, got a hit with her flail, triggering her wrathful smite. She also called down divine energy into the blow and dropped the myrriq, which collapsed into earth and rock.

The boulders settled to rest on the ground, no longer animate.

An elemental, different in type from the one we’d fought on the way here, rose up out of the ground and apologized in Terran. (Imaktis speaks Aquan, a different dialect of Primordial, so we were able to communicate with this entity.)

We all started to move in the direction of the elemental. Joybell laid hands on herself on the way, giving herself all the healing she could muster.

The elemental told Imaktis that there was a minor portal to the plane of Earth here. He has been here protecting the portal and protecting this plane from what might come through for a long time. The myrriq overwhelmed his mind and dominated him and he has been forced to do its bidding.

Imaktis: What is your name?
Elemental: I don’t have one.
Imaktis, in common to the party: His name is Rubble.

We decided to call him Barney.

Barney: I am what you call a galeb duhr.
Imaktis: These creatures have caused a lot of damage to the villages around here. Can you help them rebuild?
Barney: I would be happy to help repair the damage, but the gate still needs protection. I can close it for a short time, but not for long.

Barney said that he would summon an earth elemental with a control gem and let us take it back to Tall Orchard to help with the rebuilding. It would be able to help in any way the villagers needed. He summoned an elemental through the gate and then closed it.

Orryk is not going to be happy about giving up the elemental.

He told Imaktis that the myrriq had been collecting things for some time and that we were welcome to anything he had collected. He led us up the path toward the gate to where the myrriq’s treasure was collected.

Orryk and Taman each noted the location of this portal on his personal map.

Imaktis: Is there anything we can do for you? This has been a difficult experience for you.

We spent some time going through the myrriq’s hoard of treasure.

Treasure:
150 pp
2200 gp
4000 sp
1100 cp

2 silk robes (250 gp each)

3 boxes of figurines, one each in obsidian, turquoise and jade, with figures representing gods from before the Severance. (250 gp each box) (Joybell would like these -- so she will add 750gp to the pool of dividable coinage and take them if that’s okay.)

Magical items:

Keoughtoum’s Ointment - 3 doses
Potion of Radiance Resistance
Belt of Hidden Knives (Orryk) - produces +1 daggers on demand, though they disappear immediately after their attack.
Medic’s Blade (Joybell) - +1 shortsword that allows you to use your reaction after dropping an enemy to cast healing word on someone else.

There were also three scrolls with three unknown 3rd level spells:

Ameliorate (Cleric, Bard) - grants temporary hit points to several creatures over the course of several rounds.
Shadow Bolt (Wizard, Sorcerer) -- an illusion that does damage. (Fiona)
Mass Vicious Mockery (Bard) - allows the bard to viciously mock up to six creatures at once. (Mo)

Now that Imaktis knows about Ameliorate, he can pray for it and prepare it as with any other cleric spell. Mo has the option to learn the bard spells when he gains a level. And Fiona can transcribe Shadow Bolt into her spellbook in the usual manner.

The coinage divides up thus:
25 pp
491 gp (with 4 left over) (this is taking into account Joybell buying the boxes of religious figurines and putting that gold in the pot to be divided)
666 sp (with 4 left over)
183 cp (with 2 left over)

The Bag of Holding has some items that we recovered from the House of Masks but didn’t want to sell in Pelsoreen. We can add the robes to it so that the Bag of Holding now has the following coinage-nearly-equivalent items that are party treasure:
2 small boxes of jade animals (250gp each)
3 gold bracelets (250gp each)
2 silk robes (250 gp each)

The religious figurines were described as including an obsidian jaguar curled around in a circle -- which someone recognized as the symbol of a god called Smoking Mirror (Tezcatlipoca), a turquoise dog recognized as a god called Coyote, and a multi-armed humanoid figure in jade representing a goddess called Kali. Kali was worshiped to the east just across these mountains, but Smoking Mirror and Coyote were not historically worshipped in this part of Urnod. They were worshipped across the sea to the south of Pelsoreen.

Joybell wants to reexamine the boxes of jade animals we found at the House of Masks to make sure that none of them are pre-Severance gods before we sell them. (Note: They are not.)

Party Kitty:
Since the last Party Kitty Update we paid for 3 nights of lodging at the Iron Steed in Pelsoreen (at 6 gp/night) and three nights of travel on the road (at 3 gp/night, because Mo sang us a discount). So taking out 18 gp for lodging in Pelsoreen, 9 gp for lodging on the road and adding the leftovers from the coins as above, the party kitty currently has: 2 pp, 9 gp, 14 sp, and 14 cp.


----------



## prabe (Nov 15, 2020)

Session 19: More of the Crazy and Back to Pelsoreen

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


A bit of retconning before we got going: Barney did not create a living boulder-thing for us to take back to Tall Orchard to help the halflings, as those only last for a minute and have a very limited range. Instead…

Barney said that he would summon an earth elemental with a control gem and let us take it back to Tall Orchard to help with the rebuilding. It would be able to help in any way the villagers needed. He summoned an elemental through the gate and then closed it.


2 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 33) (immediately after)

After we talked with the galeb duhr, Barney, and while FIona was identifying the magical treasure, Joybell cut up this gorgon to see if she could find the source of the petrification breath -- starting at the nostrils and working backwards. She found something in the sinuses that seemed like a strong candidate and collected that. Mo suggested we could bottle it or extract it and have Essence of Gorgon Snot. Joybell thought about that idea for a second and realized that she couldn’t really do anything with it with her herbalism kit. It was going to take someone good with alchemist’s equipment to make anything out of it.

She put a wad of the gorgon snot (well the part of its sinuses that seemed to be connected to the petrifying breath anyway) into her iron pot and put that into the bag of holding. She also put the longsword that she left the Basalt Henge with into the bag of holding for the party to sell when we get to someplace Nicer Than Pelsoreen.

Orryk asked Barney about the other side of the gate and whether there was a city nearby on the Plane of Earth. Barney said that he didn’t remember there being one.

Barney, pointing to the sunset: I have seen over 700,000 of those.

That translated to over 2000 years that he had been guarding this portal, since before the Severance. Joybell asked him if he knew anything about the Severance, since as an extra-planar being he might have had a different perspective. He said he was summoned by a druid to guard the gate. He didn’t personally notice the Severance, though he noticed some of the effects, and he wasn’t personally affected by it.

Joybell asked if we could see the gate, just to look at it like we had the fire gate at the Primal Atoll. He told us that the gate was currently closed and inactive, but there was still something to see. Barney told us that the borders between this world and the other planes are very porous, especially since the Severance, but this gate is from before that and is pretty stable. It mostly doesn’t open accidentally. The myrriq didn’t come through here -- it had been wandering around on this world for a few years before it came to this gate a couple of weeks ago.

We were led into a cave where there was a patch on the wall like the inside of a geode -- the crystals were swirling and moving around each other. Very pretty!

Mo: Aren’t we on the plane of earth. There’s all this earth around us…

Orryk and Taman both made careful note of the location of this gate on their maps.

We spent some time talking about if we really needed to give the elemental to the halflings at Tall Orchard. Well, Orryk raised the question, anyway. We discussed the logistical difficulties of going to Pelsoreen, getting it into the teleportation circle for the trip back to Embernook, etc. As part of this discussion, we asked Barney if the elemental was always there or if it could be dismissed and summoned again using the gem. He said that it was always there.

Joybell asked Orryk if she could look at the elemental’s control gem. He said yes and let her look at it. While he was still holding it. He didn’t let it go. For a second.

On that note, we made our usual precautions to rest. WIth the addition of the earth elemental patrolling around us, gliding through the earth with only its head out of the ground as a moving rock.

The night passed without incident.


3 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 34)

The first thing in the morning Joybell cast find steed again (or as she thinks of it “find Scooby”). Fiona cast a sending to let the halflings of Tall Orchard know that it was safe for them to return to their village.

We headed out toward Tall Orchard, following the direct and cleared gorgon trail (which we figured would shave several hours off of the travel time). The earth elemental sometimes walked, sometimes earth-glided. From the sound the elemental made when the rocks that made up its body ground against each other, it came to be called Gurn. As we traveled, Orryk studied everything he could about Gurn -- how it moved, how it passed in and out of the earth, how he was able to control it. He traveled at the back of the party because he was mostly interested in Gurn and what it could to.

We followed the trail back to where we’d buried the first gorgon head (after preserving it with a gentle repose spell). As we arrived at the spot where we’d first fought the myrriq and killed the gorgon, Taman saw three _huge_ figures moving through the forest.

Mo cast the rope trick and we all climbed up into it. (Mo passed Scooby up to Joybell once she was in it). Imaktis dithered a bit and thought about staying out, but then he went up into it as well. Orryk had Gurn gliding around under the ground beneath the rope trick.

Three hill giants plodded through the clearing. They didn’t appear to be heading toward Tall Orchard or any particular place. Certainly not any place we felt a need to stop hill giants from getting to. So we let them go by. They’re evil, lazy, destructive and dumb, but this is their natural environment. And they weren’t heading toward Tall Orchard.

Of course this meant that we were forgetting the lesson that if we let things go by we only fight them again later when it’s worse. But we figured it was okay in this case.

Once the giants passed, we came out of the rope trick and dug up the gorgon head. Then Gurn grabbed it by one of the horns and carried it as we continued on our way to Tall Orchard. Orryk continued to be really focused on Gurn and not so much on the outside.

We arrived back at Tall Orchard toward the end of the day.

We could see across the small village center that the halflings were arriving at the village at almost the same time, coming from the opposite direction. Between us and them, we could see a troll. It was looking toward where it could hear the halflings in the town until it heard us, then it turned in our direction.

Taman: What the hell is that?!

Then he took a shot with his longbow at it.

Orryk took a shot with his shortbow and had Gurn sink into the ground and then rise up in front of the troll. Joyell rode Scooby to about 10 feet away from the troll -- then she jumped off and engaged the troll, while Scooby circled around toward the halflings to protect them. Joybell attacked with her new sword and got one hit.

Fiona cast a scorching ray on the troll and got one hit with fire damage. Mo cast a shatter spell on it and it reeled from the damage it took. Then he inspired Imaktis.

Mo: Kill it.
Imaktis: Okay.

Because of Fiona’s scorching ray, the troll wasn’t going to regenerate any damage this turn.

Another troll came out from between a couple of buildings to the north and attacked Joybell with two swinging claws and a bite. Only the bite hit. The one Joybell had attacked missed with all three of its attacks. Then a third troll came out from behind a building to the south but it couldn’t get into a good place to attack her, or anyone else. (Total: 3 trolls)

It did however move into a good formation for FIona.

Taman moved and dashed to stab the one that came from between the buildings to the north for a nice lot of sneaky damage. Orryk tried to use his water whip ability to knock that same one prone, but it it saved and wasn’t pulled over. Gurn took two slam attacks on the same one and hit it once for a lot of damage. Unfortunately, the second slam missed. Orryk then shot at it twice with his bow and got one hit.

Imaktis missed the first one with a firebolt then cast shillelagh and closed on it, but wasn’t able to get into position to attack. Joybell hit it twice, dropping it, but we knew that since it hadn’t taken fire damage yet, it would be regenerating.

FIona, seeing her cue in the cluster of enemies, cast a fireball on top of all three of them, including the one that was dropped. The downed one automatically failed the save and began to burn. The one that came from the north was screaming and on fire and the one that came from the south was very unhappy looking and lightly smoldering.

Mo cast a high-level blindness spell on the two remaining trolls. After that both of the trolls were screaming -- one from the fire and the other from being blinded.

The blinded troll then attacked Imaktis -- at least that’s who it seemed to be attacking, but its blind flails missed entirely. Frustrated, it shook its head and appeared to be able to see, but it couldn’t attack again immediately. The other one ignored Joybell and turned around to attack Taman, but it also missed wildly.

Taman, in return, attacked it, taking advantage of distraction to sneak attack. He dropped it with his attack, but knew that it would regenerate if someone couldn’t get fire or acid on it soon.

Orryk had Gurn slam twice at the one left standing but it missed both times. Orryk then took two shots with his bow and hit once.

Imaktis, in an attempt to deal with the one that just needed a bit of fire damage to keep it from regenerating, took a shot at it with a firebolt. Unfortunately, because it was prone he was unable to get a good shot at it and missed.

Joybell moved around the smoldering dropped troll to attack the one that was still standing. Fiona cast another fireball at ground zero on the trolls (and Taman, Imaktis and Joybell). The one that was still standing didn’t drop but the other two were burning corpses at the end of it.

Mo then viciously mocked the one remaining. “All of your friends are dead. Why don’t you join them?” And it died, mocked to death.

We attempted to loot the bodies, but the trolls had no loot. Orryk put out the fires using his ability to control flame and Gurn took the bodies out into the forest.

Joybell went to talk to the villagers and asked them about whether the trolls are a regular threat. They said that while the trolls have been in the area for a while, they didn’t generally come into the village to cause problems. Joybell told them that the source of the bulette and other hazards in the area was gone so they should be more or less back to normal now. She also told them that Gurn would be staying with them, under their control for a year. Then he would return to the plane of earth. She suggested that he could help them rebuild and possibly help survivors of other villages relocate to Tall Orchard.

Orryk spent the evening “teaching” the halflings’ cleric how to control Gurn. Mostly he was controlling Gurn while the halfling was there watching and maybe occasionally trying to get his hand on the control gem without success.

We made camp with our usual precautions. Orryk still had control of Gurn and had him bolstering our watches with a mostly subterranean patrol around the tiny hut.

The night passed without incident.


4 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 35)

In the morning we hitched up Horse 1 and Horse 2 to the wagon. Gurn put the gorgon head into the wagon and we covered it with a tarp.

As we left, Joybell and Mo told Tilia and Allard, the halfling teens we’d initially met, and the town elders that we could be contacted through the Administrator in Embernook. He’d hold letters for us if they were sent to him. Orryk and Joybell (at least) left the copper and silver coins they got from the myrriq’s hoard with the people of Tall Orchard to help them pay for rebuilding and reconstruction. (And so we didn’t have to haul it around with us.)

As we walked through the town, Orryk enjoyed his last few minutes of controlling Gurn, then, at or just beyond the borders of the village, he passed over the control gem, reluctantly, to the halfling cleric. Mo and Joybell talked about the value of setting up some sort of communication network so that people could get in touch with us if they needed our help -- sending a letter to us through the Administrator is not a quick way to communicate and emergency.

We traveled the six hours to Rodzun without incident and decided to press on for another four to get to Lunn, since the days were still quite long. Once we were on the main road, we moved pretty quickly so we could get to Lunn without it being too dark when we got there.

Orryk was Sad Orryk the whole way. We need to get him an elemental again.


In Lunn we found the most perfect inn -- called the Flying Turtle. Of course we stayed there. (There was another inn, but we didn’t care -- the Flying Turtle was the obvious choice.) Mo offered to perform for our lodgings (at a discount) but didn’t play his flute and sing this time -- instead he did a stand-up routine focusing on Dwarvish humor (rather earthy). He was an absolute riot and everyone loved him.

At the inn, we made our usual precautions and the night passed without incident.


5 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 36)

First thing the next morning, while we were having breakfast right around dawn (while the light was still quite dim in the town) there was a commotion out on the streets. The moment we heard screams, Joybell jumped on Scooby and ran outside.

Fiona took a last bite of her eggs, looked around for a second, then cast mage armor on herself.

When Joybell got to the door of the Flying Turtle’s tavern room, she saw a big long skinny thing with no skin wrapped around a person on the street, babbling crazily. The limbs didn’t bend right and it moved in a disturbingly off way. There were also 10 small creatures shaped like balls with big teeth in mouths that were continuously disappearing and reappearing in different locations on the creature’s body. They were also gibbering and babbling. There were two of them around the same civilian the tall lanky boneless looking thing was wrapped around and four around each of two other civilians. (1 Skinned One, 10 Star-Spawn Grues).

Taman moved out of the tavern, keeping his back to the wall by the door, and shot the skinned one with his longbow. When the arrow hit, the skinned one’s arms tightened around the civilian it was holding and that civilian went limp in its arms. Oh!

Fiona moved to just inside the door and took a shot at the skinned one with a firebolt and got a great shot for 15 points of damage. For good or ill, the civilian in its arms was already apparently dead, so this caused no further damage to be passed along to him.

The grues attacked. Four of them ripped a civilian apart just outside the door to the inn. The other four attacking a civilian got some hits, but didn’t kill her. The two that had been next to the skinned one came over to Taman, but weren’t able to attack.

Orryk, still annoyed at the world because he’d had an elemental under his control briefly and now didn’t, threw daggers from his Belt of Many Daggers at one of the ones on Taman and did a nice chunk of damage. Then he used his fists of unbroken air to punch it as well.

Orryk: If Gurn was here….

Mo moved next to FIona and viciously mocked the one that Orryk attacked (“Screw you guys!”) and then inspired Taman. Imaktis moved up and cast his spirit guardians -- flying turtles in the Flying Turtle!

The skinned one dropped his dead victim and moved up to the civilian that had been hurt by four grues and attacked twice. Joybell was preparing to scream in anger at having to watch it kill the civilian, but it missed both times.

Joybell rode over there on Scooby -- stopping a few feet away then sending Scooby off to protect any civilians not currently under attack before she closed on the skinned one on foot. She attacked but appeared to be hindered in her attacks by the small grues all around and missed both times.

The other civilians in the street screamed and scattered into houses and places of business, closing and locking doors behind them.

Taman drew his rapier and stabbed the same one Orryk attacked, dropping it. Then he turned to the other one on him, feeling a bit less nervous now that he wasn’t outnumbered.

We noticed that when the grues died, they sort of broke apart into flickering image fragments (like a hologram breaking into static), leaving no corpse or even residue behind.

Fiona stepped out of the building and found herself in a target rich environment. She cast scorching ray at the skinned one and two of her three rays hit.

The grues moved -- one group moved to surround Joybell and another to surround Fiona. Most of the ones on Fiona moved into Imaktis’ cloud of spirit turtles and took damage. All of the attacks of the four grues on FIona missed. The one remaining on Taman attacked him and missed. And the four on Joybell all missed.

Orryk moved to where he could back up Taman and threw two daggers at Taman’s grue, dropping it (with 21 points of damage!). Then he turned and did a flurry of blows with his fists of unbroken air on one of the ones on Fiona.

Mo moved out into the street and used 3 charges off the wand of magic missile to hit three of the four on Joybell (two of them with two darts each). None of them dropped but they all took some damage. Imaktis used a dash action to come up behind the grues on Joybell -- getting his spirit guardians into play against them.

Joybell attacked the skinned one, again hindered by the grues all around her, and managed to get one hit, despite them.

Imaktis noticed that the skinned one didn’t take as much damage as he should have from Joybell’s blow. It seemed like his shadow was absorbing some of the damage. (Joybell had two opportunities to notice this and failed both of them.)

The skinned one attacked Joybell and missed. He also failed to move out of the cloud of spirit turtles.

Taman moved over and sneak attacked one of the ones on FIona, doing enough damage to drop it.

Fiona cast misty step and moved out into the middle of the road and away from trouble. Then she firebolted one of the ones that had been attacking her for 15 points of damage. But that didn’t drop it.

On the grues’ turn, most of the ones in Imaktis’ spirit guardians cloud dropped to the claws of the tiny flying turtles. Only one stayed up. The two on Taman (formerly on Fiona) both missed.

Orryk moved into melee with one of the two on Taman and attacked with two daggers, getting two hits. He then did a flurry of blows - the first punch dropped one and the second punch dropped the other.

Mo viciously mocked the skinned one, but it saved. Then he inspired Imaktis. Imaktis, inspired, cast guiding bolt on the skinned one and it died in a brilliant flash of sparkling light. Joybell attacked the last grue and dropped it with a critical hit.

The civilian that had been surrounded and threatened (and even attacked) for several rounds broke out of her paralytic fear, screamed, and ran into the nearest building.

We got a look at the skinned one -- it looked like a big, deformed, skinless, slightly glistening humanoid dead guy. He didn’t appear to have any internal structure, no bones or cartilage. He did have internal organs, just no bones and no skin.

Imaktis: He probably left tracks.

Taman and Imaktis were both able to track the trail of bodily fluids and slime left by the skinned one. They came into town from Orlimmun, the next town on the way to Pelsoreen. So backtracking the monster would even be right on our way.

We put the skinned one’s body onto our cart, with the thought that Black Irnod might be interested in him when we got back to Pelsoreen. Then we loaded up the rest of our things, finished our breakfasts, and headed out toward Orlimmun.

After only about 15 minutes, we found a wagon on the side of the road. The trail of bodily fluids started there. In the back, we found a corpse that was literally nothing but skin and bones -- the parts that were missing from the skinned one. The empty skin was slumped back against the side of the wagon and had a book sitting in its lap. A few steps away from the wagon in the road we found the body of what we assumed had been the driver -- he had a bunch of open holes, like huge cysts the size of grapefruits had developed on his body and burst open. Or like things had hatched out of his body.

Glancing at the outside of the book, carefully, Fiona and Orryk didn’t see anything ominous about it. There was no title or marking on it -- it was just an ordinary looking book bound normally in ordinary looking leather.

Imaktis cast detect magic and found that the book is definitely magical and had elements of transmutation, conjuration and necromancy magic on it.

Fiona sat down and performed the ritual to cast identify and learned that it’s a book of the Hunger Between Worlds. Reading it is dangerous. Reading it out loud is even more so.

While she was doing that, the rest of us looked in the cart to see if we saw anything else. We found a traveler’s trunk or chest. Inside were some coins (amounting to 18gp in value total) and some papers which turned out to be correspondence.

The envelopes had all been discarded, so we had nothing with either the address of the recipient or the senders. All of the letters were written in different handwriting but they were all addressed to “Jorlas”. All of them were personal enough that there was no last name given.

One of the letters particularly caught our attention -- it told Jorlas (presumably the skinned one) to go to New Arvai to meet Elledrian, an elf librarian at the School of the World, and pick up a package, a book. He was to meet the letter-writer on the cart-track heading east from Rodzun. The letter was signed only with N.

Another letter gave Jorlas “greetings from the shadows of Promontory.” Taman remembered that Promontory is a neighborhood in Erlin, a city on the river between Embernook and New Arvai.

(Note: These letters are at the end of this session’s notes, they will be available as a handout and are also on the shared drive now.)

As we were looking at the letters and the cart, we noticed that Imaktis’ eyes weren’t pink any longer.

Joybell: Aw. It looked festive!

We left their wagon on the side of the road (on the grounds that it was not better than our wagon), but took the bodies (including all the parts of the skinned one) and cremated them.

Before we continued on our way, Joybell asked Orryk to take the orrery we got from the cleric of the Servants of the Hunger (see Session 9) out of the bag of holding. After a few moments of spinning, it began to point to this new book. When we put the book into the bag of holding, the orrery went back to spinning without indicating a direction.

Right. Both of those were left in the bag.

We took the box of letters to Jorlas and continued on our way to Tummeleen. We passed through Orlimmun around lunch time and continued without more than a brief rest stop. When we got to Tummeleen, we stayed again at the same in we’d been at on the way out -- the Sterling Scythe.

Mo played music at the inn, but it was a weird and unsettling day and it was not his best performance. Despite that, we did get our usual discount at the inn and he made 3gp in tips, because Tummeleen was hopping.

During the evening meal, Joybell asked the innkeeper if the two people from the cart -- Jornas and the driver who had the grues burst out of him - had stayed there, but the descriptions (as best she could give them) didn’t ring a bell.

Joybell: Have you heard of anyone in these parts whose name begins with N who might be into books?
Innkeeper, puzzled: No…

There was a three-cart trade caravan out of Pelsoreen staying at the Sterling Scythe for the night. They were traveling together for safety, but one was a spice merchant, one a fabric merchant and the third, much like the halflings we rescued from the ogres on the way out, a group of traveling artisans offering their skills in the small towns they went through. They were heading out to Rodzun and back, but didn’t seem to plan to head out into the smaller villages beyond Rodzun (like Tall Orchard).

We asked the fabric merchants if they were interested in the silk robes we’d gotten from the myrriq. They purchased them for 250gp each. (Which divided to 83gp each and 2 for the party kitty)

Joybell asked the innkeeper after those halflings we’d rescued and was told that they got gentle repose cast on their brother’s body and then headed to Pelsoreen. Hopefully they were able to get someone to resurrect him there.

Joybell, to the merchants: How are things in Pelsoreen? We left when there was this cold going around and there was some craziness with the slaves.
Merchant: They started looking at records and sorting things out to free people who shouldn’t have been slaves. Then right as we were leaving, we heard that some of the clerics of the Enthroned had made it all go away.
Joybell: Do you know of anyone whose name begins with N who might be interested in library books?
Merchant: No…
Joybell: Okay, thanks!

We then rested for the night, taking our usual precautions. It passed without incident.


6 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 37)

In the morning, before we left our room, Fiona cast a sending to Tulmor.

Fiona: We found another book of madness. Please advise. We’re a day out from Pelsoreen.
Tulmor, immediately: naughty word! <<long pause, but Fiona could tell that the spell’s connection remained open>> Book in bag of holding. Go to Pelsoreen. Moving probably safer than standing still.

This put Taman on edge and he spent the day on high alert as we traveled.

As we traveled this last day back to Pelsoreen, Mo named Horse 1 and Horse 2, Mr. Ed and Secretariat, respectively. Amazingly, despite having been named, the horses survived the day’s travel back to Pelsoreen.

The whole day’s travel was without incident and we were even fortunate that the causeway was up when we arrived, so we could cross straight into the city. (By certain broad values of fortunate, anyway.)

The causeway cost 1sp per person or mount and 1gp for the cart. So we just gave them the two extra gold from splitting up the proceeds of selling the robes the night before and crossed into Pelsoreen.

Taman started looking around for people following us as soon as we were in the city.

It looked pretty much like it did when we first arrived there. It was kind of late-ish in the day (the causeway is up just before sunset), but we went to Urlott’s with the gorgon head first, because we didn’t want to have to worry about it once we were in the city.

Taman: There are too many libraries in this city.
Fiona: <<blank disbelief>>

We gave the librarian at Urlott’s the gorgon head -- he received it with glee -- and got in return a library card allowing Fiona and Orryk entrance to the library.

We took a slightly round-about route from there to the Iron Steed so we could go past the House of Masks to see if it was occupied. Nothing was obvious from the street outside, so Mo cast clairvoyance, holding his hands over his eyes like a junior birdman hand-mask.

The circles over his eyes flared bright then glowed and he was looking into the back room of the House of Masks. He placed the clairvoyance sensor so he could see both of the storage rooms (but not the teleportation circle). It didn’t look the way we left it, but it wasn’t clear whether the place was reoccupied by Masks or if someone was squatting there. There were some supplies, but not as many as there had been. So Mo moved his hands away and held them out vibrating them, then covered his ears and listened for a moment through the spell -- he heard some movement from upstairs. When we looked at the upstairs windows, we could see a small amount of light.

Mo cast the spell again, this time placing the sensor in the barracks room upstairs. He could see 8 Masks moving around. They weren’t sleeping - they were resetting the barracks and fixing things up.

We don’t know if the teleportation circle had been repaired, but guessed most likely not because the Cracked Shield orcs busted it up good and that would take a bit of time to undo.

We continued on our way to the Iron Steed.

Orryk: If we had an earth elemental, we could just send it in to deal with them…

Later, after we’d had our dinners and were in our room at the inn, we talked a bit about the fact that it was not going to be difficult for the new Masks to figure out who had destroyed their operation here. Some of the citizens knew it was us even before Joybell failed to keep quiet about it. And we figured word like that would travel. We weren’t sure how good the Masks would be at extracting information from people (at least without breaking them in the process) and we weren’t sure how quickly word would spread that we were back in town. But we definitely need to stay on alert for the Masks to come after us.

Taman: Are we going to kill these new Masks?
Orryk: If they’re just going to go kidnap more kids to make more Masks, that’s not a good idea.
Joybell: I agree with Orryk. I hate it. We need to find their home base and destroy them there. Entirely. If we kill these, more kids will be hurt.

We then made our usual precautions and set watches, in case the Masks came for us. And in case cultists figured out how to track the Book of Madness in the bag of holding. Taman and Joybell had the first watch, Mo and Imaktis the second and Orryk and Fiona the third.

With, or despite, all of our precautions, the night passed without incident.


7 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 38)

Over breakfast we made a plan for the day. Orryk and Fiona were going to head to Urlott’s to do research there -- into the House of Masks and what kind of weird magic could turn pre-pubescent children into goliath-sized assassins with a hive mind. Joybell wanted to go talk to Black Irnod to see if he could do anything with the gorgon snot (or recommend someone who could). She also wanted to check in with the Cracked Shield and see how they’d weathered the pink-eye plague and how the Orcphans were doing. Taman planned to go with Joybell to keep her out of trouble. And Mo and Imaktis, after realizing that they didn’t know where to start with their idea of finding a genie to kill, decided to go with Taman and Joybell.

When we left the inn, we had two tails. So at least two of the Corporations had figured out that we were back.

It was just a matter of time before the Masks did as well.

We ended there as we were heading out of the inn to drop Orryk and Fiona at the library to do their research.

Treasure:

We converted 2 silk robes (250 gp each) into gold.

18gp worth of assorted coinage from the wagon where we found the Book of Madness

Dividing that up each of us got:

89gp (the 2 gp left over went immediately to pay the toll at the causeway to Pelsoreen)

Book of Madness (Crazy Book 2, in the bag of holding)
Box of letters to Jorlas

Party Kitty:

We paid for 1 night of lodging at the Iron Steed in Pelsoreen (at 6 gp/night) and 2 nights of travel on the road (at 3 gp/night, because Mo sang us a discount). So taking out 12 gp for lodging, the party kitty currently has: 1 pp, 7 gp, 14 sp, and 14 cp

Note: The letters we found with the Book of Madness are below.


Jorlas —

Greetings from the shadows of Promontory! I'm thankful this morning that the winds are blowing off the Hochor, so neither Feedlot nor The Silos are spreading their smells over my breakfast.

I know you have a reputation to uphold, as a finder of things, but it's been months since you've been here for more than a week at a time, and the kids are missing you in their lives (and I am missing you in our bed). Maybe you could take a few months off, when you finish this job you're on now?

Last letter, you said you expected to be in New Arvai for a while. I heard from Allina that her Talnan got the pox while he was there, and he gave it to her. So if you're lonely of an evening, there, go ahead and spend more to keep us both healthy.

Timma and Ennert are doing well. Ennert has been going down the Ladder to Shift Beach a lot, lately, and he's been bringing back fish that have been good eating indeed. Timma has just started trying to help me with chores and errands around the house.

All my love and loyalty,

Martra


Jorlas —

Good that you tracked down the book. Better that it hasn't been at the School of the World for long. You probably won't be able to steal it from them; mages protect their libraries well.

There's an elf working there as a librarian, name of Elledrian. Ask him if the Raven Queen knows where he is. Once you do that, you can probably get him to give you the book. I'd be happy to come and negotiate on my own behalf, but I'd rather not take the risk of meeting my cousin.

Once you have the book, you'll need to start moving. There are people looking for the book with ways to find it. Go to Pelsoreen, then head east. The main road ends at Rodzun, but you can keep going east on a cart-track. I'll meet you on that cart-track, and then you can get back to your wife and kids.

—N


Dearest Martra—

This job has been trying, indeed, and I hope that my employer (whose name I have promised not to disclose to anyone) lives up to their word and pays me exceedingly well.

I received your letter right before I left New Arvai. I assure you I am not coming home bearing a pox, just the more conventional gifts a traveler picks up for his family. I just left Pelsoreen, on a cart, with a hired driver named Landrim. He's a quiet guy, content to drive and leave me to my thoughts.

I wish I were home right now. The book I have found scares me like no other item I have held. In the quiet I swear I can hear it whispering my name, and my dreams at night are of a writhing blackness


----------



## prabe (Nov 21, 2020)

Session 20: Vengeance Is Another Word for Pain

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer

GM - Everyone Else


7 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 38)

In our room before heading out for the day, we discussed both our immediate plans for the day and sort of intermediate-term plans about what our next steps would be.

We hoped that Tulmor would come to Pelsoreen, take the Book of Madness back to Embernook, and then we’d head out east of Rodzun to see about meeting up with the mysterious N. and learning about things there. None of us were keen on taking the Book of Madness that killed two people just by reading it to the Person Who Wanted it without a lot more information about what they wanted it for and why. (Joybell continued to hold out hope that N. wants to take the Book of Madness out of circulation and is really a good person.)

Mo suggested hiring the Cracked Shield to go deal with N. Imaktis suggested talking to some clerics about the Servants of the Hunger (and the Hunger Between Worlds) and what they know about the various Books of Madness.

Fiona used a sending spell to ask Tulmor when she could come to Pelsoreen to get the Book. Tulmor responded that she’d come to Pelsoreen around dinner time but can’t take the book for reasons she’d explain when she got here.

Before we left, Orryk took out the Orrery and let it spin. After a few moments, it settled that it was wavering in an arc that pointed toward the Heights district of the city -- where the libraries and universities are.

Mo suggested that he and Imaktis should go sneak around in the Heights and find where the Orrery is pointing to on the grounds that they were very stealthy.

Orryk: Sure. <as he put the Orrery back in the bag of holding>

So the plan for the day had Fiona and Orryk doing research on the Masks at Urlott’s. Possibly also on the Books of Madness if Urlott’s will let them do side research that wasn’t included in the gorgon head contract.

Joybell (with Taman as a minder) wanted to do 3 things: talk to the Cracked Shield to warn them that the Masks were back in town and see how they were doing; talk to Black Irnod about who could do something with the gorgon sinus material and if he knows anyone out in the mountains who might be N.; and to find a nice present for Ammoch, the halfling with the teleportation circle in Pelsoreen.

Mo wanted to talk to the Cracked Shield about how much it would cost to hire them to go deal with N. and then he and Imaktis planned to talk to some clerics about the Hunger Between Worlds and the Books of Madness.

Imaktis: It’s really sad when the orcs are the high moral compass in this town.

As we left the inn, Taman noticed, sort of in passing, that we had two groups of tails. He noticed initially one set, but then he noticed that they were avoiding being noticed by someone else and that cued him to spot the other group. We dropped FIona and Orryk off at Urlotts and continue on to the Cracked Shields.

Taman, as we were walking: We need to take on all five corporations and take down Pelsoreen.
Mo: I’ve been saying that since we got here!

At the Cracked Shield, Joybell knocked then backed away from the door so that the orc looking through the priest hole could see her.

Joybell: The Masks are back in town.
Orc: We know. They’ve been here about five days.
Joybell: You haven’t had any problems with them? Do your healers and clerics know the right magics?
Orc: We’re working on that.
Joybell: Good. How are the children?
Orc: They’re good.

To emphasize his point, we heard happy kid noises from behind the compound fence -- squealing and running and laughter.

Then Mo started talking to them about if they could be hired to go and kidnap N. He made it clear that he was just gathering information at this time, not making an agreement or contract. The orc at the door went to get Rask, the leader of the Cracked Shield. Rask said that because we know so little about N. and what N. is capable of, he would not be comfortable agreeing to kidnap or kill N. But for 5 gp a day, he’d send a group out to get information. Mo suggested that perhaps, in addition to the 5 gp a day, there could be a bonus of 300 gp if the team felt they could take the person and they brought the person back. Rask suggested that, depending on the difficulty of kidnapping the person and transporting him or her that bonus might appropriately be more or less than 300 gp. Mo accepted that and said we’d let them know if we were going to hire them.

Once done at the Cracked Shield, Joybell and Taman went to Black Irnod’s. He did not know anyone out east of Rodzun whose name begins with N. who might be interested in books. He did, however, recommend an alchemist in the Stonetree neighborhood, a rock gnome named Burnocka. This is the same alchemist who was recommended to Mo by the cleric at the Purveyors and Wrights we spoke to when we first arrived in Pelsoreen.

While that was happening, Mo and Imaktis shopped around and bought a wooden box with a lead lining that would hold the Book of Madness. They met up with Taman and Joybell again at the temple of the Joyful.

Meanwhile, Team Library was figuring out the system at Urlott’s. Unlike the other libraries they’ve researched at, Urlott’s doesn’t allow direct access to the stacks. There is, however, an excellent catalog and the librarians will bring you the books that you want. With the help of the thoroughly indexed catalog (and some great rolls) Fiona and Orryk found their way to some records, including a hand-written journal, from a group of soldiers at the end of the Fiend Wars who’d gone down into the underdark to the cities of the Duergar and Drow to close gates to the Abyss. While there, they found some Illithid hives. The hives were in the process of being abandoned, perhaps because demons and devils had started occupying the underdark.

These soldiers found that the Illithid had sort of techno-magical (or magical-techno) machines that could modify their slaves physically -- making them more useful or more suited to specific purposes. Some of those modifications seem to be like what has happened to the children who become the Masks. It’s possible that someone found or took one of those machines and made it so that it would make the Masks.

These reports and journal entries were from near the end of the Fiend Wars, and therefore 800 or so years old, so there’s not likely a direct line from the writers to whoever might currently have one of those machines. However, they were found in the Dunnimar Mountains (the ones to the west of Pelsoreen in the southern part of Urnod). When we talked about this later, Joybell noted that the Wold was located at the northern edge of the Dunnimar Mountains, which is broadly in the same area. (On the other hand, Barnett’s encounter with the Masks was up near Auriqua, a long way away.)

Unfortunately there were no names associated with these journals and reports. And, according to the reports, they broke up and destroyed the machines they found.

The only Illithids reported by any of the expeditions into the underdark were those in the Dunnimar Mountains.

After that tremendous success, they looked into the Crazy Books and the Hunger Between Worlds, but didn’t learn much that they didn’t already know.

While they were in the library (in the Heights), Orryk took out the Orrery to see what would happen. It spun freely.

Team Not-Library rejoined at the temple of the Joyful to talk to Tormaz the cleric. As we entered, Mo dropped a couple hundred copper pieces in the poor box outside the door. As they have before, someone from the temple came by and collected most of it, leaving some for the poor to take if they needed it.

Mo: We found an artifact and are looking for information about the Hunger Between Worlds.
Tormaz, with a knowing nod: You found a book.
Mo: Yes. Do you know anyone who would be interested in one? Or why someone would be interested in having one brought to him?
Tormaz: Someone might be trying to keep it out of circulation.
Joybell, satisfied that someone else mentioned her theory: Thank you!
Tormaz: Some of the books are rumored to have power that doesn’t make you mad. But I’ve never known it to happen. Also, a member of a cabal may be trying to move it from where no one is reading it to where people can.
Joybell: That makes sense. It was in a library -- maybe the librarians were keeping it safe. So removing it got it out into circulation.
Imaktis: Do they affect everyone the same? Can some people control what happens to them?
Tormaz: The results can be unpredictable. Different readers get turned into different things.
Imaktis: Can people control the chaos?
Tormaz: I suppose it’s possible. But I’ve never heard of it happening. Someone who’s already corrupted might get something other than more corruption.
Joybell: Do you know of anyone whose name begins with N. who might be looking for a book like this?
Tormaz: Not in Pelsoreen.
Joybell: What about out of Pelsoreen?
Tormaz: I don’t know anyone.
Imaktis: Is it possible to track or detect the corruption?
Tormaz: It might be detectable.
Mo: What are they getting out of this? The books kill people.
Joybell: They’re increasing the chaos in the world. Think about what happened in Tummeleen.

After that we left the temple of the Joyful and went to the alchemist in Stonetree, Burnocka. On the way, Joybell found a nice tea set for Ammoch (the halfling with the teleportation circle) as a present for letting us use his place as a transit hub.

The alchemist, Burnocka, was very gnome and he and Joybell had a very gnome conversation of hepped-up, fast talking, the upshot of which was that he’s going to work on the gorgon snot (and sinus material) and see what he can make out of it. He’s excited to work on it. Joybell is excited to have him work on it. There was much excitement all around. He should have something in a couple of days and will know how much it will cost when he’s done. He’ll hold whatever he comes up with for a month after he’s done and then he’ll sell it or whatever to cover his costs.

After that, we all met up at the inn. On the way from Urlott’s to the Iron Steed, Orryk sold the random swords and armor and bows and crap that had accumulated in the bag of holding. (Treasure disbursement is at the end of the notes.)

Once we were assembled, we went together to Ammoch’s so that we would be there when Tulmor arrived. She showed up a little bit before dinner, looking a bit harried and haggard. Over dinner (location undetermined, but possibly back at the Iron Steed), she explained to us that Barnett had been wearing himself thin working to restore Harl’s library. As a result of that, he’d been spending more time in Kalmarn than she anticipated, which was taking time and energy away from other things. And she was having to shoulder more of the load of their operations in Embernook.

We asked her how Barnett was doing and she said that he’d doing better than when we left, which is good because he was _bad_ then. However, their library is shared and she wasn’t going to put a Book of Madness in it where he could stumble over it unawares.

Joybell: We got a lead box for it and could put a lock on that. I understand that your library is shared and you don’t want to put a dangerous book in it. But could you have a box in your room?

That just got her a look from Tulmor.

Tulmor: How did you come to have this?
Orryk: One thing led to another...there was screaming and we investigated.

Joybell then gave her the full story.

At that time we slipped the Book out of the bag of holding and directly into the lead-lined box. Orryk took out the Orrery to see what it would do - as it had in the Iron Steed before, it pointed generally toward the Heights again, swinging slowly back and forth in an arc.

We talked a bit about the little we know of N. and Jorlas, the courier/procurer of books.

Mo: What do you think?
Tulmor: I wish I knew more about this person.
Joybell: That’s why we want to go see who wanted it.
Fiona: But we don’t want to deliver the book to him or her.
Joybell: But there’s a chance it’s a good person who wants to take the book out of circulation. It’s not likely but it could be.

Tulmor thought for a little bit then said she had an idea about where we could take the book.

We followed her to Thani-Breel, past the library and into the faculty lodging in the magical college. She was able to walk through the faculty lodging, which had a sort of upscale hotel feel, without anyone stopping her -- she was walking like she belonged there.

She knocked on a door and was greeted by a very old looking dwarf, who looked both surprised and happy to see her. We were all introduced to Amlorr.

Tulmor, to Amlorr: We need to use your safe safe for a while.

He looked at her for a second then nodded. Standing on a chair he reached into a painting over the fireplace that flickered as he passed his hand through. Taman could hear the sound of clicking tumblers in a combination lock. Then there were some other noises and he opened the safe behind the illusory painting. When he opened it the whole room got a little dimmer, like the interior of the safe was absorbing the light.

Amlorr: What needs to go in?
Orryk, to Tulmor: You trust him?
Tulmor: He’s saved Barnett’s life several times.
Orryk, to Amlorr: A book of the Outer Darkness.
Amlorr: Ah.
Joybell: We have it in a lead-lined box.
Amlorr: That probably made it safer for you to carry.
Orryk: In the bag of holding.
Joybell: Belt and suspenders.

Joybell told him that it was in the library of the School of the World in New Arvai. An elf librarian there, Elledrian, gave it to the courier/procurer. Amlorr knew that librarian and was surprised that he gave the book to someone -- Elledrian is a sensible librarian, quiet and bookish. We mentioned that the letter told Jornas to ask Elledrian about the Raven Queen. Orryk was sure that was some sort of threat, and that’s the explanation that makes the most sense.

Amlorr asked to look at the letters so we showed them to him. After reading them he told us that he believed that N. is one of the youngest fey, a woman known as the Keeper of Secrets.

We speculated for a bit about why she might want it. Taman knows a bit about the fey but not tons and mostly about the Tundra Queen. But if she’s the Keeper of Secrets, she’s probably not going to be sharing it or giving it to others. Secrets are only secrets if they’re kept hidden.

Joybell: So she would take it out of circulation.
Amlorr: You night be able to negotiate with her to get information. Maybe about other fey, including her mother, the Tundra Queen.

As we were talking, Orryk took out the Orrery to see what it would do. It spun for a bit then settled down to pointing in three different directions in turn.

Amlorr, noting the Orrery: There might be some things in less safe storage. There are many who use some of the storage here in the university and the library. They may not all be books. There may be other magic items connected to the Hunger Between Worlds in personal collections.

(GM: Or in warehouses waiting to be looked at by Top Men.)

Joybell: When we want to collect the book, can we just come to get it? Will we need Tulmor?
Amlorr: I can make arrangements for you to come in without her.

Before Tulmor left, we asked how Embernook is doing. She said that the city is fine.

Orryk: Of course. We’re not there.

She also said that there were rumors that Administrator Alighieri was looking into installing scorpion pits.

Just before she left she handed Fiona a card with a series of symbols on it.

Tulmor: It’s best if no one else sees this. This is the sigils for the teleportation circle in Barnett’s room in Embernook. We rebuilt it.

Then she left and we made our goodbyes with Amlorr.

We proceeded to walk around the Heights, attempting to triangulate the locations of the three things the Orrery was pointing at. Orryk and Fiona tried to figure it out but were having trouble working out the locations. Fortunately Taman’s knowledge and understanding of geography and spatial relations gave him an edge on figuring the three locations. One of the sources was in Carveen’s, the library that deals with summonings (and requires blood samples as payment for entry). One was in the headquarters of the office of the city government responsible for sewage and water. And the third was in one of the buildings of the college of Thani-Breel.

After that, we went back to the Iron Steed, making our usual preparations (a tiny hut and an alarm spell) and rested for the night. It passed without incident.


8 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 39)

The next morning, our plan was to head back to Rodzun when the causeway came up in the evening. So Taman, Fiona, and Mo worked on getting the wagon and Secretariat (Horse2) and Mr. Ed (Horse1) ready for the journey -- getting supplies as needed.

While they were doing that, Orryk, Joybell and Imaktis went back to Thani-Breel to talk to Amlorr about the three points we had mapped using the Orrery. He was amused that we triangulated those locations and told us a little bit about them. He also reminded us that the Orrery doesn’t only point to books -- apparently, it points to all manner of things connected to the Hunger Between Worlds.

One point is in a classroom in Thani-Breel. It’s a summoning stone that summons starspawn. It is used as part of teaching a class on Really Bad Ideas as a sterling example of one. It is harmless unless someone is handling it and it is kept in a locked and sealed cabinet.
Carveen’s may have intact specimens of monsters from the Hunger Between Worlds. Or they may have means to summon things that they can then examine.
He had no idea why one might be in the sewers. No idea at all.
He told us that the Orrery would point to the _monsters_ as well as the book. Also to other types of items, like the summoning items.

We thanked him for the information and then left, heading back to hook up with the others at the Iron Steed and finalize preparations to head out to meet with N. to see if we could get information about the Tundra Queen and Ildna, the rogue dilyarli that killed Taman’s family, from her.

That plan was entirely derailed, because as we were approaching the Iron Steed, we heard a some commotion and saw people running. They said something about things happening at the Cracked Shield. (Note: They must have been coming to find us specifically because we’re known to have a connection to the Cracked Shield -- otherwise Pelsoreen is big enough and the Iron Steed is far enough away from the Cracked Shield that people wouldn’t be screaming and running and stuff from something happening way over there.)

Orryk and Imaktis stopped at the inn to get the others, but Joybell continued riding Scooby hard to get there as quickly as possible. Because of that she got to the street outside the Cracked Shield’s compound with the rest of the party 300 feet or so behind her.

When we got there the fence surrounding the Cracked Shield’s compound had 12 Masks (eep!) along the whole street facing side, with six of them near the end with the entrance (a little cubicle area that jutted out from the rest of the fence, and the others in groups of two ranged out about 30 feet further along.

Taman, seeing the situation from a distance, took a shot at the nearest one and hit it, doing a nice bit of damage. Then he moved and dashed.

In the nearer group of Masks (1-6) half of them started working on dismantling the doors and the other half drew their swords and turned to face Joybell and the rest of the party.

Fiona cast flying on herself and took off. Orryk took two shots with his shortbow, but because of the distance he missed with both. Then he went back to running forward.

Joybell, on Scooby, suddenly realized that she was a long way ahead of the rest of the party and there were a whole lot of Masks there. She decided against riding right into the middle of them -- so she stopped in the road and threw a javelin at the same one Taman had shot at, missing.

Joybell: Hey! Stop that!

The Masks from the other end of the building (7-12) started moving toward this end, but were still a ways off.

Mo, running, paused for a moment to cast haste on Orryk.

Mo: Go get ‘em!

Imaktis and Taman decided that Taman would use the Cape of the Mountebank to dimension door both of them into a closer position. So Imaktis cast spirit guardians, calling up his cloud of protective flying turtles, and otherwise kept pace with Taman. Taman then grabbed a hold of him and bamfed both of them to a point a few feet in front of Joybell. Then Taman moved back some, not really wanting to be in the front lines against the Masks again.

The Masks that had drawn their swords (1, 3, and 4) moved to a position just outside of Imaktis’ cloud of Spirit Guardians and waited, though we weren’t sure for what.

Fiona continued flying closer, still working to get into spell range. Orryk, crazy fast anyway and hasted thanks to Mo, closed a lot of the distance and took two more shots with his shortbow, hitting Mask 3. Joybell moved up to a position where she was inside the cloud of spirit guardians but could attack Mask 3 then she cast wrathful smite and hit it for a pretty modest amount of damage but, importantly, stunning it and knocking out its regeneration for the round. Then she stepped further back into the cloud of spirit guardians.

Masks 7, 8 and 9 moved up, drawing their swords and taking up positions to sort of surround Joybell and Imaktis, boxing them in. However, they wouldn’t enter the guardians.

Mo continued running as fast as he could. Everyone else had taken off and left him behind. (Literally -- Fiona flew away, Orryk was off like a hasted cheetah, and Taman and Imaktis bamfed away with the dimension door.)

Imaktis moved 10 feet forward, to get some Masks into the spirit guardian range, then he cast shillelagh on his staff and started to dodge -- nimble tortle evasive maneuvering.

Taman took a shot with his longbow at Mask 3 (already injured and stunned) and got a nice hit for a good deal of damage. He was also keeping an eye on a group of Masks that was coming along the fronts of the buildings across the street from the Cracked Shield compound -- sort of approaching the party from the flank.

Masks 1 and 4 moved past Imaktis and into the cloud of spirit turtles to attack Joybell. Mask 1 hit twice and Mask 4 hit once and with the three hits she took 38 points of damage (and was down by almost 2/3ds in one round). Eep. Those two Masks did take some damage from the spirit turtles. Unfortunately, at the end of the round Mask 3 came un-stunned.

Fiona flew up and cast fireball on the cluster around Imaktis and Joybell, catching Masks 1, 3, 4,7, and 8. Mask 3, which had been unable to regenerate the damage it had already taken, dropped, but was going to come back if it didn’t get some psychic or necrotic damage on it.

Orryk took three shots with his shortbow, thanks to being hasted, hitting with all of them. Nice! Then he moved around the side of the cluster of Masks, staying out of the group, and used a bonus action to dodge. Joybell cast wrathful smite again and hit Mask 1 with both of her attacks, dropping it for good.

The Masks (from the far end) coming around the flank of the party moved toward Taman, but didn’t get all the way to him.

Mo kept on chugging.

Imaktis tolled the dead on Mask 3, killing it for real. Then he cast healing word on Joybell to her great relief. Taman moved around toward where Orryk was, off to the side and out of easy range, then used insightful fighting to try and get a read on Mask 9, which worked, but then he missed with his longbow.

Mask 4 attacked Imaktis, who used a Shield spell to protect himself from the attack. Then the Mask took damage from the spirit guardians. Masks 2, 5, and 6, which had been working on the gates this whole time broke through into the fenced compound of the Cracked Shield and whatever the orcs had waiting for them.

Fiona cast a fireball that caught Masks 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. (Literally all of them that were still standing, except the three at the gates to the compound, were in range of the fireball.)

Orryk took a shot at Mask 4, hitting it and dropping it, but it was going to regenerate without the right kind of damage to keep it down. Then he shot at Mask 8, hitting it as well. Then he backed off a bit to stay out of range.

Player: Orryk is basically a machine gun of arrows.

All of the Masks that weren’t already surrounding Joybell and Imaktis moved in -- Imaktis was in melee with Masks 4, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 and Joybell was in melee with Masks 4, 10, and 9. Imaktis was almost completely surrounded. Mask 9 hit Joybell, not quite hard enough to drop her, but oh so close (3 hp left).

Imaktis got critted by the first of the Masks to attack him (54 points of damage) and was dropped on the first swing. The others surrounding him attacked as well, and in the space of a few seconds Imaktis was dead, slashed into ribbons by the Masks’ brutal attacks.

We didn’t have time to react, because there were still seven Masks alive, and they were all going to be surrounding Joybell (who was hanging on by a thread) any second now.

Mo moved forward and, finally in range, cast hypnotic pattern right on top of Joybell. Everyone had to save against the mesmerising effect of the pretty lights. Fortunately, Joybell had no trouble with the save. Even more fortunately, most of the Masks were stunned by the pattern (Masks 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12), leaving only two un-stunned.

The three Masks at the gate had gone inside the compound and we could hear combat and the ringing of bells.

Taman moved around so he could get a good shot on one of the Masks that wasn’t stunned by the hypnotic pattern. After using insightful fighting, he was able to do a lot of damage to Mask 8 and dropped it.

Mask 4 regenerated some of the damage it had taken, but it was still stunned by the pretty lights.

Fiona cast magic missile on the only one still standing that wasn’t stunned by the hypnotic pattern and did 11 points of damage. Orryk moved around to attack Mask 11 with daggers from the belt, doing 9 points of damage. He then tried to do a stunning strike but the Mask saved. His flurry of blows both missed.

Joybell moved and attacked the same one (Mask 11) with a wrathful smite -- hitting and stunning it and leaving it afraid of her (and therefore at disadvantage when attacking).

Mask 8 regenerated and stood up. It was at that point the only one not stunned by one effect or another. Instead of attacking it turned and headed toward its colleagues in the compound -- where we could still hear the sound of combat and the ringing of spiritual bells.

Mo continued his advance and used the wand of magic missiles on Mask 11, hoping to drop it before it shook off the stunned effect from Joybell’s wrathful smite. But it stayed up. Then Taman drew his rapier and attacked the same one, hitting it for a lot of damage (22 points) but still not dropping it.

Mask 4, which had been dropped at one point, kept on regenerating, Fortunately, it was watching the lights and didn’t take any action.

Fiona cast magic missile at Mask 11, finally dropping it for real! Because of the wrathful smite it was going to stay down.

Orryk moved so he could see through the broken doorway into the compound. He could see two dead Masks, really dead (of the four that had gone that way). He also saw a few downed orcs and a lot of orcs fighting. He could hear someone that sounded like Rask giving orders. The Masks had gone deeper into the compound, past the vestibule which is all we’d ever seen of it. He then moved back to where the party was with the stunned Masks in the hypnotic pattern and held his action to punch anything that got viciously mocked by Mo.

With the situation at least temporarily in stasis and no opponents able to attack her, Joybell laid hands on herself giving herself all the healing energy she could muster.

Then the injured Masks regenerated.

Mo moved up and viciously mocked Mask 9 -- which broke the stun from the hypnotic pattern but stunned it from the psychic damage. Orryk then took his held action to attack and got a hit himself. Taman attacked and hit with a sneak attack. Fiona used a magic missile, but because it had been regenerating the damage it had taken from the fireballs, it was still up. Finally Orryk dropped it.

Proceeding thusly -- dog-piling all together on one Mask at a time and with Mo’s vicious mockery to provide the requisite psychic damage we dropped all the Masks out in the street before the hypnotic pattern ended.

When the last one dropped, Joybell ran into the compound to see how the orcs had fared and if they needed help. She found 4 dead Masks and 4 dead orcs. The survivors inside were very grateful we showed up, because without us all 12 of the Masks would have gotten into the compound.

She acknowledged that with a distant nod and went back out to where the party was clustered around Imaktis’ fallen body. She sat down near Imaktis’ body, next to Taman, and cried.

Imaktis is dead.


Treasure (from the sale of the bows and swords and crap in the bag of holding)

53gp, 8sp and 5 cp per person (including Imaktis)


----------



## prabe (Nov 28, 2020)

Session 21: Burning the Place Down

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

GM - Everyone Else


8 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 39) (immediately after)

After a few minutes of shock and tears, we saw that a crowd was starting to gather around us.

Joybell: I don’t want people to see him like this.

Joybell and some of the orcs took Imaktis’ body into the Cracked Shield compound.

Fiona, Taman and Mo went off to the hotel to get the cart and the horses. (We agreed without much discussion that none of us were going to be alone, so Orryk stayed with Joybell.)

After they left Orryk stood at the damaged entrance to the compound and called out into the crowd for someone from C&C to come forward.

No one immediately did, though there was movement and action in response to his call. After a few minutes someone stepped through the crowd and into the clear area littered with dead Masks and Imaktis’ blood. Seeing the Masks, the man sighed.

Orryk: You own the Masks’ building?
C&C Agent: Yes. We’ve been renting it to them for a while.
Orryk: How much to buy it? We’re going to burn it down and we’d rather not have it be a big thing where you send guys after us and we kill them. It would just go on and on.
C&C: That’s a negotiation for someone higher than me. Someone will be in touch with you.

Joybell found a little urchin in the crowd and paid her 3 silver to tell Black Irnod that there were 12 more dead Masks down in Blooming Cliffs outside the Cracked Shield compound if he was interested.

That’s as much interest as any of us had in the bodies of the fallen Masks.

As the folks getting the cart were returning, Joybell and Orryk talked to the orcs about relocating -- perhaps to the Jagged Sword’s territory, where the Orcphans were taken from, or to the area around Embernook. Joybell thought about suggesting that there was a town outside of Embernook (Kalmarn) that was depopulated and ready for folks to move into, but she wasn’t sure how the people of Embernook would feel about that. They agreed that they needed to explore the possibilities available to them and were already doing so. They had a while before the Masks could return to Pelsoreen -- which was good because it was going to be a major caravan to move everyone and all of their stuff out of the city.

Joybell: I’m so sorry! I feel like I brought this on you all when I brought you into my vendetta.
Rask: No. It’s okay.

He then offered for them to pay for a raise dead spell for Imaktis, since he died defending them.

(Note: This is the point in the notes where this exchange, from Session 20, fits in best:
Orryk: He died defending the Orcs.
Imaktis’ Ghost: I died defending you guys!)

We said no thank you -- from Joybell’s perspective at least in part because they had their own dead to perhaps raise -- and loaded Imaktis onto our cart and left. We took him to the temple of the Joyful.

Mo: We lost a friend and we are hoping you can bring him back.

Tormaz said that it would cost 500gp for the material components -- however, Imaktis had been donating a lot of money to the temple, so there wouldn’t be any additional charge.

We took Imaktis to a back room and Tormaz cast the spell -- there was a swirl of energy focused around Imaktis’ chest and the diamond, but the diamond didn’t shatter and Imaktis didn’t return to us.

Tormaz: He is at peace now. The two sides that were at war within him are now at peace. He did not want to return.
Joybell: Could we try again later? Maybe in a year he will want to come back.
Tormaz: Yes. But you will need to have some of his body for the magic to work.

We loaded Imaktis back into the cart and Tormaz cast Gentle Repose on him so that nothing unfortunate would happen while we were taking care of his remains.

Before we left, Mo dropped several large handfuls of silver into the poor box. As always, someone from the temple came out and took most of it inside, leaving a few coins for those who needed it.

Mo, to Tormaz: That spell you cast. We might have need of that. Could you write us down notes or instructions on how to cast it?
Tormaz: I will look into it. But it will be expensive for us to create. We have a scroll with a revivify spell that I can sell you, however.

So we bought the revivify scroll (because Joybell has that spell on her spell list) and the required material component (a diamond of specified value) from him.

Then we headed off to the Last Doorway to talk to them about cremation.

Priest: Good day.
Orryk: No. Not really.
Priest: I apologize. I’m hoping we can make it better.
Joybell: We’d like to use your facilities for a private funeral. We want to light the fire ourselves, if that’s possible.

We also said that we’d like some of his ashes in an urn -- enough to cast resurrection at some point in the future.

The priest agreed that all of that was possible and that the next time available was going to be first thing in the morning the next day. Imaktis’ remains were moved into a small room there, where they would be safe and treated with respect.

We then sat out front on the cart for a while, taking a short rest. (We’d realized that the agent from C&C that was going to come talk to us had probably had a devil of a time catching up to us, because we were moving around the whole time.)

As we rested, we looked at the magical items we’d removed from Imaktis’ body -- the gauntlets of ogre power, the mantle of spell resistance and the necklace of prayer beads. With him not returning to us, we redistributed them. Mo put on the gauntlets, Joybell put on the necklace and tucked it under her tabard to keep it safe, and Orryk put the mantle on. He then gave the wand of web to Mo, because he had as much magic as he could handle.

About an hour later, a nicely dressed human came walking up the street.

Illya: My name is Illya. I’m from C&C. You wanted to negotiate for the purchase of a building so you can destroy it?
Orryk: Yes. We want to destroy the building. No. We’re going to destroy it. But we don’t want to get into a problem with you. You’ll send assassins after us. We’ll kill them. It won’t be good.
Joybell: We really just want the structure. We don’t want the land. You could rebuild right away. We wouldn’t care.
Orryk: We’re going to send a message.
Illya: You want to be indemnified for the damage.
Joybell: Yes!! Exactly!
Illya: For two thousand gold pieces, we can give you two days to do whatever you want with the building.
Joybell, to the others: That sounds like a bargain.
Illya: For another five hundred gold pieces, we will give you the name of the person who has rented it from us.
Joybell: We won’t need two days. Could we pay one thousand gold pieces for one day?
Illya: The two thousand is the cost to rebuild it, primarily. We cannot go lower than that. We will also need to know half a day before you start so we can have people on scene to protect the surrounding structures.

Orryk created a small flame then snuffed it out then said, “We won’t let the fire spread.”

We accepted the terms offered and Illya handed us a contract -- written in very straightforward terms so that we knew exactly what we were contracting to pay and what they were contracting to grant us. We were told to take the contract and the money to the C&C headquarters half a day before we wished to destroy the building.

We decided to just go take care of that now, while Mo grumbled that it felt like we were ticking off boxes rather than going and just tearing the place apart.

We left the horses and cart back at the Iron Steed, paying for another night there at the same time, then followed Illya to the C&C headquarters on foot.

In the office we gave her the paperwork and each of us paid our share of the money. As an expression of disgruntlement, Mo paid four hundred of his share in gold pieces and the remaining hundred as one thousand silver pieces, pulled out of the many pockets in his armor by the handsful. A pity it wasn’t 10,000 copper ...

We told her that we were to start destroying the building tomorrow at noon, after Imaktis’ funeral. But we were going to go over and spend some time in it tonight -- searching the place thoroughly. She said that was fine as long as we didn’t do any damage.

After we paid, she stepped out of the room for a bit. When she returned she said that the building had been rented to a dwarf man named Turnik Steeltear. When we asked for an address for him, she said they’d been collecting the rent payments at the House of Masks and mostly from the Masks themselves, not from Steeltear himself.

That was less helpful than Joybell, at least, hoped. But it was also the letter of the agreement.

We headed from there over to the House of Masks to check the place out -- loot if there was any loot to be had, make sure there were no survivors lurking there, re-destroy the teleportation circle. That sort of thing. Before we went in Mo did his Junior Birdman clairvoyance mask again and looked around upstairs -- there were 12 beds in the bunkroom and 12 dead Masks, so that was a good sign. Each of the beds had a longbow and a quiver of arrows next to it (so the near-endless supply of arrows in the bag of holding got replenished). When we went inside, we looked very thoroughly around -- they hadn’t had time to accumulate any treasure so all we found was the bows and arrows. There were, again, no papers or documents of any kind.

All we found were some bags of food supplies -- grains and gruel. Joybel wanted to take them, because we were going to be heading off on the road, but Taman pointed out that he could forage for better food than that. Then she thought of giving it to the Cracked Shield for their journey, but they also can get better food than that. So she left the bags outside the door so anyone could take them, rather than letting food get destroyed with the building.

We went back to the Iron Steed and settled down to activities each according to her or his nature. Mo and Taman commenced to get very drunk. Fiona worked on transcribing the shadowbolt spell we found into her spellbook.

Joybell, to Orryk: Do you want to spar? Because I don’t want to get drunk. I want to fight.

Orryk and Joybell went out to the stableyard and sparred and did exercises and drills.

During and after his drinking, Mo was going to work on something to say at Imaktis’ funeral.

Eventually we made our usual precautions for the night, including the tiny hut, and rested. The night passed without incident.


9 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 40)

On the way to Imaktis’ funeral, first thing in the morning, we talked about the fact that we didn’t know anything about his family or where he came from. We didn’t know if there was anyone we should tell about his passing or how to go about it.

When we got there, we found Imaktis laid out on a pyre by the Last Doorway priests. We gathered around, along with a few of the orcs from the Cracked Shield there to pay their respects to him.

Joybell looked to Mo to say something.

Mo: I guess he’s home. It’s a shame he’s never going to leave this city.
Taman: We don’t want to leave any part of him here.

At that, Taman asked the priests if they could scatter the ashes that we don’t take (because we won’t get all of them) out on the ocean. That way they’d get dispersed all around and he’d get to lots of places. The priests said they could give them to a ship captain sailing to Mahassar (the sub-continent to the east of Urnod) and ask him to scatter them along the way.

Mo: He was a good friend. Always in the front line of danger.
Joybell: He was a good person. He helped people others wouldn’t. Like he went to the brothels and healed the ladies.
Mo: He went to the brothels?

After that we lit the pyre. Orryk controlled the flames so that they took Imaktis’ shape. Then he cast it again so that the Imaktis-shaped fire burned the color of his spirit guardians. We stayed with him until he was gone to ash.

Joybell: Farewell, Imaktis.

Before we left the priests gave us an urn with 10lbs of his ashes. (Note: GM says that this is enough to cast resurrection.) That went into the bag of holding.

As we left, Orryk said that he wanted to get a magical weapon that did necrotic damage, so he’d be more prepared when we faced the Masks again. We decided to go to the temple of the Purveyors and Wrights to get a recommendation for a magical item dealer, since we didn’t want to wind out dealing what a charlatan or someone who was palming off cursed goods.

At the temple the cleric we’d spoken to back on our first day in Pelsoreen asked how he could help us.

Orryk: I’m looking for a weapon that does specific kinds of damage. Have you heard of the Masks and how many fewer of them there are now?
Cleric, looking impressed: Yes...That was you?
Mo: Boo.

He recommended a shop in Stonetree run by an elf woman named Allona. She doesn’t have shelves stocked with items on display -- she listens to what her clients need and offers them a curated selection that really will suit them. She’s been in business in the same location for a few hundred years.

Mo: You know most of the movers and shakers in the town, I expect. We’re looking for a dwarf named Turnik Steeltear.
Cleric, after thinking for a bit: No. I’ve never heard of a dwarf with a name like that.

When he put it that way, Mo agreed that Steeltear is a weird name for a dwarf. Most dwarf clan names are a little more positive and sturdy -- Steelarm rather than Steeltear.

The cleric speculated that perhaps it was a duergar name -- but all the drow and duergar cities were destroyed in the Fiend Wars and for all intents and purposes the drow and duergar cultures were eliminated. There may be some scattered individuals, but no communities remain.

We left with that thought in our heads and headed off to Stonetree. On the way to Allona’s we stopped in at the alchemist Burnaka’s place to see how he was getting on with the gorgon snot. He wasn’t done, but he said he believed that he’d be making something like the oil of prevention of petrification. He will be able sell us the oil at 150gp a bottle when he’s got it made. But if we don’t buy any he can sell it to other people. Mo asked about a discounted rate, since we brought him the gorgon snot, and he said that was the discounted rate.

Somehow, Joybell wasn’t sure we were getting any recompense for bringing him the material to make something he can sell to other people...but whatever. We killed the gorgon anyway.

We went on to Allona’s.

Orryk: I’m looking for something that does necrotic or psychic damage. Do you know the Masks? Do you know how many fewer there are of them?
Joybell: Necrotic and psychic damage! That’s the key!
Allona: What are you looking for? What kind of weapon do you use?
Orryk: Anything simple.
Joybell: He’s amazing with his fists.

Allona then went into her back room and came back with a somewhat tatty looking pair of black leather gloves that looked like they’d seen some serious business. She said that they were created as an emergency backup for a spellcaster, in case something got too close. If you touch someone with them, they can do a spell attack that does necrotic damage. And if it hits, the wearer heals half as much damage as the target takes. She said they cost 750 gold.

Orryk: Sold.

Mo then mentioned getting a weapon that did more damage than a rapier. Now that he has the gloves of ogre strength, he’s no longer a skinny weakling. Well, he’s still skinny, just not a weakling. Orryk pulled one of the Mask’s longswords out of the bag of holding and handed it to him.

Mo: Well, I’ll just use that then.

Taman asked after something that would be a magical ranged weapon, preferably a longbow. He also mentioned the possibility of something that could be thrown for Joybell. Allona returned with a handful of javelins of lightning for Joybell, at 750 gp each. Joybell declined -- we’d spent a lot of money in the last two days and she’s still saving up for plate armor one of these days.

Allona also had a longbow (+1) for Taman for 800 gold.

Taman: Sure.

And with that it was time to tear down the House of Masks. When we got there, Mo cut down the sign in the front of the building. Joybell strapped it to the outside of her backpack. It is at least as large as her torso, but she has it there for now at least.

We started inside the building by physically beating on the support pillars, at least Mo, Orryk and Joybell did, partly to weaken them and partly just for the satisfaction of hitting and breaking them. While that was going on Taman went around splashing oil all over the place and Fiona was calculating the most effective places to start the fire and the most effective supports to bash on. Orryk went up into the attic to break holes in the ceiling so that the fire would have better ventilation.

Then Fiona lit the oil and the building on fire with fire bolts, in the best spots to really get the fire to spread and bring the building down.

When the fire was going well, we all went outside to watch it burn. Orryk patrolled around the building checking for fires spreading to the neighbors and snuffing any stray sparks that he saw. When it looked like the fire inside might be flagging a little he gave it some extra oomph as well.

As the roof collapsed inward, Joybell shouted: "For Imaktis! And the Wold! And the orphans! And everyone else these bastards have hurt!"

By the time the fire had burned itself out and the building was as destroyed as it was going to be, most of the day had passed and evening was settling in, so we returned to the Iron Steed.

With our usual precautions, the night passed without incident.


10 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 41)

The next day we decided to head out to Rodzun and the Keeper of Secrets on the track beyond. However, the Ovverway causeway was going to be up starting a couple of hours before sundown. We had the whole day to occupy in Pelsoreen.

We decided to check out the Outer Chaos signal the orrery was getting from the headquarters of the Water and Sewer department. As we left the inn, Taman saw only one group following us -- they weren’t bothering to even try to hide from us. Taman waved at them.

At the Water and Sewer building, we went into a reception area.

Receptionist: Can I help you?
Joybell, to Mo: Do you want to handle his?
Mo: We’re adventurers from out of town. You probably don’t get this much…
Receptionist: You might be surprised…
Mo: We think there’s something from the Outer Chaos here. Something dangerous. Maybe that concerns you. We should talk to your boss.
Orryk: Whenever we encounter these things there’s screaming and people dying. You probably should be concerned.

He pulled out the orrery -- it spun for a bit and settled on pointing at a door off the reception area.

Receptionist, puzzled: That’s the old planning office.
Joybell: What’s in there?
Receptionist: Plans?
Joybell: Can we take a look, please?
Receptionist: Sure.

Before she let us into the office, Mo cast clairvoyance, standing there in the office with his junior birdman mask. All he saw inside were a couple of drafting tables or desks and bookshelves with papers, and tied up rolls of papers.

Orryk: How long has the office been unused?
Receptionist: We haven’t had to expand the system in at least eight years. As long as I’ve been here.

Fiona took ten minutes to cast detect magic. While she was doing so, Taman listened at the door for a bit, but heard nothing. Then we just milled about while she was casting. Fortunately the receptionist let us do that.

When the spell was done, the receptionist let us into the planning office. On one of the shelves there was a rolled up sheaf that was vaguely magical. That same sheaf of paper was also what the orrery was pointing to.

There were no monsters and no obvious crazy books or writings. Just that one rolled up sheaf of paper.

Fiona sat down again and began the ritual to cast identify. Once again the rest of us sort of milled about for ten minutes. Joybell looked at other papers and plans just to pass the time.

After ten minutes, Fiona learned that the scroll wasn’t created by a spell or anything. It is simultaneously a plan of a prior arrangement of the water and sewer lines in the city and a map of a part of the outer chaos. (Mapped chaos?) This prior arrangement was from quite a while ago, but not even close to being as long ago as the Severance. This isn’t like the Book of Madness -- it isn’t powerful enough, or closely enough connected to the Chaos, to draw someone in. The only danger is if someone unrolls these plans and reads them.

Joybell: Who do we need to talk to about taking these?
Receptionist: Let me go get my boss.
Joybell: Good idea.

She left and a few minutes later a dwarf showed up and introduced himself as Bjorn.

Joybell: What do you know about this set of plans? They were on the shelf over there.
Bjorn, after looking at the sheaf of papers, still rolled up: They’ve got to be close to one hundred years old.
Mo: Did you notice anything about the pattern or arrangement of these pipes being weird?
Bjorn: There were sections that didn’t make a lot of sense…
Mo: Who designed the system?
Bjorn: The guy who was the head of this department then.
Joybell: What was his name?
Bjorn: He was human. Humans die so quickly you barely have time to remember their names. <looks at Taman>No offense. His name was Turla or something like that.
Joybell: These papers are connected to the Chaos Between Worlds. Will anyone miss them if we take them off your hands?
Bjorn: I’ll sell it to you for 50 gold.
Joybell: Well, we could leave them here. It would be like a trap - someone could read it and become a monster and kill people.
Bjorn: And wouldn’t that weigh on your conscience?
Joybell, pulling out a coin purse: And this is the problem with having me negotiate. Okay.

With the sheaf of papers safely in the Bag of Holding, we went off to Thani-Breel university to get the Book of Madness from Amlorr. While we were there, he also gave us the proper name of N., the Keeper of Secrets -- Nicolana.

We got the horses (still Horse 1, Mr. Ed., and Horse 2, Secretariat) and the cart and headed out across the causeway. We arrived at the other shore around sunset, so we stayed at an inn or caravanserai on the other side.

We made our usual precautions and the night passed without incident.


11 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 42)

We travelled all day through Ivvereen to Tummeleen. On the way, Joybell tried to find the same little squirrel she’d spoken to on the way out before, but had no luck. Otherwise the day passed in uneventful travel. When we approached Tummeleen, we noticed that Jorlas’ cart had been moved from where we left it. We found it parked in Tummeleen -- where someone was working on cleaning it up and fixing it.

We spent the night at the Sterling Scythe again. The townspeople still looked a little freaked out from the attack of the Skinned One and the Star-Spawn Grues.

Mo performed for our discounted lodging and his supper -- it was far from his best performance ever. He found himself setting down his pipe and doing cheezy “magic” tricks with his fingers.

Oh, well, they can’t all be gems.

After Mo’s incredibly awkward performance, we made our usual precautions for the night and had no problems.


12 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 43)

We travelled through Orlimunn and Lunn and had a very quiet day. We stayed at the Flying Turtle again, and Joybell spent the evening thinking of Imaktis and missing his company.

Mo’s performance was better this evening -- he made good money in tips and we got our discounted lodging.

The night passed without incident.


13 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 44)

We got to Rodzun around midday, so we just continued straight on out the eastern side of town on the cart track. As we went we talked about what exactly we wanted to ask Nicolana, the Keeper of Secrets.

We settled on “Who is responsible for the Masks and where do we find that person?” If we can ask follow up questions, we’ll ask about Turnik Steeltear.

Taman reminded us that if the conversation with Nicolana goes south, be careful to break eye contact. Just in case she has the same eye/gaze attack as the agents of her mother, the Tundra Queen. Though, we did realize that just because she’s the Tundra Queen’s daughter, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s an ally. Because fey political alliances and networks are complicated.

About three or three and a half hours after we left Rodzun, we got to a rise or small hilltop that we’d been able to see a half hour or so earlier. When we’d seen it in the distance it looked like a mostly bare, grassy hilltop with some rocks on it. When we arrived there, however, we saw a small hut.

As we pulled the cart to a stop, Taman called out: "I seek the Keeper of Secrets."

Mo got off the cart and went to knock on the door, but before he got there it opened and a human-looking woman who looked 25 years old or so came out.

Nicolana: You’re not Jorlas.
Mo: He read the book.
Nicolana: He should have known better.
Mo: It can be very convincing.

Nicolana, looking at all of us: You may come into my house. I offer you my hospitality freely.

Taman, who’s done some study of the Fey, understood that there were no conditions to us coming in. She was genuinely welcoming -- and she was letting us read her and see that genuine welcome.

We went in to a nice casual dining room with food laid out on the table. Joybell left Scooby outside to watch the horses. Nicolana made it clear that he was welcome inside, but Joybell, without Taman’s insight into the Fey and having heard stories of people eating and drinking with various Fey in the woods and being lost for weeks or months at a time, declined and said he’d be fine outside.

Nicolana: So. You have a book for me?
Mo: It depends on what you’re going to do with it.
Nicolana: The thing about Erkonin is that it’s where I keep my stuff. I have no interest in bringing in the Outer Chaos to destroy everything.

That was a satisfactory answer to all of us, so we began to negotiate for the name and location of the person behind the Masks -- as we’d discussed on the way. After a few minutes, Nicolana sort of shook her head.

Nicolana: You want to know how to get to where the Masks are forged. The name and location alone would do you no good.

We agreed that she would give us the information in exchange for the Book of Madness and the scrolls from the Department of Water and Sewers.

The directions:
Leave Pelsoreen by Mountainway. Stay on the road around the Green Quilt (the Dunnimar Mountains). After ten sleeps, head into the mountains (this will be south-ish). After you do that, whenever you choose a path, take the road less traveled -- and look for twins.

We’ll know we’re there when we find the twins. And from the twins we’ll find the way to where the Masks are forged.

Joybell knows a little of the northern Dunimar Mountains, that’s where the Wold was, and knows we won’t get as far as the Wold in our ten days of travel from Mountainway.

Once we had that information, Taman said: I don’t suppose anyone has told you who I am.
Nicolana: You have a grudge.
Taman: I don’t believe you’ll tell me anything because I don’t have any more secrets.
Nicolana: Well then. But I’ll tell you the one you seek is not my mother’s servant.
Taman: I know that. But your mother does things that irk me.
Nicolana: Me too. But unlike my mother I play fair.

She stood then and told us that we were invited to stay in her hut for the night and to eat the food that was available, but she had to leave.

Joybell: Before you go, can you give us information about how to get in touch with Jorlas’ wife and children. She’s waiting for him to return, but he’s gone now and never will. They need to know that he’s dead.
Nicolana: That is not a secret to keep. I will make sure they know.

(Note: We ended before Joybell got a chance to pull out the letter that Jorlas was writing to his wife and ask if Nicolana could get it to her. It would probably make Martra happy to know he was thinking of her.)


----------



## prabe (Dec 6, 2020)

Session 22: Striking While The Iron Is Hot

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

GM - Everyone Else


13 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 44) (immediately after)

Before Nicolana, the Keeper of Secrets, left, Joybell gave her the letter from Jorlas to his wife to deliver -- Martra deserves to know that her husband loved her and was thinking of her right to the end of his life. (We did keep the others though.)

Then Nicolana left, inviting us to partake of her food and the safety of the hut for the night.

Mo really really wanted us to leave and get as far away as possible before making camp. Joybell, who was friends with a pixie near the Wold as a child, had heard tales (from Wren, the pixie, as well as from people in the Wold community) about people feasting and dancing with various fey and losing months when they thought they were gone for only an hour or two. So she concurred heartily with Mo about leaving and getting out of Nicolana’s immediate place of influence before we stopped to rest.

She did write a thank you note for the kind offer of shelter and food explaining that we were grateful but had to be going, etc. etc. (basically throwing lots of words into it to make it sound more polite). Then we left.

We traveled about an hour back toward Rodzun before it started getting dark. We made camp in one of Fiona’s little tiny huts with an alarm spell. Before we fell asleep we discussed what we wanted to do next -- including whether or not to go after the Masks.

We had a considerable amount of discussion, with everyone airing their thoughts.

Taman: Now that we have this information, we may need to get stronger before we go.
Mo: I want to finish what we started.
Taman, after some discussion: Let’s go find their hide-out and cut off the head.
Fiona: I’m leaning toward going too. The sooner we deal with this the sooner we won’t have to anymore.
Orryk: I think we won’t all be coming back. But I’ll go if that’s what the party decides.

We put it to a vote and everyone but Orryk voted to go after the Masks -- by the time it got to his turn to vote, Orryk just abstained. And grumbled a bit about not wanting to watch any of us die.

Orryk: If we’re going to do this, we should go get Gurn from the halflings in Tall Orchard. We’re practically right there and we could really use the extra muscle.
Mo: We should be very prepared to run away.
Everyone Else: Yeah!
Joybell, to Orryk: If more than one person dies, I’ll use the revivify on you first.
Orryk: I won’t be the one who dies. I can meld into the earth, shape myself a cavern and stay for as long as necessary.
Joybell: Well, okay then…

We decided also to have a sort of standard watch order -- to use unless there was some reason to do something different. It is: Joybell and Orryk on first watch (Gnome Shift), Mo on second watch, and Taman and Fiona on Third watch.

With our watches and our hut and so on, the night passed without incident.


14 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 45)

First thing in the morning, at Orryk’s request, Fiona used a sending spell to talk to the new mayor of Tall Orchard. She asked how their recovery was doing and if they could spare Gurn for a small time. They said that Gurn was still helping them with clearing the trashed part of town, and he was going to be used to help with the harvest in a week or two.

Well, then.

We went on our way, walking back to Rodzun and talking about tactics as we walked. We were especially talking about the fact that Joybell is going to need some coaching, because she’s really not much use at range (and none at all beyond 30’). But standing toe to toe by herself is not always going to be the best strategy.

We passed through Rodzun and went on to Lunn, where we stayed at the Flying Turtle, though Mo thought it might be a little too soon, or a little tacky or something. Joybell thought it was a bittersweet reminder of our fallen friend. (Also we’d stayed here before.) Mo performed at the inn, doing a couple of sets of standard tunes but performing them Really Well! He earned some money in tips and it was a great show.

Joybell went around the bar and asked a couple of people from Pelsoreen if they knew of a Turnik Steeltear but none of them had heard of him.

In one of our rooms at the inn, we made our usual preparations (making the tiny hut inside the room) and the night passed without incident.


15 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 46)

We headed out in the morning on the road to Tummeleen and the Sterling Scythe. We traveled without incident throughout the day.

When we got to town, Fiona cast a fly spell on Joybell so she could practice fly-by combat. Orryk stood mostly still, reading a book and dodging as needed while Joybell giggled and swooped down and tried to touch him and then pull up out of combat range.

After that we had dinner, went to our rooms, and with precautions, rested. The night passed.


16 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 47)

We left the Sterling Scythe in the morning and proceeded to travel to Pelsoreen. Once again Fiona cast fly on Joybell, so she could practice flying for in combat -- and get past the giggle and squee reaction.

As we were walking, we decided to stay somewhere other than at the Iron Steed. They’d been good to us there -- but people were clearly associating us with that inn (people had come to find us there when the Masks were attacking the Cracked Shield) and we wanted to try and remain unnoticed if possible.

When we got there, the causeway was up and we were able to cross immediately.

As we entered the city, we observed that Mr. Ed and Secretariat, the horses formerly known as Horse 1 and Horse 2, had survived yet another multi-day journey from the city.

Taman looked around and didn’t notice that we’d picked up a tail when we entered the city. We wondered how long that would last.

We found a nondescript inn with copper placards from both Dallington’s and the Blink Toad on the wall outside. The inn was sort of seedy and run-down looking -- and called the Soaring Kirin. We paid 5sp (one per person) for the party to stay for the night. Mo paid the innkeeper a little extra not to report to any of the corporations that we were there.

Innkeeper: I can keep it quiet for a couple of days. But don’t let them [he pointed to where the placards were] follow you back here. Just don’t let that happen.

Mo agreed to that and said we were only planning on staying a very short time.

Up in our room, Mo made his junior birdman mask and cast clairvoyance to look into the burned out husk of the House of Masks. It looked like C&C had perhaps started clearing out some of the rubble and taken down the pieces of roof that remained after the fire. They were clearly still finishing the demolition and rubble removal part of the process and hadn’t gotten to rebuilding at all.

After that, we discussed what we wanted to do the next day. The Mountainway causeway would be up in the evening, so we’d have the whole day to spend in town before we could leave.

Mo, taking off the Gloves of Ogre Strength: I’m not sure these gloves are really my wheelhouse. I’m just like other goliaths now. I’m not liking it. They’re fun. But they’re not me.

He handed the gloves to Orryk to stow in the bag of holding. He also gave back the longsword to put in the bag.

We made our usual precautions in one of the three rooms we’d taken at the inn, and the night passed.


17 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 48)

In the morning we talked about what we wanted to do with our day. Orryk requested that we go see Allona, the magic item merchant.

Orryk: I’m going with you to fight the continent-wide guild of assassins that’s going to kill one of us…

We agreed to do that.

Joybell wanted to go see what Burnocka the alchemist had made out of the gorgon sinus matter we brought back.

We also talked about finding out more about Turnik Steeltear. We had the thought that we could talk to some people in the dwarven neighborhood in town. A bit of investigation revealed that there really aren’t many dwarves in Pelsoreen, but what population of dwarves there is is in the Stonetree neighborhood -- conveniently the same neighborhood that Burnocka and Allona are in.

On the way there, Orryk sold the animal figurines from the House of Masks, the gold bracelets from the myrriq, and the longswords and longbows from the second batch of Masks and we each got 310 gp.

Just before we got to Burnocka’s Joybell asked Mo to take charge of the conversation. Because we gave him the gorgon snot that he’s making things out of that he can sell and she just couldn’t see how we were getting any recompense for that.

Mo agreed to do that, and Joybell stayed toward the back of the group, near Fiona, when we went inside.

Burnocka told us that he’d made oil of petrification prevention out of it and he’d been surprised at what an excellent raw material the gorgon sinus matter had been for making that product. Mo asked if he thought it would prevent being turned to ice.

Burnocka: No...this is all about preventing the actual stone transformation. It won’t prevent any other sort of transformation, even if the effect is similar in some ways.

Fair enough.

Mo then started to dickering about us bringing Burnocka the gorgon snot and not getting any recompense for it except that Burnocka would sell us the oils for 100 gp each. Burnocka said that the price he quoted us included that consideration. Mo started hammering on about the danger involved in fighting the gorgon.

Joybell was nodding in the background and Orryk pointed out that he was surprised at her for supporting Mo in his somewhat deceptive and high pressure negotiating tactics. Joybell, who hadn’t thought of it that way until Orryk said something, was suddenly ashamed and sorry that she’d asked Mo to take the lead in the conversation.

Burnocka: You brought the sinus matter. I had to provide the ingredients to turn it into something useful.
Joybell, now thoroughly shamed: Oh! That’s right!!

Then she shrunk into herself. Fiona led her outside.

Mo: Next spell I learn is silence.

With a bit more discussion, Burnocka agreed to sell us three of the oils at 75 gp each, because he’d made six of them (because the materials were so good). He could make up the rest of the money, and a good profit, selling the rest for more. Mo bought one for himself and one for Joybell to pay him back for, figuring that she owed him. (Note: I believe that someone else, Taman maybe, bought the third, but I’m not sure.)

Mo: Do you sell anything recreational?
Burnocka: I think you’ll be better off among the herbalists for something like that.

When the party went outside, Mo handed one of the bottles of oil to Joybell.

Mo: Joybell, I bought you one. I could only get him down to 100 gold. You can pay me back.
Joybell: Okay <<hands over the gold>> He’ll make enough and be okay with us buying them for that?
Orryk, smiling for the first time in days: 100 is what we paid the temple.
Taman just laughed.

We started to walk toward Allona’s shop and along the way Mo kept his eyes open for a dwarf bar. He finally spotted a sign for the Platinum Beard -- clearly we’d found the right place.

Mo (to the party): Can someone get Joybell out of here?

He then went on speaking to the innkeeper in dwarvish. Joybell, a little miffed, sat at a table with an ale, people-watching.

Mo explained to the innkeeper that we were looking for someone who’d inherited a share in a mine and asked if he’d heard of someone named Steeltear. The innkeeper hadn’t heard of anyone with that name in the city at any time. He also observed that it’s an odd name for a dwarf.

Mo then mentioned that the person we were looking for’s first name was Turnik.

Innkeeper: I do remember a fella named that, really young. He was called Turnik Stoneshield. He was pretty weird -- he didn’t drink much, though he’d buy a round for the bar time to time. I haven’t seen him since the winter.

(Reminder -- the campaign began at the summer solstice festival. It is now approximately the equivalent of mid-August.)

Mo asked if he could be staying somewhere else. The innkeeper said that there are only a few inns in Pelsoreen that catered to a dwarven clientele. He didn’t know where Turnik Stoneshield had been staying, but wherever it was, it was months ago.

Mo: What kind of dwarf was he?
Innkeeper: Nothing else really stood out to me.

Mo, coming back to the group and relaying what he’d learned: I got a lot of information, but it doesn’t really help us.

While we were sitting and drinking our ales and eating some lunch, Taman remembered the Oil of Etherealness that we’d found in the lumberyard in Embernook (after fighting the zombies and ghouls and all there). We agreed that it would be great and really helpful for scouting when we get to where we’re going. (We weren’t talking about going to where the Masks are forged while in the city.)

Mo, to Orryk: Does that make you feel better?
Orryk: No.

After our lunch and beer, we headed off to Allona’s magic item shop.

Mo, dropping the gloves of ogre strength on the counter: We’re looking to sell these. If I’m this strong people will ask me to do work. Maybe we can get something that will help us not die.

Allona offered us 400 gp for the gloves. As a trade she said she had some greater healing potions (which Joybell can make with a week of downtime).

Joybell: Maybe something that would stop someone from bleeding out if they’re knocked unconscious.

Allona said she had an idea of an item that would fit that description, but she didn’t have one in stock. Perhaps if we came back at another time she might have gotten one in stock. Mo put the gloves back into the bag of holding.

Orryk asked about magic items that would let him summon an elemental creature once a day. Allona said that items like that were very expensive -- thousands and thousands of gold pieces.

We thanked her for her time and left.

We walked back to the Soaring Kirin, where the horses and cart were parked. We talked about whether we wanted to take the cart and the horses with us to the where the Masks are forged. We decided that since this is going to be a scouting mission, at least to begin with, we didn’t want a cart and horses making us more obvious. And making it harder for us to hide from the Masks that we expected to run into on the road.

So we collected Mr. Ed and Secretariat and sold them, along with the cart, back to the livery where we’d bought them.

We then found a place to hang out near the Mountainway causeway until it came up an hour before sunset, and we crossed to the other side. As with the Ovverway causeway, there are a small number of carriage inns and caravanserai there.

After we crossed we took rooms at one of the inns. Joybell asked the innkeeper if he’d seen any big people in white masks recently.

Innkeeper: Yeah. They showed up just before the causeway came up.
Joybell: Like they slept on the road or maybe traveled overnight?
Innkeeper: Maybe.

Joybell asked about what we could expect along this road. We were told that there were towns every half day of travel for a couple of days, like going along the coast from Ovverway, after that there was a town every day for a few days. After that there were still towns and villages, but they were more sporadic.

Joybell: Cool! We’re going about ten days.
Mo: Oh, don’t…
Orryk: Too late.

We made our usual precautions in the inn and rested for the night -- preparing to head out early in the morning.

The night passed without incident.


18 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 49)

We left in the morning early and headed out. Taman was scouting about 500 feet ahead and off the side of the road (within the range of the Cape of the Mountebank) of the party. There was forest on either side of the road.

Joybell, on Scooby, stayed toward the edge of the road, so she could get into the woods quickly if Taman got word to Mo (using the sending stones) that there was something on the road ahead.

The day passed without incident, except that we passed through the village of Bordeen and spent the night in a town called Eltlin. There were two inns -- the Six Drakes and the Golden Plough.

Joybell: Oh! Dragons are good!

But we decided to stay at the Golden Plough on the grounds that the food was likely to be good. Mo played a standard set -- good but not as great as he had in Tummeleen a few days earlier.He did get some tips from the audience.

We made precautions and rested without any problems.


19 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 50)

At breakfast, Joybell asked the innkeeper if he’d seen big guys in Masks. He said he’d seen some a couple of weeks earlier, but not since. They’d stopped in for breakfast (oatmeal and gruel) and black coffee.

Innkeeper: Those guys were creepy!
Joybell: I know, right?!

Then we headed out on the road, with Taman scouting as he had the day before -- 500 feet ahead of us and off the side of the road.

He spotted some ogres (3 ogres) on the road, way ahead of us. They were trundling along the road, apparently because it’s easier to travel on the road than through the forest. One of them was holding a humanoid leg in his hand and chewing on it as he walked along.

Taman came back to report all of this to us We moved off the road to hide in the forest. Taman, Fiona and Mo were hiding on one side, Joybell and Orryk on the other.

Well Joybell tried to hide, but her armor glinted in the sun and she clanked and rattled. (She got a 4 on her stealth check.) She’d only moved a few feet away from the road on the grounds that she wasn’t likely to hide well anyway, and it might as well be easy for her to get back to the road when she was spotted.

Fiona cast mage armor on herself and the noise of the that caught one ogre’s attention. The other two spotted Joybell and headed across the road toward her.

Taman shot at the one heading toward Fiona and got a good hit. Fiona cast firebolt on the same one (Ogre1) and did a great deal of fire damage. That ogre lumbered toward Fiona, but was unable to attack. The other two ogres (Ogre 2 & Ogre 3) went toward Joybell and Fiona but were also unable to reach them and attack.

Orryk stepped out onto the road and hit Ogre 3 twice with two shortbow shots. Nice! Joyell also moved out onto the road (having never been entirely committed to getting into the woods anyway) on Scooby, then rode him as far as she could before dismounting and closing on the one Orryk had just shot, hitting it with her short sword and doing a lot of damage.

It screamed in surprise and pain.

Ogre 3: Sharp Little, die!

Joybell may take SharpLittle as a nickname…

Mo cast hypnotic pattern on the two on Joybell and the one that no one had hit thus far (Ogre 2) was stunned. The more damaged of them managed to avoid getting entranced by the pretty lights. Then Mo inspired Taman.

Taman moved up on Ogre 1 and attacked with his rapier for some nice damage. Ogre 1 also started to scream. But Taman didn’t get called Sharp Little. Fiona fired a firebolt at Ogre 1 again and again got a hit, but didn’t do as much damage this time, unfortunately. Then she moved back next to Mo.

Ogre 1 took a mighty swing with his tree-trunk/great club at Taman but missed. Ogre 3 moved around his hypnotically stunned comrade to attack Joybell, but missed. Ogre 2 looked at the pretty lights.

Orryk ran up next to Joybell and started throwing daggers from his belt of many daggers at Ogre 3 -- doing a flurry of blows and a rather terrifying amount of damage. Joybell took a swing at the same one and hit with both of her attacks.

Mo moved out into the middle of the road, then cast blindness on the two ogres that weren’t staring at the pretty lights (Ogres 1 and 3) -- blinding both of them. Nice!!

Taman took advantage of that to drop Ogre 1. Fiona dropped a fireball spell so it caught the two remaining ogres. Ogre 2, stunned by the hypnotic pattern, failed his save and died to the fireball, coming un-stunned just long enough to notice the fireball. Ogre 3 saved but died anyway.

We looted the bodies, but found very little -- 190sp and 70gp. The ogres were carrying sacks but everything else was rubbish and junk. And some nasty meat for road snacks.

We continued on our way. A short distance later, Taman spotted where the ogres had emerged from the forest and started traveling on the road. We never saw anything like a destroyed wagon or caravan or any place where the source of the humanoid leg one was eating on came from.

About 45 minutes after the combat we got to the mid-day town and stopped at one of the inns for lunch.

Joybell, to the barkeep: We just killed three ogres on the road. Is that normal around here?
Barkeep, looking us over and seeing us all unhurt: You killed three ogres??
Joybell: Yeah. Not more than 45 minutes from here.

The barkeep said that ogres weren’t unheard of in this area, but they weren’t common either. He also gave us lunch for free because we’d killed three ogres without, apparently, breaking a sweat.

After lunch, we continued on the road to the town Iksoren. We never saw anything like an attacked caravan or wagon on that stretch of the road either.

We also never saw any Masks on the road -- which is really weird. They were about two days overdue for what we were expecting at this point.

We spent the night in the town Iksoren and it passed without incident.


20 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 51)

At breakfast at the inn, Joybell once again asked about the Masks. The innkeeper gave us the same answer we’d been getting elsewhere -- he hadn’t seen any for a couple of weeks. They stopped in for breakfast of black coffee and plain gruel, but hadn’t stayed in the inn overnight.

As we walked and continued not to see any more Masks We talked some about what that might mean, but didn’t come to any conclusions (on account of not having a lot of information).

We proceeded in the same fashion, with Taman scouting ahead about 500 feet.

Shortly before lunch, Taman spotted 2 trolls moving through the woods near the road. As he watched he got a sense of their tactics -- they were close enough to the road to jump out in ambush at travellers on the road.

He returned to the party to let us know we had them incoming.

Joybell stayed on the far side of the road from where Taman had seen the trolls, on Scooby, seeing little point in trying to hide. Orryk, Fiona and Mo were in the woods near her. Taman hid in the woods on the other (troll-ridden) side.

Orryk sensed they had spotted the whole party -- or at least Fiona and Taman seemed to have been spotted, and Joybell was obviously right there to be seen. He stepped out of the woods and took two shots at the first troll and hit with both of his arrows.

Joybell took a look at the situation and realized that she wouldn’t be able to get to them even if she jumped off Scooby when he’d gone as far as he could and ran the rest of the way.

Joybell: They’re too far away.
Orryk: Then let them come to us. Don’t rush ahead where we can’t support you.
Joybell: But….<<sighs>> right.

The trolls moved fast and got closer to the party but couldn’t attack.

Taman took a shot at the first troll (the same one Orryk had shot), then ran across the road to join the rest of the party.

Joybell moved up a few feet and dismounted from Scooby, then threw a couple of javelins at them, one of which hit.

Fiona cast scorching ray and fired three bolts of fire out into space…

Mo used five charges off the wand of magic missiles and did a lot of damage (27 points) to the one nearest to Joybell (Troll 1).

Orryk grumbled as he went past Joybell to take a shot at Troll 1, then settled into his defensive stance.

Joybell: Why are you grumbling?! I did what you said!

Then she realized he was grumbling about one of us getting killed on this trip...the same grumble we’d been hearing for days.

The troll attacked Orryk, but missed because of his defensive maneuvers. The other troll (2) moved and dashed and got right up to where Fiona, Taman and Mo were standing in the road well behind Orryk and Joybell. Thankfully, it was unable to attack.

Taman attacked the troll that was suddenly right in front of him with his rapier, doing some damage.

Joybell was terribly torn -- Orryk had moved up so she wouldn’t be out in front of the party without support and she didn’t want to leave him on his own. But there was a troll going after the more vulnerable friends in the back. She finally settled on going to help Mo, Fiona and Taman.

Joybell: I’m sorry, Orryk!
Orryk: <<silence>>

She attacked Troll 2 and got two hits for 17 points of damage.

Fiona cast fly on herself and got to a safe height. Mo moved around to a better position and cast haste on Joybell (whee!) and then inspired Taman.

Orryk attacked Troll 1 for a good hit, but his attempt at a stunning strike didn’t work. His other attack missed. Then he went back into his defensive stance.

Troll 1 on Orryk attacked with a bite and a swing from each of its big hands. The bite hit for a lot of piercing damage, but the claws both missed. The other troll, flanked by Taman and Joybell, turned to attack the paladin. It hit with both its bite and one of the claws, doing quite a lot of damage to her.

Taman then attacked it and did quite a bit more damage than that to it. Because of the haste Mo cast on her, Joybell got to attack three times. Unfortunately she only hit once, and that because Mo had also inspired her at some point. Fiona cast scorching ray, sending two bolts of fire to Troll 2 (on Joybell and Taman) and one to Troll 1 (on Orryk). The bolt on Troll 1 hit a critical spot and did a lot of damage, but troll 2 had been beaten on some and did not look well at all.

Mo tried to blind both of them, but only succeeded in blinding the one on Joybell and Taman. Which was a huge help. Then he inspired Orryk.

Orryk used his new gloves to do a necrotic touch attack against Troll 1 -- getting a good hit and regaining 4 points of damage with his first punch. Unfortunately the second punch missed. Then he went back into his patient defense.

Because of Fiona’s firebolt, the trolls’ regenerative ability had been shut down for the moment, which was good. The one on Joybell and Taman attacked the paladin again (which was good for us but maybe not its best decision) -- it missed with one claw and would have hit with the other, except Mo perfectly timed the perfect insult and distracted it from hitting at all. Then, still flustered and still blinded, it missed with its bite. Then it shook off the blindness.

The one on Orryk hit with its bite but missed with both of its claws.

Taman got a good hit with his rapier on Troll 2, dropping it, but we could see its wounds closing.

Joybell figured that Fiona could get some fire onto the troll to keep in down for good (and was unable to do so herself) so she jumped on Scooby and rode over to Orryk and Troll 1. She got three attacks, because of the haste from Mo, that all hit. It dropped. At that point both of them just needed some fire to stay dead.

Fiona, seeing her action call, cast a searing ray, sending bolts of fire to each of them. She hovered directly over the one on Taman and shot it with one of the bolts, unfortunately missing. The one on Orryk and Joybell she missed with her first shot, wildly, but hit with her second -- dropping Troll 1 for real.

Mo cast sleep on Troll 2, putting it into a nice nap -- which allowed us to kill it at our leisure. Fiona did so with an acid splash spell.

We searched the bodies for treasure and found 30 electrum pieces (6 each) and 1400 copper.

Orryk: Leave the copper.

We all went up to seventh level.

Treasure:
310gp each from selling some treasure from earlier (stone figurines from the House of Masks and gold bracelets from the myrriq’s hoard)
190sp and 70gp (38sp and 14gp each)
30 electrum pieces (6 each) and 1400 copper (280 copper each, if we take it)
Mr. Ed, Secretariat and the cart were sold for 57 gp and 5 sp. (None of us could remember whether Mo had paid for the horses and cart on his own or if they’d been party purchases. So I’m not sure whether that should go back to him or be divided).

Party Kitty Update:
Since the last Party Kitty Update we paid for 2 nights of lodging at the Iron Steed in Pelsoreen (at 6 gp/night), one night of lodging at the Flying Kirin n Pelsoreen(at 5 sp/night) and 7 nights of travel on the road (four to and from the Keeper of Secrets and three since crossing the causeway after leaving Pelsoreen) (at 3 gp/night, because Mo sings us a discount). Also, crossing the Mountainway causeway cost the party 6sp. So taking out 12 gp, 5 sp for lodging in Pelsoreen, 21 gp for lodging on the road, and 6sp for the causeway what’s left is: 3 sp, and 14 cp. At this point we basically have no Party Kitty.

Joybell paid for everyone’s lodging listed above that wasn’t covered by the previous balance (see notes for session 19).


----------



## prabe (Dec 13, 2020)

Session 23: Evils Along the Way; Also, a New Traveling Companion

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


20 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 51) (immediately after)

We resumed proceeding toward the next town, with Taman scouting ahead as he had been. The rest of the day passed uneventfully.

The next town, Namolla, was quite small -- it had only one inn, the Green Stone. Mo didn’t feel like playing in the evening -- even bards need the day off once in a while.

In the common area of the tavern, we saw a wood elf in studded leather armor who looked like she’d been on the road for a while. Joybell went over to talk to her.

Joybell: Hi! Have you been travelling on the road?
Thneed: No. I came through the mountains.
Joybell: Oh. Well have you seen any big people wearing masks?
Thneed: Nothing like that.

We learned that she was trying to find information about (and perhaps find) the hobgoblins who had destroyed her village. Joybell told him we were going after the people who had destroyed her village. We eventually learned that her name is Thneed and she’s a ranger. She noted Taman’s longbow and commented on both of them being archers.

Taman: I used to hit things with my sword until they started hitting back.

We talked for a bit and all introduced ourselves. Thneed offered to come with us to fight the things we’re fighting (the Masks, which we explained a bit to him about) and we said we’d help her with the hobgoblins after the Masks were killed -- but we feel a bit of time-pressure there. We talked and ate dinner and relaxed together.

As it got toward time to rest, Joybell went to talk to Orryk, quietly.

Joybell: Do we want to invite her into our tiny hut? I mean she seems nice and all but we just met her.
Orryk: She probably has her own room.
Joybell, to Thneed: Do you have a room?
Thneed: I’ll get one…

Joybell followed her over to the innkeeper so she could ask if he’d seen any Masks lately. The answer was in line with those she’d gotten elsewhere -- they came in a few weeks ago for breakfast of oatmeal and black coffee, but didn’t stay in the inn, and were super creepy.

We rested for the night -- with the party in one of the three rooms we took in Fiona’s tiny hut with an alarm spell and Thneed in her own room.

The night passed without incident.


21 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 52)

We found Thneed at breakfast the next morning and we all headed out together. Taman scouted ahead without us discussing it, going ahead at about the range of the Cape of the Mountebank, as he had been.

The first half of the day passed uneventfully. As we walked, we told Thneed about some of what we’d encountered and done. She told us about the hobgoblins that attacked her village -- and about hobgoblins in general.

Joybell: Are they always bad people? We’ve met some orcs that were lovely.

After we stopped for lunch, Taman returned from scouting ahead to report that there were 9 bugbears and 2 ogres guarding a bridge ahead of us.

We talked for a bit about going around them, fording the stream, but that violates the “don’t leave bad guys to come back and fight us later when it will only be worse” rule.

Orryk: If they just want a toll, we can pay them.
Joybell: That’s true.
Mo: Hey, New Girl! You could go talk to them…

We prepared for combat but continued right up the road, with Joybell front and center. We stopped when they were within shouting range.

Joybell: Hello there!
Bugbear: Hello, Rider of Wolf.
Joybell: Oh, I like that!

Joybell talked with them a bit and established that they wanted a 2gp per entity crossing the bridge (including Scooby) toll. They also said that this was the realm of the Red Bone Tribe, a tribe of hobgoblins, which was at least unexpected -- this part of the continent is all city-states and very loosely organized, but something that called itself a tribe controlling a road like this seemed unlikely. And something was making Joybell think that this might have to do with the destruction of Thneed’s village.

Joybell, to the bugbear: Moment while I consult with my friends.

She turned back to the party and we caucused.

Joybell: We could pay and just cross and move along.
Mo: It would violate our one and only rule…

In order to get more information, Joybell turned back to the bugbear:

Joybell: So if we pay you we can cross with no difficulties and continue on our way.
Bugbear: You, probably. The Red Bones are gonna eat your partner <<indicating Thneed>> alive, though.
Joybell: They eat elves?
Bugbear: That was what you might call a metaphor.
Joybell: Oh. Are y’all all hired hands? We don’t necessarily have a beef with you, though we might with them.
Bugbear: The big guys are hired hands. We’re more what you’d call kin. Cousins.
Joybell: Oh. Then if we have a beef with them, we do have a beef with you. Moment.

She went back to the others and explained the situation.

Orryk: What’s rule #1?

While Joybell was explaining things to the party, Taman cast hail of thorns and fired his longbow at the ogre on this side of the bridge (Ogre 1).

Joybell, to the bugbear: Sorry! I think we’re not going to pay.

Taman hit with his spell but did a miniscule amount of damage.

Thneed put a hunter’s mark on the bugbear Joybell spoke to (henceforth the “Chief”) and shot at him. She also got to shoot at the guy next to the Chief as well (because Hunter Conclave rangers get an awesome ability called Horde Breaker). So cool! Then she took her second attack and also shot at the Chief and the guy next to him, getting two critical hits with her four arrows.

Orryk shot two arrows at the Chief and got two hits. Then he moved off the road into the forest where he’d be in with a chance of finding a bit of cover. Mo pulled out the wand of web and dropped the web so that it was on Bugbears #6 and #8 and Ogre 1 -- it made the end of the bridge and some of the road difficult terrain.

Mo: Good job shooting, New Girl!

Then he inspired Thneed. He also considered moving forward.

Joybell, as Mo was about to pass her: Forward the bard? Bold choice.

Mo decided to stay behind her.

The Chief then moved up, well ahead of the rest of his forces, and attacked Joybell twice, getting one hit.

In response, Joybell attacked him twice getting a hit and calling down the power of nature into her sword. Despite seeing that he was pretty thoroughly injured, she used a powerful divine smite (2nd level), because she hoped it would be demoralizing to the other bugbears and maybe the ogres to have their leader dropped easily and quickly.

The other bugbears, at this point, hadn’t even had a chance to react to Taman’s hail of thorns.

Fiona moved up only as far as necessary and cast Toll the Dead on Ogre 1, then she moved off into the forest to find some cover. Taman put his hunter’s mark on Ogre 1 and took a shot at it, but missed.

The bugbears from the near side of the bridge (#3, #6, #7, #8) got out of the web and its difficult terrain and moved up the road as far as they could before throwing javelins at Joybell -- fortunately most of them missed. The bugbears from the back of the bridge (#1, #2, #5, #4) jumped over the side of the bridge at the edge of the webbing and splashed up the banks of the river and through the wood, advancing as far as they could. Ogre 1 ran as fast as it could to get in front of Joybell. Ogre 2 moved into and part way through the webbed area.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to #3 and shot at him and Ogre 1, hitting both, because of Mo’s inspiration. She dropped #3 and did a lot of damage to the ogre, but doesn’t have as much knowledge of them as she has of bugbears, hobgoblins and other humanoids.

Orryk put his bow away and moved up to punch #4 twice, doing a lot of damage. Then he settled into his defensive stance.

Mo puffed on his pipe for a bit and then played a little song -- the smoke swirled up into the air and lit up with bright colors, like fireworks in a fog, and cast hypnotic pattern, catching everyone but #4 and #5 in the area. Both ogres began staring at the pretty lights. #6 and #1 both saved. #7, #8 and #1 were all incapacitated by the spell.

Joybell carefully rode around Ogre 1, so she wouldn’t snap him out of his daze, and attacked #6, intending to take down the able bodied (or able minded) so they wouldn’t shake their incapacitated friends out of the spell’s hold. She hit him pretty well, but didn’t drop him.

Fiona cast scorching ray and got one hit on #1. Taman took a shot at #5 which didn’t look like it was in with a chance, but there was some sort of lucky break and it hit after all and hit a particularly sensitive spot because the bugbear was off guard.

#1 moved to attack Orryk and missed. Which was brilliant for our side, because it meant he was not spending his action shaking one of the others out of looking at the lights. #4 attacked Orryk as well and also missed. #5 attacked Joybell and missed.

#6 didn’t attack Joybell, who was right in front of him, but instead went to go after Taman. Joybell took a swing at him as he moved away, hitting him but not enough to drop him or stop him moving. Its swing at Taman hit a critical spot and was going to do a huge amount of damage, until Mo said some cutting words and blew a puff of smoke into his face.

The ogres spent their turn dazed by Mo’s lights.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on #1 then took advantage of him and #4 standing next to each other to shoot both of them, hitting both and dropping #4. Then she shot #1 again with her second attack and dropped it. Nice shooting again, New Girl!

Orryk ran over to help Joybell with #6, throwing a couple of daggers at it off his belt. Then he missed with both of his flurry of blows punches.

Orryk: Joybell, go help Taman.

Before she could do that, though, Mo used three charges from the wand of magic missiles on #6 on Taman’s and dropped it.

Taman: Thanks, Mo!

Then Mo moved up so he was in range to use his cutting words on anything that attacked Joybell.

Since Taman didn’t need assistance anymore, Joybell took a swing at #6, dropping it. She used the power of the sword of the medic to heal Taman some of the damage he’d taken. Then she took a swing at #2, who was incapacitated by Mo’s spell, but missed him. Sadly.

At that point, all that were left were incapacitated opponents thanks to Mo’s hypnotic pattern. #8 was knocked out of his trance by a shot from Thneed and then the first thing he saw was a gnome running toward him throwing daggers. This was also the last thing he saw because Orryk dropped him.

Orryk then took a swing at the next incapacitated guy along, #7, and missed.

Mo moved up and, trying to look cool for the new girl, took a shot at #7 with his crossbow and missed wildly. Joybell rode over to #7 on Scooby and missed with her first swing -- fortunately her second hit and we all had our next target. Everyone dogpiled on #7 until Taman dropped it with a bowshot that hit caught it unawares.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to Ogre 1 and hit with both shots, giving us our next target. Orryk dropped him. Then Orryk moved over to Ogre 2 and punched him in the back of the knee -- target acquired.

Mo took another shot with his crossbow and missed again. Joybell rode Scooby over to Ogre 2 and hit with both of her attacks. Then Fiona cast shadowbolt on it, causing it to moan in pain and hold its head (psychic damage) as it fell to the ground, dropping everything it was holding. Taman moved up and stabbed it with his rapier in a great sneak attack, but didn’t manage to drop it.

The ogre then stood up and grabbed his club, the first of the ones incapacitated by Mo’s hypnotic pattern to survive long enough to do anything. He swung his massive club at Orryk and missed.

Thneed fired an arrow at it and finally dropped it.

We took a short rest there at the bridge, just to gather ourselves. We also looted the bodies and found 110 gp among them, Thneed went around and carved her name on the heads of all of the dead, making her mark on entities that had called themselves kin to hobgoblins.

We talked about possibly pursuing the Red Bones while we were here -- since they seem to be connected at least to the destruction of Thneed’s village by hobgoblins. But we still have this hot lead on the Masks -- and we have the sense that the longer we wait the more of them will be -- so we decided to continue on our way to the Forge of Masks and deal with the Red Bones on the way back to Pelsoreen.

Taman and Thneed did look for tracks. Taman spotted that there had been a lot of movement on this road, and even some repairs to the bridge, recently. The tracks were going the way we’re headed. Which worked out well all around.

Before we continued on our way, Mo used the flute of scribing to leave a message in glowing letters on the ground:

We were here. If you’re looking for us, ask for Thneed.

We then headed back on our way, with Taman doing his his scouting ahead thing.

We were talking as we walked, learning a little bit about our new companion.

Thneed: I’ve already gotten to kill things associated with hobgoblins. This is good!
Mo: So you have your reward and don’t need a share of the treasure…
Joybell: Mo W. Kang!

About an hour and a half later, Taman blundered out of the woods and onto the road only to spot, about 300 feet away, a group of eight hobgoblins marching down the road in two regimented columns behind an ogre. They all spotted him immediately.

Taman turned around and used the cape of the mountebank to bamf away, leaving a puff of smoke behind.

He reappeared among the party, smoke swirling off the cape.

Taman: So there’s a bunch of guys up there and they saw me. They had really good eyes.

We decided to stand where we were and wait for them to arrive. There was forest on either side of the road, thinner in a border along the roadside, then thicker and more difficult further away. (Note: It was difficult terrain, but it did give advantage on stealth checks.)

Joybell stayed in the middle of the road on Scooby waiting for them. The rest of the party moved off the road and hid.

A little bit later the group showed up - spread out more than they had been when Taman initially spotted them, but still marching in two columns with the ogre in the middle in the front and the two “special” ones in the back. Very regimented.

The hobgoblins’ armor was very well cared for and very clean. There were six in chainmail with shields (all with the same emblem on them), one in half plate armor (made of smaller plates that strapped together), and one in studded leather. The ogre’s crude hide armor (like skins tied on with sinew) was, on the other hand, not well-maintained and had no emblem. (6 hobgoblins, 1 hobgoblin captain (half-plate), 1 hobgoblin devastator (studded leather), 1 ogre)

As they approached it didn’t appear that they had spotted any of the folks who were hiding. Which was good.

Orryk and Taman started firing arrows at the ogre, because he was the one in range--softening him up but also revealing their location, at least in a general sense.

Mo cast hypnotic pattern, because it’s amazing, on the ogre and the front two hobgoblins -- the glowing sparkling smoke captivated and incapacitated all three of them.

The hobgoblin captain had a good sense of what he needed to do to get his forces functional again, so he moved up as far as he could, then grabbed some rocks off the road and threw them at his men. That shook the two hobgoblins out of their stupor almost immediately.

Instead of shooting at the ogre, Thneed took advantage of two of the hobgoblins having moved closer together to use her horde breaker ability to drop both of them. Nicely done.

The hobgoblin in the studded leather armor, the devastator, surprised everyone by casting a spell that shot a point of green light over the road to where Orryk, Thneed and Mo were in the underbrush off to the side. The point of light exploded into a spray of acid that covered all three of them. Orryk managed to dance out of the spray, but Mo and Thneed were both injured. Fortunately, Mo was able to keep up the hypnotic pattern on the ogre.

Joybell, still trying to internalize the concept of letting the enemy come to her rather than charging into the battle, waited while the hobgoblins ran toward her, closing part of the distance on Scooby, but not rushing into the thick of them. Unable to restrain herself from doing anything, she threw a javelin at one of the hobgoblins.

With the ogre incapacitated, thanks to Mo and his spell, Taman and Orryk turned to shooting at the hobgoblins. Taman focused on the spellcasting devastator, but wasn’t able to take out the otherwise uninjured opponent. Orryk dropped one of the regular ones, which helped thin the opposition.

The captain, having succeeded in waking his own hobgoblins with the thrown rocks, threw one at the ogre, rousing him from Mo’s hypnotic spell as well. Dammit.

Mo tried to slow them down or tie them up with the wand of web -- blocking part of the road with the mass of webbing. Or trying to -- the ogre waded right into it, and was bogged down by it even though he didn’t get totally stuck.

Thneed, seeing the same danger from the spellcaster that Taman did, shot twice at the devastator, but unfortunately didn’t do enough damage to drop it.

It was especially unfortunate, because the devastator then cast a fireball right on top of Joybell and Scooby, causing Scooby to disappear back to wherever celestial wolves go and doing Joybell a lot of damage. Also causing Joybell to be really really angry because they killed her wolf.

Fiona, having flown up into the air, shot magic missiles at the devastator, and took out the biggest threat (or at least the most annoying one). Excellent!

The remaining hobgoblins ran around the web, to avoid getting stuck, but it kept them from being able to attack Joybell. Which suited her fine. She attacked one of them and focused the power of divine nature on it which dropped it.

With the spellcaster gone, Taman turned his focus to the captain of this squad hoping to cut off the head. The captain, looking at the situation, decided against running up to Orryk (the closest of us to him) and being unable to attack. He may also have decided that with all of his men (except the ogre) dropped and a clearly dangerous force (us) on the road, that he needed to go back to whatever base he had and report this situation. In any case, he turned and ran.

Mo: Now we have to kill this guy.

Taking that cue, Thneed shot the captain twice and dropped him.

GM: Shot in the back while running away.

But with her hatred of hobgoblins, Thneed was fine with that.

The ogre, who thrashed around trying to get free and wound out getting thoroughly stuck in the web, was finally dispatched by one of Fiona’s firebolts -- it ignited the webbing and killed him at the same time so he went up in a big immolating fire.

Joybell started casting find steed so she could get Scooby back before the fire had burned itself out. We wound out taking a short rest so people could gather themselves and recover a bit. Mo played us a nice song of rest on his flute then went off to look at the armor.

The regular troops in the unit were wearing chainmail and carrying shields. Their shields were decorated with a red femur-like bone. The captain and the devastator had the same logo on epaulettes.

Mo, to Thneed: I have three charges on the flute of scribing. Is there any particular threatening message you’d like to send?

They talked for a bit and settled on:

Suicidal hobgoblins, look for Thneed.

We also looted the bodies, finding 90 electrum pieces and 70 gold.

Less than an hour of travel after we got going again, we realized we were approaching the next town along the road.

Orryk: ... which is filled with Red Bones.
GM: As it turns out, yes.

Taman, scouting ahead, could see that the hobgoblins had started building fortifications, but hadn’t gotten too far along. It looked as though the Red Bone hobgoblins (and their associated bugbear cousins, and maybe more ogre hirelings) had just moved into the town. It was a bit ominous that one of the first things they put, prominently, in the town was a headsman’s block in a public place.

We decided to make camp outside of town, well off the road, in Fiona’s tiny hut. We decided on a new “standard watch order”: gnomes first, then Mo and Thneed, then Taman and Fiona.

During the third watch, Fiona spotted seven bugbears circling around the hut curiously -- two of them were right outside, the others were a little further away.

Treasure

170 gp (28 each with 2 left to restock the party kitty)
90 ep (15 each)

Party Kitty update:

2gp, 3 sp, and 14 cp.


----------



## prabe (Dec 19, 2020)

Session 24: The Liberation of Tristlan​
Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


22 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 53)

As we were reaching the end of our long rest, with Taman, Thneed and Fiona awake and the rest of the party sleeping, they spotted seven bugbears out in the woods around the tiny hut. One of those bugbears walked into the stone colored, perfectly hemispherical hut.

Taman and Fiona started waking the rest of the party up and we decided to wait and see what they did before acting. Four of them surrounded the hut, but two turned to head toward the overrun village, Tristlan.

Right. We didn’t want to let them to get back to report anything.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on one of the two that was heading toward the village and took a shot at it hitting and, with the horde breaker ability, the one next to it, Then she shot at the marked one again and dropped it. Taman had one of them standing outside of the hut right in front of him, so he took a swing through the hut with his rapier at it, but missed. All from within the hut.

The leader of this scouting band started to run away, presumably to report. Joybell jumped on Scooby to run after him and try to stop him but was unable to hit. Fortunately a moment later, Mo emerged from the hut and tangled the chief up with a web spell from the wand, then inspired Joybell. Orryk ran like the wind after the one that Thneed had shot with the horde breaker ability and dropped it.

As two of the bugbears that had been examining the hut turned to attack Mo, Taman was able to get an opportunity attack against them from within the hut. Their attacks on Mo hit, but he shrugged off most of the damage.

With the two that had been running toward the village dropped, two of the remaining “regular” bugbears began to run in the direction of the road.

Fiona stepped out of the hut, causing it to disappear, and firebolted one of those two heading for the road. It screamed like it had just been lit on fire. Appropriate. Thneed moved around some trees to get a better line of sight and moved her hunter’s mark to the other one heading for the road then shot it twice, dropping it. Taman dropped one of the ones that had attacked Mo with a sneaky stab in the back.

The chief/squad leader, restrained by the webbing, was unable to go anywhere and didn’t hit anything in his flailing attempts to attack. Joybell on the other hand hit him with both of her attacks.

Orryk ran to the other one running for the road and, having failed to stun it with a stunning strike, just went ahead and dropped it with his bonus attack. Mo tried to viciously mock one of the ones attacking him, with cruel words about the bugbear’s mother.

The bugbear, angered (but not injured) turned around and attacked him, getting a hit that did a critical wound. It roared something in bugbear that might have been, “What did you say about my mother?” Fiona then cast toll the dead on it, but was unable to drop it. Taman snuck in behind it while it was distracted by Mo’s insult and stabbed it, removing a kidney with his rapier as it fell to the ground, dead.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on the chief, still restrained in the web, and did a lot of damage to him with two shots from her bow. The chief took a couple of futile swings at Joybell, who then hit him twice. It took Orryk running over and shooting with his shortbow to finally kill the bugbear chief -- who slumped in death but was held up in the web.

We looted everyone, finding 1400 copper pieces and 30 electrum between the lot of them. The bugbear chief had the mark of the Red Bones on his shield.

We took a short rest, making breakfast and making plans for our assault on the hobgoblin invaders of Tristlan. Thneed foraged for some food which we cooked and ate while talking.

Mo suggested getting up to some high ground that overlooked the town, so we could see the situation -- but one far enough away that clanky Joybell wouldn’t be a problem. After breakfast we found a good hill to observe from and saw that the village was very small. There were people moving around who didn’t look like hobgoblins (or any of their allies) -- they looked like normal “civilized” humanoids. Though we didn’t see anyone who looked like an elf. The non-hobgoblin people walking around were sort of scooting from one building to another, not loitering or lingering. We saw a couple dozen hobgoblins and some goblins as well.

The stockade had been started and was built around most of the city, but there were four or five gaps in the wall -- one where the road entered and left as well as a couple of others.

There was a larger building in the middle of the town that, after several minutes of watching, we never saw any of the non-hobgoblin humanoids going into. Mo speculated that this might be their command center and that the leader might be somewhere in the back of the building, so he did his junior birdman mask clairvoyance and puts the sensor just inside the back wall. Looking around he could tell that this would normally be the mayor or town leader’s office. There was a hobgoblin in plate armor and another in chainmail in the room. They were talking to a goblin. Mo switched to listening with the clairvoyance spell and could hear three voices speaking a language he didn’t know -- one voice was clearly giving orders and another was being obsequious to the point of cowardice. He could get that just from the voices.

Mo: Fiona, do you have anything that would let me understand goblin?
Fiona: No.

Mo heard something that even in an unknown language sounded like “Sir, yes, sir!” As he relayed, he switched back to the birdman goggles and saw the two hobgoblins have a quick exchange, then the one in chainmail left. Looking around the room, he saw a sketch with a map of the city with some marks on it showing where they were planning the stockades.

Since he was already looking around, he took a look for anything to steal, but only saw that it was not a room laden with treasure.

While Mo was doing that, Taman spotted a goblin leave that central building and go into a small building nearby. Then a bunch of goblins emerged and headed out toward the road in our direction.

GM: The most expendable force they have …

We headed to the road to intercept the goblin patrol. Since they were looking for us and everything.

Most of the party hid on the sides of the road. Joybell, on Scooby, moved slowly along the road, ambling, being a member of the public on the public thoroughfare. (In splint armor, on a wolf, and with two short swords and a flail strapped to her. But still a member of the public on the public thoroughfare.)

After a little while, we saw 11 goblins, one of them clearly a chief, moving along the road in a loose fireball formation. When Joybell saw them, she slowed down even further and moved to the side of the road, to let them go by. She smiled and waved at them.

At that they spread out, breaking their fireball formation. Some hid in the woods, some moved and dashed toward Joybell aggressively, making it clear that they were not just going to pass by as Joybell waved at them.

Mo cast web on two of the regular goblins and their chief, then he inspired Taman.

Mo: Will you kill these guys for me?

Fiona cast a fireball, which caught the webbed guys and a couple of the others. One of the others had the fireball almost brush his nose -- he could feel his nostril hair singing -- but he escaped the effects entirely. Unfortunately for him he couldn't escape watching four of his compatriots, and his chief, get immolated in the fire. Only the chief lived long enough to scream before dying.

The archers in the party began shooting at the ones they could see (some had hidden very well and were not visible) -- Orryk dropped one and Taman shot an arrow clean through another one’s head.

Joybell could only see one of them (it was very poorly hidden) and it was far away, so she moved up Scooby’s full speed and waited hoping one of them would be foolish enough to come out of the woods and attack her. To her irritation, some of them shot at her (missing wildly) but none closed with her.

Thneed took two shots at the one Joybell could see and killed it thoroughly -- killing it with her first arrow and pinning it to a tree with the second.

The others, more clued in to where the hiding goblins were, figured out that they were running away, hiding in the underbrush as they fled. One of them, in its flight, tripped over a tree root and revealed its location. Mo killed that one then moved closer to where Orryk was moving through the trees on the other side of the road, circling around to have a different view and hopefully see them as they’re hiding behind things.

Joybell, unable to see any goblins at all, moved up her full speed to hold level with Mo and Orryk, and held a javelin to throw at any goblin that appeared to her.

Taman spotted a couple over near Orryk.

Taman: Orryk, 12 o’clock.

Then he took a shot at that one and dropped it.

Taman: Orryk, 2 o’clock.

Thneed moved up and looked around, but couldn’t see the one remaining goblin, which was hiding in the underbrush and sneaking away stealthy like.

Orryk headed out in the direction Taman had indicated -- finally spotting the last goblin when he got within ten feet of it. He shot it and killed it.

As we were gathering and regrouping, and Thneed was carving her name in the foreheads of the dead goblins, Mo cast a rope trick to give us a safe place to take a short rest. While we were up there, Taman scouted around from time to time. Scooby stayed on the ground just lurking around like a wolf in the woods. Nothing came along the road in the hour we were up in the rope trick.

While we were resting we discussed again how we wanted to handle the assault, now that we had more information.

Mo: I have this idea that I could turn someone into a giant ape.

We agreed that Taman would be a good choice for giant ape-hood, because among other things it would give him a huge reserve of hit points.

We discussed extensively having the ape attack at one road entrance to the palisade followed a few seconds later by the rest of the party approaching at the other road entrance, having snuck through the forest to the other side of town. Joybell was concerned about any plan that involved her sneaking. There was also concern about having Giant Ape Taman exposed by himself with the rest of the party way off on the other side of the village.

Mo: I think you’re misunderstanding the awesomeness of the giant ape.
Thneed: Could the ape fly over the town?

We considered having Mo and the Giant Ape be the ones to circle around the town (Monkey Strike Force Alpha) while the rest of us approached along the road.

Joybell, concerned: Can we maybe talk to them first? Maybe they’re nice.
Orryk (to Thneed): Meet Joybell.

We eventually decided that Mo and Taman would go along on the road while the rest of the party circled around through the forest toward the nearest gap in the wall (not all the way around to the other road -- we didn’t want to be that far away). When the rest of the party got to the gap in the wall, Mo planned to cast polymorph on Taman.

The Apeless Group (Orryk, Joybell, Thneed, and Fiona) tried to sneak around through the woods and across the open area just outside the wall. Unfortunately the sentries spotted us along the way. Even more unfortunately, we were spotted before the polymorph could be cast.

The Apeless were about 30 feet away from the wall when the hue and cry went up and a whole bunch of hobgoblins popped up over the top of the wall from all around the city. We heard roars from in the city that called to mind the ogres we’ve encountered before. We were immediately confronted with several hobgoblins on the wall near us, with more coming through the city, including a hobgoblin cleric that was on the wall.

Thneed used her hunter’s mark and took a shot at one of the ogres, visible through the gap in the wall, hitting with both arrows. Taman, not yet an ape, took a shot at the same ogre.

All the hobgoblins in the town began yelling an alert -- which spread to the entire village.

Fiona cast a fly spell on herself and went up to the level of the top of the wall, moving around past the opening we were going to use, but didn’t get too close. Orryk took two shots at one of the hobgoblins on the wall, but didn’t hit. Then he moved off to the left, spreading out so we weren’t in a fireball formation.

Joybell: Are we still going in that side entrance?
Taman: At this point the plan is hosed.

The hobgoblin cleric waved his hands and a cloud of winged axes, his spirit guardians, appeared around him.

Joybell, to the hobgoblins: We just want to visit!

Then she held a shot with the wand of magic missile on one of the hobgoblins ready to let it go as soon as one of them did anything aggressive to one of us.

Almost immediately, one of the ogres moved up and attacked Taman. Fortunately, Taman had a lucky dodge and it missed. While it was still in its follow-through, Joybell fired the magic missile at the hobgoblin on the wall she’d been aiming at, hitting it in the face and dropping it off the back of the wall.

Another ogre ran as fast as it could to get right up into Joybell’s grill. Which suited her just fine.

Mo played a song on his flute and the swirling cloud of smoke encircled Taman and when the smoke cleared there was a ginormous, hairy ape standing there. Then Mo moved to the side, away from Taman, Inspired Orryk, and lay down on the ground (to make himself less of a target for the archers on the wall).

The ogre that attacked Taman had his club pass over the puny human and then in a puff of smoke there was a giant ape there. Very confusing.

A hobgoblin came out of the building we’d identified as their headquarters, cast scorching ray on Fiona, flying just above the level of the wall, and critting her with it. Then it went back into the building. Fortunately, Fiona was able to keep her fly spell up despite the damage, and wasn’t further hurt by falling.

As we expected, the hobgoblins started firing at the giant ape, some of them hitting it. But a giant ape is a giant mountain of strength and muscle and can absorb a lot of damage. Some of the hobgoblins on the more distant parts of the wall jumped down and ran in the direction of the combat.

Thneed backed away from the ogre in front of her, then shot it twice, leaving the ogre looking kind of rough. Giant Ape Taman hit the ogre in front of him and smushed it right into the ground. He then turned and hit the other ogre nearby, the one in front of Joybell, but didn’t drop it. Then he moved to the entrance to the town.

Fiona, from her flying vantage point, could see the hobgoblin in plate armor come out of the headquarters building and go around to the back of one of the buildings -- moving away from the fray. She then cast a fireball on a group of hobgoblins nearby, but it was a kind of wimpy one. Then she flew down so that she was just an inch above the ground and not visible above the wall. Orryk dropped one with an arrow as he moved to a position closer to Fiona.

The hobgoblin cleric with the cloud of spirit guardians attempted to dispel magic on the giant ape, but failed, then, in a move we recognized well, he moved closer to bring his spirit guardians into play against Giant Ape Taman. Another hobgoblin moved up and it turned out to be a cleric as well, because it also cast dispel magic on the Ape, causing the polymorph to fall and Taman to to return to his normal form. Immediately he was attacked by a hobgoblin on the ground swinging a sword, which missed, and an arrow shot from one of their longbows.

Joybell smote the ogre in front of her with both of her blows, but still wasn’t able to drop it. It swung at her and would have hit, except Mo said something super insulting to it and it missed. Mo then blew a cloud of colorful flashing smoke from his pipe that settled over the two clerics and an ogre, as well as two of the regular hobgoblins, that were near Taman. The cleric surrounded by winged axes had his spirit guardians disappear, so he clearly failed to resist the allure of the beautiful lights. (Only one of the regular hobgoblins saved against the hypnotic pattern.)

The hobgoblin devastator, their wizard, came out of their headquarters and cast a fireball on Mo, Orryk and Fiona. Mo and Orryk both saved. Fiona took a lot of damage, but didn’t drop and was even able to keep her fly spell going.

The hobgoblin that wasn’t entranced by the pretty lights, tried to snap some of his colleagues out of it, but only managed to hit the ogre and wake it up. One of the hobgoblins that had been on a far wall made it as far as the base of the wall near Orryk, but was unable to attack.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the ogre in front of Joybell and dropped it with her first shot. Then she took a shot at the hobgoblin that wasn’t hypnotized. Taman got some insight into one of the hobgoblin’s weak points and attacked for extra damage. Then he moved to outside the village near the wall.

The hobgoblin in plate mail, presumably the captain, finished with the task that had taken him further from the fray initially, moved closer.

Fiona, badly damaged by the scorching ray and the fireball, hid behind the wall and cast cure wounds on herself. Orryk tried to use his water whips to move the devastator closer to himself, but the whips didn’t grab hold right and the devastator was able to avoid being pulled. So Orryk moved closer himself and threw a couple of daggers at it. Joybell rode Scooby has hard as he could run to get to the ogre that had been snapped out of its hypnosis.

The captain in plate mail said something to the ogre Joybell had ridden so hard to get to. It grunted in response and, instead of attacking Joybell on its turn, it whacked the hobgoblin cleric next to it and woke that up.

Mo blew a crashing loud note on his flute and cast shatter on two of the regular hobgoblins that were standing next to each other, killing both of them with the force of the noise.

The devastator, finding himself near Orryk, cast thunderstep to get away, reappearing next to the captain in plate mail. And doing some damage to Orryk with the thunderous noise. One of the regular hobgoblins woke up the other hobgoblin cleric. A couple of regular hobgoblins tooks shots at Joybell, but she barely noticed.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on one of the clerics and took a shot at it with her bow. Then she hit the ogre with the horde breaker ability, dropping it. Then she took another shot at the cleric. Taman then followed up with an attack with his rapier at the same cleric, dropping it, then he moved around behind Joybell.

The hobgoblin captain moved up into melee with Joybell, taking three swings at her. Fortunately, he didn’t hit her too hard.

Fiona flew up over the top of the wall and dropped a fireball on the devastator, the captain, some of the regular hobgoblins. It killed all of the regulars, leaving only two of those of the 20 that had been occupying the village still alive (and one of those two hypnotized). The devastator, the captain and one of the clerics were also still alive.

But only briefly. Because Orryk moved over to the remaining cleric and dropped it.

Joybell cast wrathful smite and attacked the captain, hitting it and causing it to be afraid of her. She attacked him again and got a critical hit so she once again called down the divine smiting energy on him to enhance the damage from her blow. Mo tried to get into a position where he could see what was going on, but couldn’t. So he inspired Orryk.

The devastator cast a fireball right on top of Orryk, Taman and Joybell. Orryk and Taman both saved. So did Scooby and he managed to survive the damage he took. Joybell failed to dodge out of the fireball, but wasn’t dropped by it. The remaining un-hypnotized regular hobgoblin mook attacked Joybell, getting what would have been a really damaging blow in, but Mo insulted it and the force of its blow was weakened.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the hobgoblin mook that had attacked Joybell, hitting it in a critical spot with her second shot and also taking a horde breaker shot at the captain. Taman ran to the devastator, avoiding attacks of opportunity because of a zephyr strike spell that let him move through threatened areas.

The captain tried to steel himself so that he was no longer frightened of the tiny gnome (on the wolf) but was unable to do so.

Fiona then dropped him with two critical hits with a scorching ray spell. Orryk moved up to the devastator and attacked him. His attempt at a stunning strike failed so he did a flurry of blows against him and dropped the devastator when both of those hit.

All that was left was one hypnotized hobgoblin mook…


Treasure

30 ep (5 each)
1400 cp (233 each with 2 left for the party kitty)

Party Kitty update:
2gp, 3 sp, and 16 cp.


----------



## prabe (Dec 26, 2020)

Session 25: First We Loot. Then We Travel.

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


22 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 53) (immediately after)

A minute or two after the combat, the people of the town started to emerge from the buildings and take stock of things. Mo spent the time using prestidigitation to clean us up with a smoke ring that passed over us like a Dyson blade dropping the filth and gore to the ground around each of us.

When the first person emerged, Mo asked who’s in charge. He was told that the hobgoblins had killed the mayor when they first took over the town.

Joybell: Oh, excellent! I mean, that means they were bad guys and we killed them. That’s good.

Then she got quiet and hid behind Orryk.

Mo: We’re gonna take their stuff.
Villager: Some of that stuff was ours.
Mo: We’ll give that back to you.

We checked to make sure that we’d taken out all of the hobgoblins (and ogres) (and other hobgoblin associates) and confirmed that with the villagers as they emerged.

We asked how long they’d been in the town and what they’d been up to since taking over. They’d been around for about two weeks and killed the Mayor first. After that, their priest, not a fighting cleric, was forced to face their warriors in single combat until he was killed. So they really were horrible. They’d also killed the town’s guards -- all four of them. Since then they’d been working on the fortifications. The villager we were speaking to, the town blacksmith, didn’t know what they were planning beyond building the stockade.

Mo: Was this a small part of a larger horde?
Villager: I know from time to time the leader would release a raven carrying a message. It would fly west into the mountains.
Thneed: Is there anything you need from us? Can we rest here?

Before he could answer that…

Mo: Let’s loot! Then we can go over the mayor’s office to see if there are records of what they were planning. Then we can hang out with people.
Joybell, to Thneed: This doesn’t seem like the same MO as your village. Didn’t you say your village was completely wiped out? This was more of an occupying force.

After some discussion, we realized that this specific group of hobgoblins couldn’t have been the same ones that took out Thneed’s village. Her village was several days travel into the mountains and was attacked at about the same time Tristlan was occupied.

Meanwhile, Mo started looting the bodies.

Joybell stripped the plate armor off the hobgoblin warlord and asked the villager we’d been speaking to if there was a blacksmith in town. When he said that he was the blacksmith, she asked if there was any way to cut down the armor and make it fit her. After some discussion it became clear that he would not be able to cut it down to her size without essentially remaking it. So it went into the bag of holding.

Looting the bodes, we found:

17 longswords
9 suits of chainmail
16 shields
14 longbows
Lots and lots of arrows (15 per hobgoblin, so it comes to 210)
1 set of plate armor (Joybell, hopefully)
1 set of half-plate armor (un-recorded a couple of sessions ago from the hobgoblin captain we fought on the road)
1 greatsword (ditto)
1 set of studded leather armor (magical, see below)
1 quarterstaff (we didn’t keep this)

Between the bodies and the loot in the mayor’s office (which the warlord was using as his headquarters) we found the following coinage:

70 pp
1500 gp
3500 sp
3 art items, 25 gp each (Mo claimed the set of dice)
10 gems, 100 gp each

(Note: Split 6 ways (I converted non-money things to gold for simplicity):
11 pp each, 4 left for group fund
429 gp each, 1 left. [404 for Mo I assume he's actually keeping the dice]
583 sp each, 2 left )

We also found:

Vial of Oil of Etherealness
A set of +1 Studded Leather Armor (which was on the devastator wizard) (Taman, whose Mariner’s Armor then went to Thneed)
1 spellbook (Fiona) (the spellbook contained: Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Cause Fear, Catapult, Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, Cloud of Daggers, Mindspike, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Thunderstep, Sending, Erupting Earth, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Vitriolic Sphere)

We left the townspeople the 450 copper pieces, some pieces that they identified as belonging to them (not listed above), and also armor and weapons to equip a new set of guards for the village (4 swords, 4 chainmail, 4 shields, 4 longbows, and 60 arrows). Technically that quarterstaff as well, I suppose.

In the warlord’s headquarters we found a plain mask, white, a Mask’s mask, mounted on a weathered plaque which was mounted on the wall on a shiny new nail. This was clearly a trophy that had been hauled around by this guy.

(Note: At this point we had a little talk about all those conversations Joybell has had with innkeepers about seeing big guys in masks passing through -- while having the sign from outside the House of Masks in Pelsoreen strapped to her back. She’d gotten so used to it being there, she’d forgotten.)

We also found a lot of papers written in goblin. Which no one in the party can read. Not even Fiona.

One of the papers was a map of the town, showing the fortifications that had been built and where the stockade was planned.

A more interesting map showed a detail of the Dunnimar Mountains (the Green Quilt) with Tristlan at the eastern edge of it. Comparing the map to our map of Urnod, it appears that there’s a hobgoblin realm about 50 to 100 miles into the mountains. There was a line marked on the map that seemed to show the territory that this band had passed through in some detail. We got the feeling that they were mapping as they went -- moving out into territory not well known in the hobgoblin motherland.

Thneed figured out where her village is, or would have been, on the map, but it was not in the band that this group of hobgoblins had passed through and mapped. Her village may have been destroyed by another group from the Red Bones exploring in another direction. Or the Red Bones may be one of many hobgoblin clans exploring out from the motherland. These mountains have many wood elf villages and others that have diverse populations of wood elves, forest gnomes and firbolgs (and others).

The map didn’t have the road we were traveling on it, beyond a small distance out in each direction from Tristlan. It also didn’t have anything in the direction where we expect to find the place where the Masks are forged, several more sleeps from here.

Looking at all the notes in goblin, Joybell asked one of the villagers if anyone in town spoke goblin, but there was no one.

She also asked if traffic had been normal along the road while the hobgoblins were occupying the town. The villagers said that it had been - most of the travelers just paid the toll to the hobgoblins and passed on through.

Joybell, to the blacksmith: Have you seen any big guys with masks on, maybe three weeks ago?
Blacksmith: Ilgmar, the mayor, said he saw weird guys with masks go by in the middle of the night about that time…

Joybell noted that most of the other villages had seen the Masks early in the morning.

After looting and trying to make sense of the maps, we helped the villagers dispose of the bodies -- hauling them to the crematorium.

Fiona went off to learn some of the spells from the spellbook. Mo and Taman went to find the booze, or someone who would sell it to them. The villagers were happy to drink with them -- both because they were now rid of the occupying force and because they needed to cleanse their brains of some of the things they’d seen. Mo played some music in the inn to try and lift spirits and ease troubled souls.

When it was time for bed, Fiona did her thing with the alarm spell and the tiny hut. And we set watches. Because there’s nothing like going after a continent-wide guild of assassins to make a party paranoid.

The night passed without incident.


23 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 54)

We headed off along the road to Otza, the next town along the road, one day’s travel away. We traveled with Taman doing his usual scouting ahead routine.

Late in the day we arrived at town without having any incidents along the road.

The town was a down and we did not hear any screams when we arrived. The inn (with rooms for rent) and the bar (with booze and food) were two different establishments. Fiona, Joybell, Thneed and Orryk went to the inn to arrange for rooms. Mo and Taman (Team Ethanol) went to the bar. Mo gave the barkeep 10 gold pieces and told him to just keep booze and food coming as required.

There were some other folks in the bar -- people playing a card game, folks having drinks and dinner, etc. There were also folks walking around the town just going about their business.

After arranging for three rooms, as usual, Fiona and Orryk and Thneed headed up to to relax for the night. Joybell went over to the bar to join Mo and Taman for dinner and to watch Mo perform.

Just a few moments after she was in the building, walking to the bar to join her friends, there was a loud scream from outside.

Orryk, upstairs in the inn, heard the screams and ran back down the stairs (with his crazy monk speed) and saw through the window a snake like creature with a parrot beak and four tentacles like petals around its head (Running total: 1 grick).

Orryk, to the innkeeper: Sorry about the window.

Then he took two shots with his shortbow through the window. The first broke the window, but missed the grick. The second hit.

Thneed followed down the stairs and saw the same situation. She put her hunter’s mark on the thing and took two shots -- hitting with both. It stopped moving and collapsed to the ground.

Orryk, to Thneed: Do we go back upstairs now?

But the screaming from elsewhere in the village hadn’t stopped…

Fiona cast mage armor on herself and came down the stairs at about that time.

Over in the bar, Taman, hearing the screams, vaulted over the bar and past the bartender so he can go out the back door in the bar. He rushed out the door and ran to the one to his left, which was the closest of the ones he could see, and stabbed it with his rapier. (Running total: 2 gricks)

Joybell, still in the bar, jumped on Scooby and rode out through the entrance to the bar and hit the one right outside the door for a pitiful small amount of damage with her first attack. Her second attack was better. (Running total: 3 gricks)

Orryk, Thneed and Fiona, all inside the inn, saw the extra big (size large) grick slither down the road, passing the body of the dead one and moving toward Joybell. (Running total: 3 gricks and one big grick)

Mo followed Taman over the bar, grabbing a bottle of something strong as he went over it, and ran out through the back door, swigging a drink as we went. As he exited the building he saw two of the parrot-beaked snake things -- the one Taman had attacked and another one that had come from around the corner of the building. (Final total: 4 gricks, 1 big grick)

Mo, to the one Taman had attacked: You look like you’re about to die. Why don’t you just do that?

The vicious mockery worked, leaving the grick shaking its head. Then Mo inspired Taman.

Mo: Hey, could you kill that thing for me?

The unoccupied one near Taman and Mo attacked a civilian -- wrapping a tentacle around her waist and dragging her toward it’s hard beak. Mo tried to use his cutting words to save her, but there was a gurgling gasping noise as it bit her head in half.

The other gricks weren’t able to hit either Joybell or Taman.

The remaining civilians on the street were able to run away. Most of them took shelter in various buildings, a couple ran around a building but stayed outside. They were lucky that the big grick had set its sight on party members by that point.

Orryk, swearing in Gnomish, ran out into the street and threw daggers at the big guy, hitting. Then he went into his defensive stance. Thneed stepped out of the inn, moving out of the doorway to keep it clear, moved her hunter’s mark to the big one, and shot it twice. She observed that the arrows did less damage than she expected, given how solidly she hit. Fiona stepped out of the inn and cast one of her new spells, Aganazzar’s scorcher, on the big guy. It nimbly slithered out of the way of the worst of the effect, but still took half of the damage from the spell.

Taman, moved by Mo’s inspiring words, stabbed the grick in front of him and dropped it. Then he turned to the one that had just killed the lady in the street to see if there was anything he could possibly do for her, but it was clear that she was beyond any sort of healing magic.

Joybell drew down the power of nature into her attack on the smaller one she’d been fighting, dropping it, then rode over on Scooby to the big one, prepared to smite it as well, but missed. Dammit.

The big guy attacked Orryk with one of its tentacles and missed. Then it swung its massive tail and hit Joybell hard across the torso.

Mo walked to the corner of the inn (where he’d be able to see Joybell), taking a swig from his bottle along the way, and saw the big one on one side of him and the smaller one that had just killed the lady on the other side.

Mo: You guys are total buzzkills.

With those words, he cast mass vicious mockery on them both. The big one saved but the little one did not. Then he inspired Fiona. He almost immediately realized that was a waste because Fiona rarely makes attack rolls with her spells, so inspiration won’t help her much.

The grick that had killed the lady wrapped its tentacles around her and began to drag her away into the forest to devour her at its leisure.

Orryk attacked the big one with a dagger -- hitting and spending a ki point to stun it. The stunning strike actually worked. Then he hit it again. Thneed shot the stunned large grick, but it was clearly not taking all the damage from her arrows. Fiona moved to where she could get a good line of attack on the one dragging its victim into the woods and cast lightning bolt on it. It flashed briefly, its bones showing through its skin, then it died, twitching.

Taman moved around the corner of the building and saw the big guy, being attacked by both Joybell and Orryk. He attacked and did a lot of sneaking damage while its attention was elsewhere. Finally, Joybell hit it and smote it and dropped it.

Joybell rode around the village and took a few extra whacks at each of the gricks with her short sword, just to make sure they were all really dead for real. Then, back at the building across from the inn, she asked a lady who’d fled into that building (the stables perhaps) where they came from, but the lady (still thoroughly freaked out) didn’t know.

Taman found some tracks outside of town that indicated they came in from the wilderness as a group then split up outside of town so they could come in from several different directions at once. Which is pretty advanced tactical thinking.

Someone in the party remembered learning something about these things -- they’re normally underdark predators from deep underground.

Joybell: Why did these things come out then? Is there an entrance to that underdark place around here?

Whoever remembered learning something about them (Note: I apologize for neither remembering nor having written down who) told us that they come out sometimes if they’re not finding enough food in their usual habitat.

We followed the tracks back to a cave in the side of one of the mountains. If something had monsters from the underdark emerging from this cave, the people of Otza were going to face lots of attacks from various nasty monsters. So Mo suggested collapsing the cave entrance.

Joybell: Lots of animals live in caves. We don’t want to trap anything in there.

Mo cast clairvoyance and looked down into the cave to make sure there was nothing living in it. There wasn’t, so he cast shatter aiming at the top of the mouth of the cave. There was a loud bang from the spell followed by a satisfying rock slide that partially filled the entrance. He cast the spell a couple more times until the entrance was closed and sealed with the fallen rock, though not really collapsed per se.

We then headed back to the town and resumed the activities we’d begun (or been preparing to begin) when the gricks attacked. Fiona, Thneed and Orryk went up to our rooms at the inn. Mo and Taman drank. Joybell ate some dinner and watched Mo play. His performance was good -- which he later attributed to being just the right level of drunk.

Eventually we all gathered up at the inn, made our usual precautions, and the night passed without incident.


24 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 55)

In the morning, we headed out of Otza and toward Blostln, which we’d reach at the end of the day. Blostlin would be the last town as closely spaced as one day’s travel from its neighbors on this part of the road.

At breakfast before we left, Joybell asked about weird looking big guys in masks. They went through the down and didn’t stop at all.

Mo, singing as we left town: We’re just a band out of Blostlin…

Taman did his usual scouting on the road ahead of us thing.

Most of the day passed with no trouble, but just before we got to the town Taman saw a troll “hiding” off the side of the road. It was bloated and oozy and seeping with nastiness. Because it was so committed to trying to hide from passers along the road, he just stopped and waited in the middle of the road for the rest of us to show up. When we got close, Taman said, in Gnomish (which most of the party speaks) that there was a nasty looking troll a ways up ahead off to the left of the road. Orryk pulled out his shortbow and Joybell pulled out the wand of magic missile.

Taman moved up a bit, then took a shot with his longbow at it - hitting it. A spray of black goo came out of where the arrow pierced its skin. Orryk moved up as much as possible and took two shots with his bow from just outside the best range of the shortbow, missing. Thneed put her hunter’s mark on it then shot at it. Her first shot hit for a small amount of damage (and another spray of black goo), the second missed because it had partial cover in its hiding place. Fiona moved forward and cast firebolt on it, but missed. Mo took a shot with his crossbow and missed.

Joybell used the wand to magic missile it, doing a decent amount of damage, then remembering the “Don’t charge so far forward the rest of the party can’t support you” lesson, moved up so she was next to Taman.

The troll figured out that we had spotted it, what with having been shot at and magic missiled and such, so it stepped out of his hiding place (behind a bush) and ran as fast as it could toward Taman and Joybell. As it ran toward them, they could see its wounds healing.

Taman moved off the road into the woods. Orryk moved off the road in a different direction and took two shots with his short bow -- hitting it with both shots, one of them in a critical spot. Thneed took two shots and hit with one and missed with the other.

Fiona cast scorching ray on it -- two of the rays hit it in critical places and it dropped. (1 venom troll)

She dropped a few fire bolts on it just to make sure it stayed dead and then we continued on the way, getting to Blostlin not more than an hour later.

Joybell asked about the Masks at the inn and was told they’d come through late in the evening.

Joybell: They’re not on the same sleep schedule. Or they’re not sleeping at all.

Then she asked the bartender and some of the travelers about the troll we’d encountered. None of them knew anything about it.

Joybell then asked about the road between here and the next town, Esh, two days travel away. She was told that the road is going to get a lot more rough -- more like a track than an actual road -- once we leave Blostlin.

We made our usual precautions and the night passed without incident.


25 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 56)

We headed out the next morning with Taman doing Taman things and scouting ahead.

It was still morning when Taman saw five large flying creatures heading toward the party at considerable speed. He was still quite a distance away up ahead. They were eagle-shaped and bird-like with the heads of stags, about the size of a humanoid. (5 perytons)

The group of them split and circled around, so that there were three coming in on one side of the road and two on the other, at about 120 feet up. They were out of range of Thneed’s hunter’s mark, but not of her arrows and she was able to get a critical hit on one of them. Orryk shot the same one and hit it as well. Joybell used the wand of magic missile on the same one again, because focusing fire is good sometimes, and it augered down out of the sky and crashed to the ground away from the road.

Taman took a shot at another one from way up the road and got a hit. Mo cast hypnotic pattern on the two coming in from the left. The brightly colored swirling smoke caught the attention of one of them and it forgot to flap its wings or sustain flight, so it too spiralled out of the sky and died in the crash.

The three remaining perytons then swarmed on Joybell, which she wasn’t terribly concerned about, because they’d clustered themselves up and Fiona would get a chance to do something about that in just about a second or two.

Fiona did not miss the opportunity. It was Thneed’s first time witnessing as Fiona cast a fireball with Joybell and Scooby right at the center of it. When the explosion of fire passed, Joybell and Scooby were there unharmed, one of the perytons was dead and the other two were badly injured.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on one of them and dropped it with one of her arrows. Orryk threw daggers at the other, getting a hit in a critical location and dropping it very sincerely.

We resumed our way and the rest of the day passed.


Treasure:

13 longswords
5 suits of chainmail
12 shields
10 longbows
Lots and lots of arrows (150)
1 set of plate armor
1 set of half-plate armor
1 greatsword
1 set of studded leather armor (magical, see below)
70 pp
1500 gp
3500 sp
3 art items, 25 gp each (Mo claimed the set of dice)
10 gems, 100 gp each

Split 6 ways:

11 pp each, 4 left for group fund
429 gp each, 1 left. [404 for Mo I assume he's actually keeping the dice]
583 sp each, 2 left )
Vial of Oil of Etherealness
A set of +1 Studded Leather Armor (which was on the devastator wizard) (Taman, whose Mariner’s Armor then went to Thneed)
1 spellbook (Fiona) (the spellbook contained: Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Cause Fear, Catapult, Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, Cloud of Daggers, Mindspike, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Thunderstep, Sending, Erupting Earth, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Vitriolic Sphere)

Party Kitty update:

4 pp, 3 gp, 5 sp, and 16 cp.
We have enough to start paying for things out of it again.


----------



## prabe (Jan 2, 2021)

Session 26: The Cave of the Masks; Also, We Met a Treant!!

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


25 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 56) (immediately after)

We found a place to camp along the road shortly after the fight against the perytons. We found a campsite that had clearly been used by other travelers along this track in the past and camped there. Thneed and Taman foraged for dinner and Fiona made the usual precautions (tiny hut plus alarm spell). We set watches with the first watch being the gnomes (Joybell and Orryk).

During that first watch, just after everyone else had settled in and fallen asleep, Joybell and Orryk saw an enormous big bear (size large) outside the hut.

Joybell: Oh, cool!!

There ensued a conversation between the two of them about whether or not Joybell should go out and talk to the bear. What they finally agreed to was her staying in the hut, but talking to the bear through it.

So she cast speak with animals and said hi to the bear. From the bear’s point of view, the opaque dome was speaking to it. She was anticipating a certain level of confusion from the bear.

The bear, however, was not confused at all. She said hi and introduced herself as Sorla. Sorla had noticed that we were killing a lot of things -- most especially the gricks and the perytons. Joybell asked if that was a problem for her and she said no.

Joybell and Sorla had a lengthy conversation (which I didn’t take notes about because I was having the conversation, sorry) which Joybell was translating for Orryk from time to time. During the conversation Joybell told her that we were looking for the Masks because we wanted to kill them. Sorla said that she knew someone who would know where the Masks are -- his name is Tarck and he’s further back in the woods.

Joybell: Our instructions say to continue on the road to a certain point then turn off.
Sorla: What are your instructions?
Joybell: Umm...I don’t think I should say. Mo would be upset at me if I said.
Sorla: So Mo is the one I shouldn’t trust…
Joybell: Well, you can trust..umm...Mo is...yeah. Maybe.

Joybell then asked if Sorla could speak common. She said she could take a form that could and she left the clearing we were in.

While she was gone, Joybell and Orryk woke the rest of the party up and explained the situation.

Joybell: She says you’re the one she shouldn’t trust.
Mo: She’s not the first woman who won’t trust me when she meets me…

After a few minutes, Sorla returned in the form of a very large (6’6” tall) woman. Joybell stepped out of the hut and greeted her before calling everyone else out of the hut (except Fiona).

We learned that Sorla is a were-bear but that her friend Tarck is not a lycanthrope of any sort. We also learned that were-bears are not inclined to turn other people into were-bears, so we don’t need to worry about her attacking us. Tarck would be able to talk to all of us.

Mo: Can you give us your tavern pitch?
Sorla: I’m sorry, what?
Mo: Sorry. Entertainer talk.

She told us that Tarck is a treant a couple hundred years old. He knows everything that is going on in the forest.

Joybell: Is he a twin?
Sorla: Not that I know of.
Mo: We’re going to look for twins.
Sorla: I know of a village where all the births are twins.

Taman’s people-sense told him that she was being truthful and straightforward.

She offered to take us to Tarck, three days travel into the forest and mountains, to get his information and insight into the Masks.

We asked for a moment to caucus amongst ourselves and all went back into the hut. Sorla walked away out of the clearing so we could talk.

We talked about whether we could lose our way on the path that Nicolana gave us if we went to talk to Tarck. The rangers, being rangers, could bring us back to this point, which we knew was the place to make the seventh sleep and we could get back on Nicolana’s path if the trip to talk to Tarck turned out to be a wild goose chase.

So we agreed to let her lead us to Tarck. Joybell went back outside to talk to her -- she’d turned back into a bear -- and said we’d leave in the morning.

The rest of the night passed without incident (what with having all of our usual precautious, plus an enormous big bear outside the hut).


26 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 57)

While we were having breakfast in our campsite, Sorla returned in her human form. (With normal clothes on -- she’d been stashing them in the woods when she transformed.)

Joybell: How do we go to get to Tarck?

Sorla started walking off the track and through the woods. Going through the woods required quite a bit of weaving until we found a game trail, then it was easier going following her along that.

As we travelled, Joybell rode on Scooby next to Sorla asking about the woods and the trees and the birds and what it is like to be a bear. About the ecology of the forest and what everything is.

As soon as we stopped for the day, which passed without incident, Mo turned Joybell into a squirrel. She immediately began waving her tail around and squeaking in joy. She ran up trees and down trees and jumped from tree to tree and waved her tail some more and just scampered and scurried all around the campsite.

Then it wore off.

Joybell: Thank you, Mo! That was the best thing ever!

We set watches (Thneed & Orryk, Joybell & Mo, Fiona & Taman) and made precautions and the night passed without incident.


27 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 58)

We had breakfast and then headed out on our way.

Mo: Does this treant speak common?
Joybell: She said he could speak to us…

Joybell rode with Sorla again so she could learn to identify everything. The mountains had a bunch of stands of different kinds of trees. We were getting into a part of the mountains with bigger hills and wider valleys -- the hills were more like mountains, but there were wide valleys between them.

Mo, musing about treants, to himself: They’re probably vulnerable to fire…
Joybell, overhearing: We are not burning the treant! They are ancient and wise.

The day passed without incident as we travelled over game trails, an actual path for a while, then more game trails.

Mo: Sorla, what do you do to pass the time? Do you have a trade?
Sorla: I spend a fair amount of time as a bear.
Joybell: That’s so cool!
Sorla: I can find stuff to eat, and I do. I try to keep an eye out for people taking more than they need or being actively destructive.
Mo: Sort of a guardian of the forest.
Sorla: Not as much as Tarck is.

When we stopped for the day, Taman and Thneed foraged for food for us and we made camp. With our usual precautions (and the same watches as the previous night) the night passed without incident.


28 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 59)

Joybell: Today we meet the treant!
Mo: Are there any tree-based jokes we need to get out of our system before we meet him?

Mo and Fiona proceeded to make a bunch of bad dad jokes and puns regarding trees and wood and bark as we walked along.

We proceeded along for about half the day before getting to a large clearing with a very large tree in the middle of it.

Joybell, to Sorla: Is that him?
Sorla: It was the last time I was here.
Mo, to Tarck: Hey, Tarck?

Tarck made a sort of groaning noise.

Sorla: Tarck, it’s me. Really.
Tarck: Whaddaya want?
Mo: We’re looking for guys in masks. To scout them. And kill them.
Tarck, to Sorla: What did you tell them I know?
Joybell: She told us you know about the Masks and where to find them. Also you’re so old and wise!
Tarck gave Joybell a look.
Joybell, quietly: They wiped out the Wold.
Tarck, with some sympathy: Apparently not all of it.
Mo: Do you like them? You’re not doing anything…
Tarck: It’s fun watching Sorla fight them. They can’t hurt her.
Joybell: They don’t have magic weapons. Right.
Tarck: They have some sort of magic -- they appear on the trail about an hour from the town of the twins, Callallah. There’s a cave that they appear in.

After some discussion, we sorted out that Callallah was between us and the cave.

Tarck didn’t know where the Masks start from -- just that they appear in that cave.

Mo: Do you have any magic powers? Can you give us some support?

Joybell mentioned Nicolana and her directions -- Tarck knew who the Keeper of Secrets is and confirmed that her directions would have gotten us to the Masks. Good to know.

Tarck: The people of Callallah are innocent but controlled by the Masks. Living in fear and in terror.
Thneed: Why do they always have twins?
Tarck: Because every year or couple of years the Masks come and take one of every pair.
Taman: But how does it happen?
Tarck: Maybe high ritual magic. I do not know.

Mo then turned the conversation in a different, very interesting direction.

Mo: Were you here before the gods left?
Tarck: I’m not that old. But I met one of her people (indicating Thneed) that was.
Mo: Where?
Tarck: He was a very capable druid.
Taman: He may still be around now.
Tarck: This was a hundred years ago. I wasn’t here but I wasn’t far from here.
Mo: Do you know the druid’s name or clan or circle?
Tarck: The druid’s name? Ornillon, I believe his name was. I can’t speak to where he is now or what he is doing.

---

Orryk: We’ve seen what they do to the children to make them Masks. The Masks seem like grunts or thugs. Do they have other types of fighters?
Tarck: I’ve seen a dwarf. I’ve seen him doing stuff in the cave.
Taman: One of the dwarves' dark cousins?
Tarck: He could have been a duergar. It’s hard to tell. I’ve seen a number of Masks.
Orryk: They’re dangerous enough, but I assume there’s something worse.
Joybell: Do you remember when the Masks started coming?
Tarck: Since before Ornillon came through. Callallah isn’t a big village so it works as a slow and steady source of new Masks.
Joybell: They steal children from other places too.

---

Orryk: Have you heard about portals to the elemental planes. I’ve heard of a portal to thee plane of earth in these mountains. I’m looking for ways to access them and ways to close them.
Tarck: If you had stayed on the road you were on, you would have had to travel much further than ten more sleeps. The turn off the road is near where the Wold was, but after that it’s a week or more travel into the mountains to get to the portal.
Orryk: Is there anything else we should be worrying about other than the Masks?
Tarck: The forest around Callallah doesn’t have a lot of predators. The villagers hunt in the surrounding area. I don’t expect you to run into anything that would attack.
Orryk: We don’t want more Masks coming through the teleportation circle.

We all agreed with Orryk on that point, so we decided to skip Callallah and go straight to the cave. Sorla could lead us around the village so that we wouldn’t encounter any villagers and take us there.

Before we left, Thneed had one more question for Tarck.

Thneed: Are there any hobgoblins passing through?
Tarck: Not except for the ones you’ve killed.

Thneed then told Tarck where her village was located -- he didn’t know anything about that area though.

We then left Tarck and his ancient and wise presence and followed Sorla toward the Cave of Masks. As we walked Mo invited her to help us fight the Masks, which she declined. She will however help us skirt the village and its hunting parties to take us to the cave. And she’ll make sure nothing comes to the cave from the village.

Mo: If all hell breaks loose, protect the village.

She agreed to that.

We affirmed among ourselves, and to Tarck, that our primary goal is to find the “machine” for making Masks and destroy it.

Tarck said that he could see to the back of the cave and there was nothing in there that looked like a machine. Just some Masks and something on the wall.

Mo, to Tarck: Do treants drink? We’ve been on the road a long time…

That question was ignored. Possibly because the DM didn't hear it.

We thanked Tarck very much, and Thneed and Joybell made special note in their minds of his location so they can come back someday, and headed out toward Callallah.

We followed Sorla for the rest of the day, which passed without incident. We camped with a tiny hut and Sorla went out and hunted, in bear form, for us so that Taman and Theed didn’t have to forage far from the party.

The closer we get to the continent-wide guild of assassins, the more paranoid we get.

We had our usual precautions and set watches (same as the night before) and the night passed without incident.


29 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 60)

Joybell: It’s been two months that we’ve been traveling together!! I don’t have any booze to celebrate.

(Note: Actually Joybell was confused about the date -- she was really thinking of the next day as the anniversary.)

Thneed went out to harvest some overripe berries for us…

We continued on our way to the cave beyond Callallah, wIth Sorla guiding us well around the city.

The day passed without incident. Sorla provided food for us again (leftovers from the previous night) and we made our usual precautions -- hut, alarm spell and the same watches as the previous couple of nights. The night also passed without incident.


30 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 61)

We set out again in the morning -- as we drew near to the town, Thneed tried to spot some humanoid footprints to try and identify those of the Masks, but she didn’t find a track.

Sorla lead us around to a trail that was bigger than a footpath but not enough for a cart to travel on. She told us we were fifteen minutes from the cave. She then parted from us, intending to go about fifteen minutes up the track toward the village.

Thneed took a minute so stop and sense for the presence of her favored enemy (humanoids) in the area -- she detected several dozen of them back in the direction of the village and fifteen in the direction of the cave.

We took stock of the geography, before moving closer to the Cave of Masks. The village is in a broad valley -- getting in and out involves going over the mountains and there aren’t any good mountains passes to make that easier. There’s a bit of relief in the valley (some hills and undoubtedly a river or stream). The cave is in the side of one of the mountains that forms the valley -- in a 60 or so foot high sheer(ish) cliff that extends some distance to either side of the cave mouth. The valley is mostly grassy in the middle, with the forest mostly at the edges and on the mountain sides. The villagers had cleared the forest in the valley floor. The track passed through woods and the cave was sheltered by trees.

We pulled out one of the party's bottles of Oil of Etherealness.

Taman: Grease me up, woman!

Fiona made a tiny hut for us to wait in safely while Taman went off to scout and explore. We initially thought he could use the sending stone to communicate if he needed us, but then realized that he wouldn’t be able to do that because of being ethereal. We also realized that we weren’t entirely sure whether the Cape of the Mountebank would work to get him out of trouble if he needed it to.

Mo cast a mage hand to help oil up Taman, and as the mage hand did so, we saw Taman shimmer out of visibility.

This is how he described what he saw -- 8 Masks inside the cave and 7 masks outside. Some sort of magic circle on the wall (further description to follow) inside the cave to the left. A stack of cots (something like ten of them, stacked up but not currently ready for use) was against the wall and there was some evidence of food (gruel) preparation. (We know they eat and sleep.)

The Masks were clearly not “switched off” - they were awake and aware (though they didn’t sense Taman at all), but they weren’t doing anything either. Once in a while one would move a little bit. It was as though they had no orders to follow and without orders they wouldn’t do anything. So they did nothing.

The circle on the wall is seven feet in diameter with a border six inches wide carved into the cave wall, with what looks like some intentional texture/pattern inside it. At the top of the circle, there are two strings of sigils/runes: one is just below the inside of the circle, carved directly into the cave wall and painted white (the natural rock of the cave wall is a very dark gray); the other is just above the outside of the circle, carved into hexagonal tiles or blocks that are in turn set into hexagonal niches carved into the cave wall (the tiles or blocks are about an inch thick and visibly different from the cave wall). There is a box or crate near the circle that contains more of the blocks or tiles. The blocks or tiles are stone, but different, almost-black stone, and the characters on them have been carved and painted red. The characters (both carved into the wall and carved into the tiles) are about six inches tall. Both the characters carved into the wall and the spaces where the tiles fit curve some to follow the circle.

Joybell’s take on the circle (after Taman described it to us) is that the fixed runes make a fixed incoming address and the moveable tiles allow the Masks to go to different places. So a specific configuration of the moveable tiles would have gone to the circle in Pelsoreen that we destroyed, for example. But Joybell doesn’t really get magic (except for Paladin magic which is all about hitting things better and helping people).

After doing his scouting Taman made his way back to the tiny hut where we were all waiting and sat down right in the middle of the group of us to wait for the oil of etherealness to wear off. From our point of view, he shimmered back into view right in the middle of the hut, where he’d left from.

Orryk: Did you actually go anywhere?

Taman described to us what he found.

Orryk: I like the idea of pulling a number of them away from the cave.

We discussed several approaches to this and settled on pulling some away with smoke from a big bonfire about 1000 feet away from the cave. Orryk dug a few pit traps between the fire and the most obvious path from the cave to our location. We used the earth from the pits to make an earthen berm around the fire. The pits were covered with vegetation to attempt to hide them.

Mo cast rope trick about 25 feet away from the fire so we’d have a safe place to hide and wait.

Then we lit the fire and stoked it up to the big bonfire (10’ square) that we wanted. Orryk, Fiona, Mo and Joybell waited in the rope trick. Taman hid off in the woods a bit beyond the rope trick. Thneed hid in the woods in a different direction. Scooby tried to play “normal wolf in the woods” and did a pretty good job (better sneaking than Taman) despite the quivers of javelins that Joybell has strapped to him. (He doesn’t wear a saddle or anything, but he does have a bit of baggage.)

A little while after the smoke started, maybe five minutes after we lit the fire, seven of the Masks approached the clearing where we had the fire going. The front three appeared to immediately notice Taman (who hadn’t hidden nearly as well as he thought he had).

Taman moved behind the fire (from their point of view) and took a shot at one -- hoping to draw them toward the pits. He hit and was able to do sneaky damage because being a rogue/ranger is awesome!

Orryk climbed out of the rope trick and took two shots at the same one, hitting with both, then moved away from the bottom of the rope and took a defensive stance. Thneed put her hunter’s mark on the same one, but missed with both of her shots. Then she took some cover behind a tree.

All of them except the one who’d been shot at by the party moved up 30 feet and started shooting arrows. Two of them shot two arrows each at Taman -- he dodged one arrow, luckily missed a crit from one, and got hit. Orryk was shot at by one of them, and managed to catch the arrow that would have hit him. Two shot at Thneed -- one of the four arrows hit her solidly, one went into the tree she was hiding behind and the other two flew off into the woods. The last one to shoot fired at Taman hitting twice -- once critically.

Ouch!

Fiona climbed out of the rope trick and, observing that they’d bunched up into a fireball formation that would let her get all of them, cast fireball. But in the stress of the moment it was a puny one and didn’t do much damage to anyone, not even the ones who failed to dodge out of the way. Joybell climbed down and moved to Taman, laying hands on him to cure much of the damage he took from the Masks’ arrows. Then she called Scooby to her and mounted up.

Mo emerged from the rope trick and blew out the smoke cloud and swirling sparks of his hypnotic pattern catching three of them in the pretty lights. Then he inspired Taman.

The inspiration was timely, because Taman immediately took a shot at the one the party was targeting and, because of the inspiration, got a hit. Then he moved entirely behind a tree (to get total cover). Then, belatedly and because this is all still sort of new to him, put his hunter’s mark on the one he’d just shot.

Orryk took two shots at the one we were focusing on, hitting twice, then, in a move that would be an inspiration to many, he laid down so he’d be harder to hit with arrows.

Thneed tried to shoot at the party’s target, it was looking poorly but we knew it would regenerate, hitting and dropping it with her second shot. She moved her hunter’s mark to a different one then moved to hid behind a tree of her own. (Her pride was a bit too strong for her to lay down like Orryk had.)

The Mask that Thneed dropped immediately regenerated and stood up. Then they began to shoot at us -- Fiona took two hits from one and one from another. Mo took two shots from one but was able to endure the damage from one shot because of his goliath heritage. He was also able to keep up the hypnotic pattern. Joybell took one hit and was missed by another shot. Then they all moved up to close with us -- moving around the pit traps which they had apparently noticed.

The other three stared at the pretty lights. Thank you, Mo!

Fiona cast shadowbolt -- her new spell that does psychic damage -- on the one that Thneed had her hunter’s mark on, stunning it and doing a lot of damage (more than twice as much as her fireball). Then she moved around behind a tree and lay down -- going for both cover and the disadvantage of shooting at a prone opponent.

Joybell rode up to the one Fiona had just stunned, hitting with her second attack for a nice amount of damage, then she and Scooby dashed back into the woods and got behind a tree.

Mo viciously mocked the one we’d actually dropped already, stunning it, then moved further away from them and laid down. Taman then took a shot at the one Mo stunned, dropping it again. Then he ducked back behind his tree.

Orryk moved up and attacked the one Fiona stunned with her shadowbolt, throwing his daggers at it. He then hit it with a powerful backhand -- leaving it wobbly. He tried to figure out a place where he could attack that one without putting himself in danger of being ganged up on.

Thneed, seeing the wobble, stepped out of hiding and shot it, dropping it for good. Then she moved her hunters’ mark to the next nearest one and shot it before moving back behind her tree. Pride took a backseat to self-preservation and she lay down.

The two remaining Masks who weren’t stunned moved up on Orryk and attacked him (his calculations had been off by just a few feet). With both of them attacking him things got ugly quickly -- despite Mo using cutting words to reduce the damage of one hit, and Orryk going invisible after being hit the first time, they dropped him. Fortunately the final attack against his fallen body (invisible) missed.

Fiona stood up and cast scorching ray on the one that dropped Orryk. Joybell circled around to get to that one (without drawing an opportunistic attack from the other) and cast wrathful smite before attacking. When her attack landed, it became stunned. Then she moved 15 feet away to draw the other one away from Orryk (since they’ve learned to keep hitting on fallen foes after they’re down).

Without standing up, Mo cast healing word on Orryk, then inspired him.

Mo: Hey, buddy, I need you to kill these things.

Then he viciously mocked the other one of the two that were not caught by the hypnotic pattern, stunning it. Taman ran in and stabbed that one with his rapier. Orryk stood up and attacked that same one with his daggers, trying and failing to do a stunning strike with one, then he dashed away into the forest.

Thneed shot at the one Joybell attacked, hitting it and doing extra damage because of her hunters’ mark.

The three Masks staring at the pretty lights continued to do so. The other two Masks shook off the stunning effects of the spells they’d been hit by but were unable to attack.

Fiona cast toll the dead on one, stunning it. Joybell rode up to it and hit it with one of her swings.

Mo viciously mocked the other one, stunning it as well, by saying something about its mother. Taman dropped the one Joybell and Fiona had attacked with his rapier, killing it for real, then moved his hunter’s mark to the other one. Orryk moved back in and punched with his deathtouch gloves, hitting the stunned one twice then punching again just because he could -- and also because each hit healed him up a bit through the magic of the gloves. Then, because that one was stunned and looking poorly, he moved toward the hypnotized ones, ready to start taking them out one by one.

Thneed shot at the one Orryk had punched, after moving her hunter’s mark there, and hit with both attacks, but didn’t drop it.

Which was a pity because it then immediately shook off the stun, again.

Fortunately, Fiona was right there to cast toll the dead on it. Its eyes glazed over and its muscles went slack for just a moment before it collapsed to the ground, dead. Then Fiona moved a little closer to the hypnotized ones on the other side of the pits.

Joybell rode up to the nearest of the hypnotized Masks and attacked. She hit it twice, doing a good deal of damage but also waking it out of the hypnosis. Taman dashed up and sneakily attacked that one from behind, hitting in a critical spot and doing a lot of damage (49 points!). Orryk attacked the same one, because we were definitely focusing fire at that point, punching with the deathtouch gloves and getting three hits, which stunned it. Orryk also healed some more. He was looking better and better with every hit. Thneed took a shot at the one we were attacking, after moving her hunters’ mark, and dropped it with her first shot, . She didn’t take her second shot because she didn’t want to wake one up before we were ready to deal with it.

Which left the two remaining Masks just staring at the pretty lights.

Fiona woke the next one in line up with a toll the dead. It didn’t take a lot of damage, but it was stunned. Joybell attacked it -- she got a normal hit with her first attack and a critical hit with extra divine smitage for the second. Mo viciously mocked the last one -- waking him up from the hypnotic pattern and also stunning him. Taman moved his hunter’s mark to the one Mo had just woken up, then stabbed with his rapier for a nice amount of damage.

Orryk attacked the other one, the one Fiona had stunned with her toll the dead, punching with his gloves and landing three good blows on it. Also healing up a bit more. Thneed shot that one, getting a critical hit and dropping it. Then she moved her hunter’s mark to the last one.

It shook off the stunning effect of Mo’s vicious mockery but wasn’t able to attack.

Fiona cast toll the dead on the last one, stunning it again. Joybell attacked it and hit twice.

Orryk, seeing that: Don’t kill it before my turn.

Mo hit it with his crossbow, because it has to get used once in a while. Taman stabbed it and did a nice chunk of damage, but per Orryk’s request, didn’t drop it.

Orryk did, punching and punching and punching with his gloves. By the end of it he was pretty much healed back up.

We ended in the clearing with the bonfire blazing and eight Masks in a cave 1000’ away.


----------



## prabe (Jan 10, 2021)

Session 27: Killing And More Killing

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM: - Everyone Else


30 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 61) (immediately after)

As we headed toward the cave, Taman, thinking back over what he’d seen in the teleportation circle in the cave, said that the runes were dwarvish letters and he thought he could remember the order of both the moveable ones (outgoing) and the ones permanently carved into the wall (incoming).

We also discussed how we could get the box of moveable runes out of the cave, before the Masks could go anywhere. And how we were going to deal with 8 of them. That discussion focused a lot on how to get them out of the cave one by one or in small groups so we could deal with them in detail.

All of that became moot once we got to the cave, because even from the outside, with just a bit of cautious peeking, we could see that the cave was empty.

Joybell: Are they going for the town?
Thneed: We should take advantage of this.
Mo: Hey, New Girl! Go check this out.

Before Thneed could go, Taman pointed out that he had the “get out of Dodge” cape and went into the cave. In addition to just scouting around, he was looking for anything invisible, which he didn’t find. He did see the box of tiles exactly where they were supposed to be. He wrote down the runes for the incoming circle (the permanently carved ones) and the outgoing circle.

While he was doing his scouting, Orryk began using his move earth ability to make piles of dirt outside the entrance to the cave, narrowing the 15’ entrance to a 5’ gap. Joybell stayed outside watching the path from the village, in case those returned. Mo cast a rope trick around the corner from the entrance to the cave, so we’d have a place to hide/retreat if we needed one. Taman interrupted Orryk’s work moving earth to hand him the box of tiles to put into the bag of holding.

As Fiona went to examine the circle to see if she could make sense of it, the carved, permanent (dial in) runes began to go from white to glowing gold. Everyone who was inside the cave scattered to the outside. Watching through the narrow doorway, we saw 10 Masks come through the gate.

Orryk took cover behind one of the piles of dirt and waited for one to come our way. Mo moved to a position where he could see into the cave and, seeing 10 of them all in a cluster, began playing a familiar tune frantically on his flute, blowing out the cloud of glowing smoke in a hypnotic pattern. Because they were all bunched up, they all were caught in the area of effect and only three of them resisted it.

The other seven were incapacitated.

Whew!

Taman moved to where he could see into the cave and got a massive, sneaky critical hit against one of the ones that wasn’t caught by the pretty lights. Then he hid behind one of Orryk’s piles of dirt. Joybell used two charges off the wand of magic missiles to shoot at that same one. Then she moved away from the entrance but stood plainly visible to them, so they’d come to her and attack her. Thneed put her hunter’s mark on that same one and shot at it twice, hitting with both attacks and dropping it.

Fiona then stepped into the gap for just long enough to toll the dead on the one Thneed dropped, killing it for real, then took cover behind a pile of dirt.

Two of the Masks took their action to wake up two other ones, but didn’t then do anything else. So we had four of the remaining 9 functional and five incapacitated.

Orryk moved away from the doorway, going near where Joybell and Scooby were trying to be a tempting target, and took two shots at one, then moved off into the trees. Mo viciously mocked one of the ones that was just shaken out of it’s daze, stun-locking it.

Mo: You’re a horrible creation from a bad mage.

Thneed moved her mark to the one Orryk shot at it and, because of her horde breaker ability, the one next to it. Then shot at the first one again. Of her three shots, one hit. Sigh.

Taman put his hunter’s mark on the one Mo mocked and took a shot at it, but missed. Joybell fired a shot from the wand of magic missiles at the same one then moved to draw them toward the mouth of the cave. Fiona cast a blessing on Taman, Orryk, Thneed and Joybell.

The Masks that had actions used them to wake up other Masks and one moved closer to us -- leaving only three still stunned and six fully functional, which was not as good a ratio as the other way round.

Orryk took two shots, both of which hit, at the one that was moving toward us. Mo, slightly less panicked now, cast another hypnotic pattern, letting the first one drop for a moment -- the ones that had been hypnotized blinked and shook their heads for a moment, before getting hypnotized again. Once again, only 3 of them saved and the rest were captured by the pretty.

Thneed moved into the doorway and seeing that two of the ones that still had their wits about them, shot at those two (using her horde breaker ability) and then took another shot at one of them. This time all three of her shots hit. Taman took a shot at the one that Thneed shot twice (her primary target) and hit it. Joybell shot a magic missile at that same one and moved to occupy the entrance to the cave, so they’d be bottled up between Orryk’s dirt piles. Fiona tolled the dead on it. The toll the dead did a teeny speck of damage to it, but did shut down its regeneration for a moment and tied up its ability to act for a round.

The Masks who were able to act once again used their actions to wake up others, leaving us with five awake and four incapacitated.

Orryk moved next to Joybell and took two shots at the one we were focusing fire, missing with both shots and swearing flagrantly in gnomish.

Orryk: We need to hold the $)#(% line!!

Joybell was shocked at his language.

Mo viciously mocked the same one, stun-locking it and setting it up to be killed.

Mo: Your parents are dead.

Then he moved back a bit. Thneed took her shots - hitting the one Mo had stunned, and the one next to it for even more damage. Her second attack just missed. Fortunately, Taman, who moved to fill in the rest of the line across the doorway (as in the picture above) didn’t miss and was able to drop the stun-locked one.

Joybell shot at one of the ones that were awake with a magic missile and held her place in the doorway. Fiona tolled the dead on that one.

One of them ran up into the space between the dirt piles and attacked Joybell, hitting twice. Another moved up behind it and shot at her with a bow, hitting twice. Fortunately, they couldn’t really gang up on her and, while she was hit hard, she wasn’t knocked down.

Orryk started in with his new vampiric gloves -- hitting the one right in front of us as we held the line and stunning it. Mo viciously mocked the one behind it, stunning it as well.

Mo: You’ve had your childhood stolen from you.

Thneed took advantage of the fact that Joybell is short, even by gnome standards, and shot right over her head at the one Orryk stunned. She hit it with two arrows, leaving it looking hurt but not on its last legs or anything. So Joybell finished it off with a mighty divinely powered blow with her short sword, dropping it. (And once again forgetting to use the sword of the medic’s healing word ability on any of the injured people in the party.)

Mo: Instead of getting them out of the cave, keeping them in the cave is the best decision we’ve made.

Fiona tolled the dead on same one she’d tolled before, so there were two stun-locked (one by her and one by Mo) leaving two able to act. Those two did not wake up any of the ones that were hypnotized (bless their little hearts) instead choosing to come after us. Specifically shooting at Joybell.

Joybell: I’m down, y’all….

They both missed with all attacks.

Joybell: Or not.

The ones that had been stun-locked (as opposed to the three that were still hypnotized) shook off the effect.

Orryk took a second to survey the situation.

Orryk: Stupidity is coming.

Then he ran into the cave, swearing flagrantly in Gnomish, shocking Joybell to the core. He punched one with the vampiric gloves, then ran to another and punched it as well, leaving two stun-locked and vulnerable

Mo viciously mocked one of the others.

Mo: Your future was stolen from you.

Thneed took two shots at one of the ones that Orryk punched, hitting once.

Taman: Oh, god, why are we doing this?

Then he ran in and stabbed the same one Thneed shot at. Joybell ran in as well, after a moment of confusion (we were holding the door, weren’t we) and got a tremendous hit, with extra divine power, followed by a regular hit on that same one - dropping it.

Fiona cast toll the dead on the one Mask who was neither stun-locked nor hypnotized. Then the stun-locked ones shook out of it but were unable to act otherwise.

Orryk, then ran around the room, doing one punch to each of those three (the ones not-hypnotized) with his vampiric gloves, locking all of them down again. Mo, seeing that nothing needed to be mocked this round, pulled out his crossbow and took an actual shot at one of them -- it felt weird, but he hit and did a fair amount of damage.

Mo: I point it this way, right?

Thneed hit our next target with both of her shots -- one of them in a critical location, and did a lot of damage. Taman then missed with his rapier. Joybell hit that one twice, but didn’t add the divine power, because it didn’t seem close to dying.

Fiona cast a scorching ray and sent bolts to all three of the ones that weren’t stunned, hitting two of them.

Because they had been stunned, the Masks didn’t heal at all but they did shake off the stun-locks again.

Just in time for Orryk to start punching them all over again. He managed to stun two of them with his vampiric gloves, but missed one.

Orryk: Mo, this one is yours.
Mo: On it.

Mo then viciously mocked the one that had managed to avoid Orryk’s punches. Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the one she, Taman and Joybell were focusing on, and her first shot dropped him.

Thneed couldn’t move her hunter’s mark again, but she did take a shot at another one, giving us the next pile-on target. Taman moved his hunter’s mark to that same one and did a great deal of damage to it with a sneaky scimitar attack. Joybell, alas, was completely unable to do her part -- missing with both of her blows against a stunned opponent. (Note: With advantage on two attacks her high roll was a 3.)

Fiona cast magic missile, sending darts at the one Thneed, Taman and Joybell were dogpiling on and the other one that wasn’t hypnotized.

After the Masks shook off the stun-locks again, at least the ones that weren’t hypnotized, Orryk tried to go around and stun them all with his vampiric glove strikes again, but this time it didn’t work -- he was only able to get one of them. Mo got a second with an all time classic vicious insult against the Masks, stunning another one.

Mo: Your family is all dead.

Thneed moved her mark to the one she Taman and Joybell were working on -- she hit with both of her attacks. Taman then attacked and hit with his sneak attack and dropped it.

Taman then moved his hunter’s mark to the last one that wasn’t hypnotized. It didn’t really do him much good, though, because Joybell then dropped it with her first attacks. And then there were three.

We dropped one of the three hypnotized Masks very quickly -- Fiona stunning it with a toll the dead almost immediately after Joybell’s second attack shook it out of its hypnosis. Almost as quickly it shook itself out of the stun, but was unable to attack. And then as quickly again, Orryk punched it with the vampiric gloves and stunned it again.

(Note: There appears to have been a note-taking issue, because I can only account for the demise of seven Masks to this point, which would leave three hypnotized. But it’s clear from my notes that there were only two Masks left.)

Mo, seeing that there were only two left, coughed and let out a big cloud of smoke allowing the hypnotic pattern to drop. He then viciously mocked the un-stunned one.

Mo: You’re going to die without throwing a punch.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the one Orryk stunned and shot it. With her horde breaker ability she shot the one Mo stunned. Then she attacked the first one again. All three of her shots hit. Nice. Taman moved his hunter’s mark to the one Orryk stunned as well and attacked with his rapier, getting in a good attack while the Mask was distracted by other opponents. Joybell dropped the one Orryk stunned with her first attack and hit the last remaining Mask with her second attack, but it stayed up.

Mo suggested that maybe we want to talk to one.

Fiona cast toll the dead on the one remaining one. Keeping it locked up for a moment.

As soon as it shook off that stun, Orryk punched it, once, with the vampiric gloves, locking it again.

Orryk: Mo, if you want to tie this guy up, do it now.

Mo did so, mummy-tying him with 40 feet of thick hempen rope. Orryk took the Mask's weapons and then used mold earth to put a big pile over him.

While this was happening, Fiona studied the teleportation circle.

Mo took the Mask off, reminding all of us that these aren’t the bad guys. The Masks themselves are abused children.

Mo: Your friends are all dead. We have a few questions. Would you be willing to talk to us? We need to know who you’re working for.
Mask: Our orders were to go to Callallah with the idea of capturing you in a pincer move. The group that headed to town is coming back. They turned around when we saw you here.

This revelation caused some consternation.

Taman: How do you get to your boss?
Mask: We use the portal.

Taman got the Mask to give him the address they used. Then he stabbed the Mask. Orryk immediately began hacking at the portal with the intention of making it not work anymore.

Then we fled the cave, running in a different direction from our fight with the first group of Masks at the bonfire.

On the way out, Mo used the flute of scribing to write, “Alighieri did this…” Which confused Thneed and made Joybell shake her head.

We headed toward the town, traveling way off the road, to see what the Masks might be doing there. Taman went in on his own to see what he could learn, with some inspiration from Mo in case he needed it. Taman came to some cleared farmland outside of town -- there were adults in the field cutting the hay with scythes. There were fruit trees around the edge of the field with children standing on the shoulders of very large people picking apples and pears. The large people didn’t wear masks, but were about the same size as the Masks.

Before talking to anyone, Taman got a look at one of the large people the children were harvesting with -- it didn’t appear to him to be capable of independent thought at all. The children were telling the large people what to do and were using them largely as beasts of burden or like they would farm animals. He also noticed that the large people weren’t muscular and solid like the Masks and they did have sexual characteristics (breasts, facial hair, etc.) that the Masks do not have. They also didn’t have the physical characteristics/facial features associated with acromegaly (Note: Think Andre the Giant.)

Taman approached a little boy standing on the shoulders of one of the giants, making his demeanor appear to be that of an ordinary traveler.

Taman: Hi.
Kid, climbing down from his “mount”: Who are you?
Taman: I’m an explorer. I like to draw maps.
Kid: We don’t get visitors. Mostly.
Taman: Why not? This seems like a nice village.
Kid: When it is, it is. When it’s not, it’s bad.
Taman: What happens when it’s not?
Kid: Masks come.

Then the child started crying. The giant he’d been standing on looked at the child blankly, then at Taman, then it sat down on the ground next to the child and started to cry as well.

Taman tried to comfort the child, without much effect.

Noticing this, one of the adults in the hayfield called out: “Hey, you! What are you doing here?”

Taman gave the same explanation about being an explorer mapping the area that he’d given to the kid.

Taman: The child was talking about something weird going on with masks, but when I asked about it he started to cry.
Man: The...it’s..it isn’t so much weird as bad. I don’t know how they’ll react to anyone coming here. How did you get here?
Taman: I walked.
Man: I was hoping for a direction.
Taman: I left Pelsoreen and went west exploring.
Man: They’ve been terrorizing our village for some time. Well, not always terrorizing -- they also protect us. But they come every once in a while and take our kids.
Taman: That’s terrible! How long has this been going on?
Man: Since before my great grandparents’ time.
Taman: Has no one stood up to them?
Man: Not for very long.
Taman: Where do they come from?

In response to that, the man pointed toward the cave.

Taman, through a bit more discussion with the villager, learned that the Masks aren’t in the town regularly.

He returned to us and we found a place to rest with a tiny hut about 15 minutes from the cave. Then we oiled up Taman with our other oil of etherealness and he went to scout to see what those other 8 Masks were up to. We knew they were in telepathic contact with the 10 we killed that came through the gate, but we didn’t know what they’d do when they saw that we’d killed the ones they were supposed to be making a pincer-attack with. The rest of us rested while he was gone.

In the cave, Taman saw exactly what we had left - 10 dead Masks, destroyed teleportation circle. Empty space. Nothing else. He didn’t see any fresh tracks going into the cave, so apparently the ones heading back for the pincer thing, peeled off and went elsewhere when we killed the last of the Masks in the cave.

Taman came back to the hut and, again, waited for the oil to wear off, then reported what he’d seen.

Mo, to Thneed: Can you do some ranger naughty word to find these guys?
Thneed: Yes.

She then spent the next minute focusing her awareness and concentrating on the area around her to detect the presence of her favored enemy (humanoids) in a five mile radius. She detected the village -- there were a few dozen people at that distance and in that direction. About halfway between Callallah and the cave, there were a group of eight of them on the path, not moving in any particular direction.

After a bit of puzzlement, and the thought that maybe when we killed the ones that came through the gate, they didn’t have orders so they were just in standby or something, we realized that halfway between the cave and Callallah was where Sorla was going to be waiting to keep anything bad from being taken to the village. They couldn’t hurt her at all and she couldn’t kill them.

We started heading in that direction, moving quickly. Despite her sense of urgency about this, Joybell didn’t rush ahead like a crazy gnome, but kept pace with Taman, and generally close to the rest of the party. Along the way, Taman and Thneed got some arrows from the near infinite supply of arrows in the bag of holding, so they were re-loaded for this combat.

As we got closer we could hear, and then eventually see, the combat -- Sorla in her hybrid were-bear form fighting with eight Masks. Fiona blessed Orryk, Thneed, Taman and Joybell.

Taman then moved forward just a bit and took a shot at the nearest one -- hitting for a lot of damage. Sorla, in what would be a repeated theme, missed with both of her attacks. Joybell fired magic missiles from the wand at the same one -- did a piffling amount of damage, but not much.

The beneficial effect of Taman and Joybell’s attacks was that five of them broke away from attacking Sorla and began moving toward us. (Sorla savaged one with a critical hit on an opportunity attack, but that was more of an anomaly.) Three of them stayed on her. The five moving toward us pulled out longbows and fired at us. Three attacked Joybell, two of them missing entirely, one hitting with both attacks, but not hurting her too badly. Taman, unfortunately was attacked by the other two and he took three arrows. Mo tried to use cutting words to make one of those shots miss, but was unable to do so. The other three attacked Sorla, to no net effect.

Mo took out the wand of web and used it to throw a cube of webbing, anchored partly to the trees on either side of the path, onto the three closest to us. Thneed put her hunter’s mark on the closest one, the one Taman and Joybell had already hit -- and missed with both of her arrows. She also missed with her hordebreaker attack against the one right behind it.

Orryk moved backwards, shooting twice with his shortbow, and hitting twice. Then he took cover behind a tree.

Orryk: Fall back! Take cover!

Fiona cast toll the dead on the one closest to us, then lay down on the ground. Taman moved away from the path and took cover behind a tree, before shooting that one in front twice. Sorla swung at the ones behind her to no effect. Joybell rode up to the one in front that we’d been focusing on, attacked twice, getting a hit in a vital area and dropping it, then she moved and dashed Scooby off into the woods, where she took cover behind a tree.

The other two caught in Mo’s web were well and truly stuck in it -- they fought to free themselves but were unsuccessful. The other two that had left Sorla and come to fight us ran at top speed closer to us, but weren’t able to close the distance and didn’t take the time to fire arrows.

Mo viciously mocked one of the two not caught in the web.

Mo: You’re never going to have any love or any interesting activities.

Then he lay down.

Thneed moved behind a tree and moved her hunter’s mark to the one Mo had mocked (no stun-locked). She got two hits, one in a critical location. Orryk closed on that one and attacked it with daggers from his belt, hitting twice, then smacking with a backhand that also hit. Without standing up, Fiona cast toll the dead on the other one that was heading our way, stun-locking it. Taman moved up on that one and stabbed it for a lot of damage. Sorla actually got a hit -- though the Mask was just going to regenerate that damage. Joybell moved up to the one Orryk was attacking and hit with one of her attacks, drawing down the divine energy into her sword -- but it was still not great, her focus was obviously off.

The two that had been stunned -- by Mo and Fiona -- came out of it, but were unable to do anything. The two stuck in the web tried again to get themselves out. And again failed. Nice!

Mo stood up and mocked the same one again, then lay back down.

Mo: You have no future.

Thneed took her shots at the one Mo had just stunned and dropped it. Then she moved her hunter’s mark to one of the ones in the webbing.

Orryk ran across the road to the other one that was moving to attack us and used his vampiric gloves on it, stunning it, with his first blow. With his second blow he used a dagger and he followed up with an unarmed attack. All of those hit.

Fiona surveyed the situation and cast shadowbolt, which does psychic damage, on one of the ones Sorla was fighting. It was wrapped in a swirl of purple energy, after taking the damage.

Fiona, to Sorla: Hit the glowing purple one on your right!

Taman shot the one Orryk had attacked and did a lot of damage, leaving it reeling but still on its feet. Sorla, following Fiona’s instructions, attacked the glowing purple one, but even attacking with advantage she missed with both of her attacks. Joybell moved and dashed on Scooby to get to a different one of Sorla’s attackers, then she cast wrathful smite and attacked it. The first hit landed, rather weakly, but it delivered the energy of the spell. Her second attack did better.

Around this time, the three stunned Masks shook that off, the two in the web finally managed to free themselves (one went to Orryk and Taman, the other to Joybell and Sorla). One of them attacked Sorla.

Mo then viciously mocked the one Taman had stabbed and Orryk and punched and daggered, killing it with his barbed tongue. Then he inspired Taman. Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the one that had just moved to Orryk and Taman and shot it twice, hitting twice. Orryk attacked it, hitting with his gloves first, then with a dagger and a punch for his bonus action. Hitting with all three. Nice!

Fiona cast shadowbolt on the one that had gotten out of the web and was going for Joybell and Sorla, hitting for a lot of damage and stunning it. Taman attacked the one on him and missed, despite being blessed and despite Mo’s inspiration. Sorla went to attack the one Fiona had just stunned, drawing attacks from two of the three that she had been fighting with futility. They both missed. Then she missed with both of her attacks against the stunned Mask.

Joybell cast wrathful smite and attacked the one nearest to her, hitting twice and stunning it, but didn’t drop it. So she dashed away on Scooby into the woods (because otherwise she was in danger of being surrounded by three of them).

The two Masks that weren’t stunned moved to attack Sorla, because it’s hard to kick a useless habit. The rest of them came out of their stun-locks.

Whereupon, Mo immediately viciously mocked the one Sorla had moved to attack.

Mo: You’re about to be killed by an owlbear that can’t hit anything.

It seems like Sorla should have taken some damage from that as well. But then he inspired Sorla.

Thneed shot at the one she’d put her mark on -- hitting it with both shots and dropping it. At least temporarily.

Orryk: Fiona, can you kill this one?

Then he walked up to the line of them that had been fighting hitting two of them with the gloves and leaving them stunned. The third one was not, however. Fiona cast toll the dead on the one that was dropped killing it. Then she stood up and moved closer to the battle. Taman dashed up to one and attacked, but missed. Sorla attacked the one Mo had stunned and hit it! Joybell rode Scooby up to that one and attacked it, hitting twice but not dropping it.

The three stunned Masks then shook themselves out of it. The fourth one, standing right next to Orryk, attacked, hitting twice, despite Mo’s attempt to use cutting words to prevent one of those. The two attacks combined for a great deal of damage.

Orryk growled and flexed his fist, pulling the glove tight across his knuckles.

Orryk: I’m taking that right back.

Mo cast mass vicious mockery on all four of them, stun-locking the lot of them and doing a small amount of damage to each of them. Thneed moved her mark to one and then promptly dropped it with an arrow. Then she shot another one and used her horde breaker ability to drop the one next to it.

Orryk attacked the one that had been behind Sorla that Thneed hadn’t dropped, hitting twice and healing some of the damage that had been done to him. Fiona cast a fireball, sculpting it around Orryk, Scooby, and Joybell (who were used to this) and Sorla (who wasn’t). Taman then sneaked in and stabbed one of the two remaining for a lot of damage, dropping it.

Which left one stunned Mask. And Sorla’s attacks.

Party: Come on, Sorla!!

Sorla turned to the last one and hit twice, ripping it limb from limb. We all cheered for her and congratulated her.

And there we ended, in the path between Callallah and the Cave of the Masks. Surrounded by more dead masks (and having killed 25 of them in one day).

Joybell doesn’t know about anyone else, but she’s pooped.


----------



## prabe (Jan 23, 2021)

Session 28: We Made It Back To Embernook!

Dramatis Personae:

Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


30 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 61) (immediately after)

We began where we left off -- on the trail half-way between Callallah and the Cave of the Masks with Sorla the were-bear. Surrounded by the bodies of eight Masks.

We started looting and searching the bodies -- aside from standard Mask equipment (longsword, longbow, arrows, shield) we didn’t find anything of interest. We weren’t expecting them to have coinage (we’ve never found an individual Mask with coinage) but we were kind of hoping that maybe we’d find some information or clues. We took the equipment and Mo made sure we put all the masks in the bag as well. Then we burned the bodies.

We proceeded to the bonfire location, where we’d fought seven Masks, and searched with the same results. While the rest of us were looting bodies and building the pyre, Fiona cast detect magic so she could take a look at the box of tiles. They were in fact magical, gently so, with an aura of conjuration magic, appropriate for teleportation magic.

Once all of those bodies were burning, we headed to the Cave of the Masks. While the others searched inside, Joybell and Thneed worked on dragging the bodies outside the cave and making a pyre. Everyone else searched in the cave. From the cots and the general level of tracks in the cave, it was clear that the cave has been occupied more or less continuously by some number of Masks. There was evidence of traffic into and out of the cave. Fiona cast another detect magic and saw a bit of residual magic, sparking and clearly shorting out and draining away -- conjuration again. Nothing evil, just now badly broken.

We then went to Callallah. As we approached the village, we saw some people still out harvesting -- 3 kids on the shoulders of the dumb-giants picking apples and pears, 7 adults in the fields cutting the grain with scythes. One of the dumb-giants was being used as a beast of burden, carrying bundles of cut wheat to a cart.

Mo took one of the masks out of the bag of holding and threw it toward the workers -- unfortunately it didn’t fly as he expected and it landed well short. So he took another one and used a mage hand spell to throw it in front of some of the workers.

The rest of the party sort of stared at him.

Mo: What? Is this not a common greeting?

The villagers turned to look in our direction.

Mo: Hey! How’s it going? We killed all the Masks.

The villagers continued to stare.

Joybell: Hello.

One of the villagers in the field, a young man in his early 20s, came our way.

Mo: Your town is free now.
Joybell, to Mo: I think you’re getting ahead of the narrative.

As the villagers approached it became clear that these were the same ones Taman had talked to earlier.

Young Man, whose name turned out to be Orl, looking at Taman: You’re not a lone traveler.

Orryk started pulling masks out of the bag of holding, eventually accumulating a pile of 34 of them.

Orryk: We want to talk about these.
Orl: That’s going to be my dad, Wilm.

Orl led us toward the town. As we walked, Joybell made small talk with Orl about the fields and orchards we passed. What looked like a bumper crop of fruit and grain and other horticultural crops was the normal production for Callallah every year.

Joybell: How’s life in the village?
Orl: Mostly not too bad.
Thneed: Where do the friendly giants come from?
Orl: My dad can explain that.

Joybell went back to chattering.

Joybell: Do you have livestock?
Orl: Chickens. Some farmers raise pigs. We keep two or three horses for the cart.
Mo: One cart for the whole town? What’s it for?
Orl: Every once in a while, someone will take a cartload of produce out of the valley to trade for things we don’t have here.

We noticed as we walked through the scattered forest trees among the orchards and fields, that only the domesticated plants were doing especially well -- the apples had a bumper crop, but there were a normal number of acorns on the oak trees.

We got to the town and found that it had 12 dwelling compounds, some with multiple buildings, obviously housing multi-generational families. We passed a horse barn/carriage house and something that looked like a bar or restaurant.

Mo: There’s always a bar.

All the people we saw in the village were human.

Orl took us to one of the compounds -- we saw twelve children under the age of 10. Five pairs of twins, not identical twins. (Note: I had assumed that the twin births were all identical twin births, but that is not a correct assumption. Kids just are always born in pairs.)

In an office or working space, we were introduced to Orl’s father Wilm Orter.

Wilm: How are you doing?
Orryk: We’re good.

Then he started pulling masks out of the bag of holding. 35 of them.

Mo: You had a Mask problem. You don’t any more. Are you happy there are no more Masks?
Wilm: Life without the Masks seems like it would be nice, but I haven’t contemplated it.

Joybell proceeded to explain why we’d come to kill the Masks - that we hadn’t actually come to liberate Callallah, we’d come to stop them from kidnapping children like the Orc orphans (taken to be vivisected), we’d come to stop them from destroying other villages and special places like the Wold. As we got closer, we realized that we would also be stopping them from kidnapping the children of Callallah to make them into more Masks.

Joybell made sure that Wilm understood that their children were the Masks, transformed, and we’d killed a lot of them.

Wilm: We tried not to think about it, but we knew.

He said that every couple of years, the Masks would come and take one of each pair of twins between the ages of 8 and 12. They’d come from the cave with a cart and return with the children to the cave. About two weeks later the Masks would return with the broken ones -- their minds would be irreparably broken and their bodies would just keep growing and growing and growing. Those grew up to become the dumb giants the town used as beasts of burden.

We asked if anyone from the village had been to the Cave to see what was there when the Masks weren’t in town. He said that his grandfather told a story from the time of his own grandfather (Wilm’s great-great grandfather) about a group of villagers who got it into their heads to do something about the Masks. They went into the cave and did something, broke something. It took three months for the Masks to come back, but they did come back.

Joybell: Did your grandfather say if they came back by the road or on the trail from the cave?
Wilm: They came back from the cave.

We asked if there was a place we could eat and sleep in the village. Wilm said he would go and talk to the Brewers and Hostlers. We were taken to a parlor and waited there for about an hour. By the time Wilm came back we could smell cooking smells wafting in through the window.

Wilm: The Hostlers are more than happy to clear space for you in the horse barn. And the Brewers are cooking and will provide you with food and beverage.

We thanked him and went first to Brewers -- the restaurant and bar we’d seen. There were some of the villagers there eating the good food -- chicken and vegetables and a sort of stew. The bar offered, in addition to beer and hard liquor, cider, perry, cysers, meads and other delicious beverages.

Mo spotted a couple of people in a corner puffing on pipes and went to talk to them. He made small talk and made a trade of a pouch of the smoking stuff he’d brought with him for a pouch of the locally grown tobacco.

Smoker: I’ve only ever smoked what we grow here. I’m interested to see what else is out there.

Thneed basically gorged herself on the beautiful fruit, mostly pears and apples at this time in the season.

Joybell, uncharacteristically, stayed quiet. She just watched and listened to the people in the village to see how they were reacting to us -- where they afraid or uncomfortable or unhappy. Mostly they were curious and she didn’t hear them talking at all about the Masks being gone.

Joybell: Maybe Wilm Orter didn’t tell them about that. Which makes sense -- we have three months to follow through on destroying the Forge and taking down Steeltear. If we fail, the Masks will be back.
Thneed: It would put him in an awkward position.

We then began to talk about how we could get back here quickly if we needed to return in a hurry to finish the job. Or to return to protect the village and re-destroy the circle in the cave. Joybell suddenly remembered the letter opener she has from Thalith’s office in Embernook and went to talk to Mr. Brewer, the barkeep.

Joybell: Can I buy a spoon or something from you? As a souvenir. Also, I’d like to get a small keg of mead for us to have on our travels.

Brewer left into the back room and came back a bit later with a spoon, which he handed to her with a bit of puzzlement, and a small pony keg. One of the ends of the keg was labeled “First Fruit 720” (note - it is currently the year 748).

Brewer: This was a birthday brewing for someone who will never live to drink it. You may have it.
Joybell, overwhelmed: I wish I had something as wonderful to give you in exchange.
Brewer: You have.

Joybell went back to our table feeling even more overwhelmed.

Mo, who was pretty thoroughly wasted at this point, got frustrated because we hadn’t learned anything new in the town, at least nothing that would tell us where to go to find the Forge and destroy it. So he went out wandering around the town drunkenly looking for clues.

Joybell and Fiona went walking around the town as well, though not with Mo -- Fiona cast detect magic and we walked around to see if anything pinged.

The answer to that was yes -- the frame over the top of the well that the winch and bucket attached to was intensely magical -- to the point of being a strong magical item itself. The essence was of transmutation magic. So Fiona spent 10 minutes with her books casting identify, with Joybell patiently waiting, and learned that the magic of the well house was that all humans, domestic animals, and crop plants were vastly more productive.

As Fiona was learning this, Mo stumbled past.

Mo: A lemon tree!

Eventually we all gathered in the barn, where Fiona cast her tiny hut and we slept the sleep of the genuinely exhausted.

The night passed without incident.


1 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 62)

The next morning we woke up and before we emerged to possibly interact with the townsfolk, we discussed our plans. We had some disagreement over the larger strategy for taking out the Forge of Masks and Steeltear -- Orryk did not (and does not) want to go through a teleportation circle to wherever the outgoing symbols in the Cave were dialing without some way of seeing what’s there. Joybell doesn’t want to leave the work unfinished so that in three months the Masks come back for the villagers and their children again. To Joybell, teleporting in blind is clearly not a good idea and not our best approach but if it is the only approach we have, then needs must.

We decided to set that question aside for a while and just deal with the next step or two.

Fiona used a sending spell to communicate with Tulmor.

Fiona: We’re ready for pickup. In Dunimar Mountains in Callallah. Do we need to go to Pelsoreen? We have info about the Masks.
Tulmor, after a long pause: Don’t know Callallah. Pelsoreen or Ov. I’ll talk to Barnett.

Joybell looked at the map in her bag, but wasn’t certain where we were.

Joybell: Rangers -- do your ranger naughty word. Are we closer to Ov or Pelsoreen?

After a bit of discussion, and the doing of ranger naughty word, it was determined that we were closer to Pelsoreen.

Sigh.

We decided to get to the road by way of visiting Tarck, rather than going out of town by the main road. We knew that Sorla was keeping an eye on the town, and hoped she’d catch up to us or run into us or find us as we left.

We left town without further ado -- as we passed from fields and orchards into the wild forest we called her name a few times. Joybell spent the next couple of hours asking all the squirrels we ran into if they’d seen a bear. One of them eventually said that it had seen a bear but it didn’t know which way the bear went because it had run away and hid.

About an hour after that, we ran into Sorla in her human form. She asked us if we’d found anything.

Joybell: We know the address, so to speak, of a teleportation circle, but not the actual physical location of it.

We asked her to take us to Tarck and she agreed to do so.

The rest of the day of travel, and the following night, passed without incident.


2 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 63)

We got to Tarck’s clearing around mid-day.

Tarck: Oh, you again!
Joybell: We killed a lot of Masks.
Mo: We’re trying to get back to Pelsoreen. Do you have any way to get us there more quickly?
Tarck: I don’t have a lot of getting places magic. I spend most of my time rooted to the ground.

Joybell asked him about the teleportation circle and if he’d seen runes like that before. Taman drew them on the ground so Tarck could see them. But Tarck didn’t recognize them. We asked if there would be a shortcut or a shorter way than going by road.

Tarck: Hmmm….

Then he fell into the silence of deep thought.

While he was pondering, Joybell and Thneed made a flower garland and draped it around Tarck’s trunk and lower branches.

Joybell: Do you want to help, Orryk?
Orryk: No.
Joybell: But you’re a forest gnome!
Orryk: You kids have fun.

While Tarck was still engaged in his slow, deliberate treant ratiocinations, Joybel and Thneed finished their garland so Joybell started climbing Tarck, beginning just with sort of inching up the roots and then finding a low hanging branch to climb onto. She was moving slowly and carefully, trying not to be noticed too much.

Which totally didn’t work.

Tarck: What are you doing, Small?
Joybell: Just climbing. Is that okay?
Tarck: Oh. Okay.

With permission, Joybell just kept climbing up up up until she was at the very highest branches that could support her weight.

Tarck, after a long stretch of thought: I think I can help. I have seen a druid or two from the Primal Atoll come through here. One of them grabbed a sapling to plant on their island. This was thirty years ago. Maybe more like fifty. Time’s a little slippery. I believe that if they planted it, it should be large enough.

He said he could cast transport via plants, which Irlua had used for us when we were at the Primal Atoll, to get us there. We agreed readily and Joybell started trying to climb down from her high perch up in the treant. After almost falling, Mo cast a rope trick right next to her and she was able to climb down the rope.

Orryk: We have a rope of climbing.
Mo: Oh. Right.

Once Joybell was back on the ground, Tarck did some mumbling and moved a few of his branches and opened a portal in one of the trees surrounding his glade. We hustled through the tree, with Joybell explaining to Thneed about the Atoll as we went through.

Joybell: They’re these awesome elemental druids that live on an island just a few hours from Pelsoreen. It’s beautiful and there’s a portal to the elemental plane of fire there.

We emerged in a grove of plants not native to the sub-tropical climate of the Atoll, carefully managed and watched over by the druids both to keep them alive and to keep them from invading the rest of the island. A young novice tending the grove saw us all pop out, bristling with weapons and with a rather large wolf. She dropped her tools and ran away toward the village.

Orryk, calling after her: Tell Irlua the gnomes are here.

We started walking along the path toward the village, looking as non-threatening as possible. Joybell even got off Scooby and walked alongside, to make herself look less threatening.

Irlua greeted us at the edge of the village. We told her that Tarck the treant in the eastern Dunimar Mountains transported us to the island.

Joybell: Are there any boats in the docks that could take us to Pelsoreen.
Irlua: No.
Joybell: Do you have any way of getting in touch with Pelsoreen to get a boat?
Irlua: Do you want to go to Pelsoreen?
Joybell: Well, no. Not actually. But it’s our next step on the way to Embernook.
Irlua: I can get you to Embernook. There’s a large tree in Soul’s Rest.

Well, excellent then.

Joybell thanked her and asked if there was anything we could do for her.

Irlua: There is something you could do for the Primal Atoll.

(Taman: Here comes the side-quest.
Mo: We asked for homework…)

Irlua: There is an important staff in New Arvai, Adnorga's Staff, in the School of the World. We need it here.
Taman: Why do you need it?
Irlua: It was stolen from another druidic circle.
Mo: Can we have a bit more of a description?
Irlua: It is an ebony staff that has ivory inlays. It is immensely helpful to druids and that I know of not at all helpful to anyone else. It is like a Staff of Power, but Shadowy, and for druids. We have asked them for its return but they will not return it.
Joybell: What circle was it taken from?
Irlua: The Umbral Circle. They were in New Arvai. They were of a sect of planar druids that protect from extra-planar threats.
Orryk: What happened to the circle?
Irlua: If you can find that out, that would be helpful. They were focused on protecting from threats from the Shadowfell.
Joybell: Is it okay if we deal with our current situation first? That one is kind of a ticking bomb…
Irlua: You will probably need to improve yourselves before going to the School of the World to steal something.

We took a moment to consider the fact that we have a name from the School of the World in New Arvai -- one of the librarians was mentioned in The Keeper of Secrets’ letter to Jornas (found when we got the second Crazy Book that we gave to the Keeper of Secrets) -- Elledrian. Nicolana’s letter told Jornas to ask him if the Raven Queen knows where he is. At least a few party members read that as a threat. And the Raven Queen is the ruler of the Shadowfell.

So there seems to be something of a connection there. There’s a missing druidic circle that protects against the Shadowfell. An item from that circle is in the possession of a magical college (and library) that has someone working for it who has some connection to the Raven Queen, possibly not a good one. And the library won’t give it up to other druids.

There were also all of the shadowpools making portals to the Shadowfell around Embernook, the warlocks of Orcus, and the wights and deathlock wights and undead and other nastinesses a few months ago. Which might indicate that things are stirring in the Shadowfell.

After a bit of discussion, we agreed to take on the task of retrieving Adnorga’s Staff for the druids when we were more powerful.

Then Irlua sent us traveling by plant into a grove in Soul’s Rest in Embernook. Joybell was radiating excitement at being back in a nice city again.

We headed to Tulmor & Barnett’s place, but split into two groups when we got to Centerkeep. Joybell wanted to go to check in with Chief Ullar Truehammer and the guards, and also to get Thneed an armband if possible. Joybell, Mo, Thneed and Taman were Team Guards. Orryk and Fiona were, as usual, Team Library.

In the guard house, we found Chief Truehammer sitting at his desk.

Joybell: Hello! We’re back!
Truehammer: Oh, gawds.

Our first order of business was to get a guard armband for Thneed. And to explain to her what it was and what it meant.

Joybell: We’re guards. Sort of special duty guards. They’ll contact us if they need us.

We started talking to Truehammer about the Masks. Taman asked if they operated out of Embernook. We understood that Pelsoreen was unique (and uniquely awful) in that they were free to operate so openly, with a storefront and everything.

Taman: It seems like it would be hard for them to operate here in Embernook because of Administrator Alighieri.
Joybell: Yeah, he’d know. For sure.
Truehammer: I don’t think he’d allow child kidnappers and assassins to operate in the city.
Mo: We’ve reached the end of our investigative prowess. We have the sigils for a teleportation circle and a name, Turnik Steeltear.
Truehammer: I didn’t know there were any duergar left.
Joybell: You recognize that as a duergar name?

Truehammer said that he did. He also said that it might be possible for a duergar or two to have survived the Fiend Wars and subsequent clean-up of the fiends in their underdark cities, but that he didn’t think it possible that their culture had survived.

Joybell: We think he’s operating somewhere in or under the Dunimar Mountains. If you come up with any information that would help us localize him please let us know.

He agreed to think about it and let us know if he came up with anything.

Joybell then asked Truehammer if he knew of anyone who could make plate armor for her. He recommended a dwarf blacksmith in Allacross named Ernin Brightforge. He has some rock gnome assistants in the shop, so he definitely has the right mindset to make armor for a very small gnome.

We thanked the Chief and headed to the Tulmor and Barnett’s.

Team Library had gone there directly, of course. When they were standing outside the door, Fiona cast a sending spell to Tulmor.

Fiona: We’re ready for a pickup. But you should check your door first.

Tulmor answered the door and was surprised to see them there.

Orryk: We found some people who were good with plants.
Tulmor: That makes sense…
Orryk: Glad to see the city is still standing.
Tulmor: Us too. How can we help you?
Orryk: We have the runes for a circle, but want to know where we’re going.

Orryk described the circle setup in the Cave of Masks, showing Tulmor the box of runes.

Tulmor: That is not familiar magic to me.
Orryk: Would Barnett know?
Tulmor: He’s here. We can ask.
Fiona: How’s he doing?
Tulmor: He’s not so obsessed with Harl’s library as he was. But he’s gotten prone to recklessness.
Fiona: Reckless how?
Tulmor: He doesn’t seem to care what happens to him. He doesn’t seem to care what kind of danger he puts himself in.

She went to get Barnett and when they returned, Orryk and Fiona explained again the circle at the Cave and showed him the tiles.

Barnett: That sounds like high ritual stuff. Using a ritual, you can make a regular teleportation circle in a day, pretty easily if you know what you’re doing.. Something like that would have taken longer to make, and been … less easy..
Orryk: Can we find out what’s on the other side at a specific address?

Barnett said he would think about it. Fiona and Orryk both got the sense that he might be planning to do something really stupid…

At about that time, Team Guards arrived.

Joybell: Hi! I found a line on a blacksmith to make my armor. So we can go find the Masks.

Joybell asked Tulmor and Barnett if they knew where duergar used to be in the Dunimar Mountains. Both of the wizards agreed with Truehammer that they thought duergar were extinct now.

They said that the Amorr River (the one that flows into Embernook from the south (under the Spans and Allacross) comes out of the Dunimar Mountains. The headwaters of that river are near (or perhaps at) an entrance to the underdark that may go to a duergar city that existed before the Fiend Wars.

Joybell took a look at her map to see where that might be.

Joybell: That’s right near where the Wold was!! Like maybe a few days of travel only. At least a few days on the road, and then going into the mountains. But it’s close! We could check on the Wold, see if the Mother Tree is still alive. Or if anyone has come back. I could find my friend Wren.
Orryk: Finding Steeltear by just walking into the underdark and fighting our way through everything that lives there to go to some unknown place is not a good plan.
Joybell: Yeah, it’s definitely not our first choice. But it’s something, if the teleportation circle lead doesn’t work out. And we could go to the Wold and see if the Mother Tree is still alive!

Barnett said he’d see what he could do about finding out what’s on the other side of that teleportation circle before we go through.

We left then. Just outside their place, Fiona cast another sending spell to Tulmor.

Fiona: Barnett seemed to have ideas about teleportation circle. Keep an eye on him.
Tulmor: Crap.

Fiona, Mo and Taman went to the Pewter Oar to get rooms for the people who stay there. Also to read or get drunk, according to inclination.

Joybell, Orryk and Thneed went to Allacross to find Ernin Brightforge, with a stop at the guard house to sell all the mundane stuff we’d collected.

We found the smith’s shop pretty quickly once we got to Allacross.

Joybell: Hi! I’m looking for plate armor! I have this and this.

As she spoke, without pausing, she took the hobgoblin plate armor from where she’d strapped it to Scooby and Orryk pulled the bullette plates out of the bag of holding.

Joybell, without stopping even for breath: Maybe you can make armor for Scooby too. This is Scooby. Actually, this is Darkmoon Moonstone Happyhowl, Defender of Henge and Wold. But he’ll respond to Scooby. Especially if you say it in gnomish.

Ernin Brightforge blinked for a moment, then one of the rock gnome assistants came forward with a suit of armor slightly too large for Joybell (who is small even by gnome standards) and did some holding up, and measuring, and more holding up.

Gnome: I think we can make something that will fit you.
Brightforge: It’ll take a week. With this stuff as down payment, it’ll cost 700gp.
Joybell: Sold!

She handed him the money.

They discussed the armor for Scooby, but Joybell decided against pursuing that because no one has ever attacked Scooby before and armor for him will weigh a lot and sort of bog him down. The bulette plates went back into the bag of holding.

Treasure:

Sold from the Bag of Holding to the Embernook Guards:

1 greatsword
30 longbows
28 longswords
20 shields
13 chain mail
1 half plate.

We get a total of 1947 gp, 5 sp. That splits to 324 gp, 5 sp each. 5 sp left over.

Party Kitty update: (With the 5sp from the sale of mundane items from the Bag of Holding added)

4 pp, 3 gp, 10 sp, and 16 cp.

Magic Items in the Bag of Holding:

Potion of Force Resistance
Potion of Radiance Resistance
3 doses of Keoghtom's Ointment
Candle of the Deep
Gloves of Swimming and Climbing
Immovable Rod
Gauntlets of Ogre Strength
Rope of Climbing (Mo may have this at the moment)

The Candle of the Deep, the Gloves of Swimming and Climbing and the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength are designated to possibly trade in to the guard for more useful items.


----------



## prabe (Jan 31, 2021)

Session 29: Planning and Shopping

Players:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: Mo's player could not be present.)


3 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 64) (the next morning)

Note: Joybell’s armor will be ready on day 69.

First thing in the morning, before Joybell and Orryk had gone over for breakfast, Thalith showed up at the Pewter Oar. He came with a special, personal request from the Administrator for Mo's services. A diplomatic contingent was visiting from Tash, where Mo is from, and Alighieri requested that Mo keep them entertained and out of trouble for a few days.

When Orryk and Joybell arrived this was explained to them.

Orryk: Keep them OUT of trouble?
Joybell: Well, they’ll definitely be entertained.

After breakfast, we went to the guard to see what we could do with some of our magic items we don’t really need. We pulled the Candle of the Deep, the Gloves of Swimming and the Gauntlets of Ogre Power out of the bag of holding and put them on the table in front of Chief Ullar Truehammer.

He was impressed and surprised that no one could use the gauntlets, but we reassured him that really no one could.

Truehammer: Let me go see what I can find in exchange. Come back later.

We agreed to that and left the guard house.

Joybell: I want to go talk to Thalith. Anyone want to come?

Thneed agreed to go queue up with her at the Administrator’s office.

Fiona planned to stay in the Pewter Oar copying spells all day.

Orryk and Taman went to Trannell’s shop -- that’s the shop that carries some magic items, along with other goods. Orryk paid him to keep an eye out for elemental items when we were last in Embernook.

Before they got to discussing the elemental items, they looked at the magic items Trannell had on hand. Some of which were very interesting: a +1 shield (cost: 450 gp), a Broom of Flying (500 gp), a Cloak of Elvenkind (200 gp), and some +1 arrows (at 150 gp each). Also a Potion of Invisibility (5000 gp) and a Potion of Speed (5500 gp).

Orryk: Have you heard about any elemental artifacts? Either here or on the way?
Trannell: I haven’t heard about anything. Even the folks from Auriqua haven’t brought anything.
Taman: Trade caravan?
Trannell: They come down for the winter about this time every year. Not the same people or even the same families -- but there are always people who come. They often have cold based stuff to sell, because it doesn’t sell for as much up there.
Taman: When the families come down, who do they work for? Or do they just winter here? Just getting out of the cold?
Trannell: That’s what they say...

Taman bought the Cloak of Elvenkind, despite having the Cape of the Mountebank.

Orryk, giving Trannell 20 gp: If you hear about anything elemental, send a message to Queena’s lodgings.

Fiona had some letters waiting for her at the Pewter Oar -- including one from a friend who tangled with some ghouls in Erlin.

At the Administrator’s office, Joybell and Thneed got called in a little early, ahead of some of the other people in line. Joybell introduced Thneed to Thalith, then she talked about the Masks and what they’d done and if they had any presence in Embernook. Thalith hadn’t heard about any in the city, or about any of the surrounding villages (under Embernook’s “protection”). The only one of those that had had any problems recently was Kalmarn, destroyed by the whispering crazy that Harl became.

That reminded Joybell about the Cracked Shield and she talked about them to Thalith -- perfectly lovely orc mercenaries, who helped in a fight against the Masks and who were displaced by them. Very cool people. And she’d thought of suggesting that Kalmarn was there as basically a town ready for occupants and maybe they could go there, but maybe the Administrator and the citizens of Embernook wouldn’t be happy to have a bunch of Orcs moving in, no matter how awesome they are.

Thalith seemed a bit confused at the concept of awesome and nice orcs. And he seemed grateful for Joybell not suggesting to them that they move to Kalmarn.

Finally, Joybell asked if she could swap the letter opener she’d gotten from his office when we left Embernook for something else, so we can teleport back if we need to. He seemed a bit bemused at the request, and far less charitable about it than he had when she asked the first time, but he did swap out the letter opener he’d given her before for an empty inkwell.

After Joybell walked out of the room, Thneed hung behind to talk to Thalith.

Thneed: Did you call us early to make the rest of the day go smoothly? Or to get the chattering out of the way? Or because you like us?
Thalith: I reject your false trichotomy.
Thneed: Okay.

After their shopping trip to Trannell’s, Orryk and Taman went to Tulmor and Barnett’s. They found Barnett doing research in a room with no spell components or arcane foci.

Tulmor: This is the compromise position. If he hadn’t agreed to this, I was going to stand next to him and counter every spell he cast. And if I came in and found him gone, I’d use a teleportation circle spell to go to the Forge.

She then led them out of the room where Barnett was doing research and told them that Barnett’s wife and brother were killed in some horrible fight while they were adventuring together. She doesn’t know exactly what happened in the fight, but when he later raised the money to have them resurrected, true resurrection because he was not able to recover their bodies, their spirits were not free to return. Tulmor was Barnett’s mother’s best friend and she took him in when he was broken and shattered by this.

Taman and Orryk absorbed that and then did some research in the library. Taman was looking for general information about the planes. Orryk was looking for information about how to get a connection to the elemental planes.

Orryk found information about how to perform a high ritual that would allow him to befriend the elemental essences. Once he performs the high ritual (which has a high cost in coinage and gems and other items, and would require him to be able to cast find familiar) he’ll be able to summon an elemental companion that would take the form of a mephit, but not be evil.

Orryk: Tulmor, have you been to the School of the World?
Tulmor: I’ve been there, but I don’t know anyone well enough to write you a letter of introduction.

She was able to tell him that the School of the World was about as big as the larger libraries in Pelsoreen. New Arvai has the three big magical schools, all of which have libraries: the School of the World, the School of the Mind and the School of the Body. It doesn’t have anything like the smaller satellite libraries that Pelsorren has -- like Black Irnod’s and Carveen’s and The Quiet Room. There are some personal collections, perhaps, but those need personal invites from the owners.

Orryk: The School of the World has some interesting artifacts…
Tulmor: They all do. The School of the Mind creeped me out, because they have Illithid stuff. The School of the World is most likely to be of use to you with your elemental interests.

She then talked some about New Arvai -- it’s not run by mob corporations like Pelsoreen. There is an apparently legitimate government, but underneath that there’s a dark criminal side that has more influence than it should.

Orryk: Are there any cities besides Embernook that aren’t awful?
Tulmor: That depends on what you mean by awful…
Orryk: Are there any cities Joybell would like living in?
Tulmor: Everyday people in Pelsoreen and New Arvai are sometimes okay.
Orryk: Have you ever heard of the Umbral Circle?
Tulmor: A small group of druids? I haven’t heard of them, no.

(Note: GM explained that typically within circles of Planar Druids, each individual druid specializes in a particular plane, but the circle itself contains all sorts.)

While Orryk and Taman were researching and talking to Tulmor, Joybell and Thneed went back to Ernin Brightforge’s forge, where Joybell’s armor was being made.

Brightforge: I’m glad to see you! I looked into this bulette armor you brought. I’m going to work with a master tanner in town, because that stuff is closer to hide than metal, and make shields. I think we’ll get four +1 shields out of it. You can use it to deflect a critical hit and keep it from being so bad.

(Note: She’ll be able to use her reaction to turn a critical hit into a regular hit.)

He offered to sell Joybell one of those shields for 250 gp, because she provided the bulette armor. The other three he planned to sell for 500 gp.

Joybell: Sold!

Joybell paid for the shield -- it will be ready a week after the armor is ready (note: day 70).

Thneed asked after silvered weapons -- maybe a silvered scimitar, though she wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of getting that close into combat. She mentioned that we might be fighting fey or undead soon.

Brightforge: Well I have some things, but silvering won’t help against fey. They will against some undead, though.

Thneed bought 10 silvered arrows.

Joybell and Thneed then went to the herbalist to get Joybell the materials to make five healing potions over the course of the next week while waiting for her armor to be finished.

As they walked through the city, Joybell and Thneed noticed that there was a buzz in the city -- the excitement about the fall festival (coming at the end of the month of Rippenin, a few weeks away) was already building and people were starting to make some preparations.

Joybell went back to Queena’s to get her materials set up for brewing healing potions. Orryk stayed at Tulmor and Barnett’s until dinner time. Taman left early to get a jump on drinking at the Pewter Oar. (Note: It's not clear what Thneed was doing between shopping and meeting up for dinner at the Oar.)

After dinner at the Pewter Oar, we went to the guard to see what they had for us. For the Gloves of Swimming and Climbing we were given a Silver Raven Figurine of Wondrous Power -- at a command it can be a raven for 12 hours. At the end of that time it reverts to being a figurine. During that period it can be used as an animal messenger (per the Animal Messenger spell), though if the message isn’t delivered by the end of 12 hours the raven becomes a figurine wherever it is.

For the Gauntlets of Ogre Power we were given a Javelin of Lightning, which went to Joybell.

The Candle of the Deep was replaced with a Mystery Key -- it will open one lock one time. (There’s a five percent chance that it will open any lock it’s tried in and once it opens a lock the magic fades away.)

Back at the Pewter Oar, Taman gave Thneed the magical bow he got before we left Embernook before and the Cloak of Elvenkind he’d bought from Trannell.

Joybell explained to the others about the shield she was getting, and that she hadn’t really heard what Brightforge had said it would do, because she was so excited.

Joybell: This is the best day!
Orryk: Hold onto those good feelings. We need to talk.

We started to talk about how we were going to find out what was on the other side of that teleportation circle at the Forge. Orryk suggested sending Scooby through -- then after 15 or 20 seconds in which Scooby could scout around, Joybell could dismiss him and then re-summon him and find out what he saw.

Joybell said she was only up for that if Scooby agreed to it -- so she talked to him and he was a bit uncertain about it, but agreed on the promise of lots of scritches and cuddles and treats.

Orryk, scratching Scooby behind the year, in Gnomish: Thank you.

We then retired, Orryk and Joybell to Queena’s lodging house and the rest of the party at the Pewter Oar.


4 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 65)

At 2 am, Fiona was woken up by the sound of Barnett’s voice in her head.

Barnett: Eureka! Eureka! Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!

(Repeated until there were 25 “eurekas”.)

Fiona, still waking up and to herself: It’s dark. It’s still dark. I'm tired. Who do I contact?

She stumbled down the hall to Taman’s room and knocked on his door. Taman fumbled and fell out of bed, then opened the door with his rapier in hand.

Fiona: I got woken by Barnett. Apparently he has something.
Taman: It’s too early for this. <<slams door>>

Fiona went back to bed, sending to Barnett: I’ll be there in the morning.

The next morning, we all met up for breakfast at the Pewter Oar. Mo was still swanning around the Tash diplomats. Fiona told us about Barnett’s sending in the middle of the night, so we all went over there after breakfast.

Orryk: Let’s see if he’s still there.

Tulmor opened the door, looking like she’d gotten Barnett’s excited message just a few moments before Fiona did, but had not gotten a chance to go back to sleep. Down the hall behind her, Barnett was rocking with excitement holding something in his hands.

(Thneed's player: Like a kid on Christmas waiting for his siblings to wake up.)

Tulmor: I miss the coffee in New Arvai.

Barnett then showed us a map he’d drawn, explaining that he figured out that he could use arcane eye, see invisibility, and teleport to get a look into the Forge.

(The teleportation circle is surrounded by _symbols_ on the floor. A number of side bunkrooms have beds each for 10 Masks. The middle of the complex is a cage. Further description below.)

There were two groups of Masks -- one group of six Masks in one of the side dormitory/bunkroom hallways, sleeping in the bunks with their masks hanging on pegs on the wall over their heads. The other group of ten was all together in another bunkroom. Each bunkroom hall has beds for ten Masks. Most of them were unoccupied, any effects gone. The two that were occupied were kept tidy -- like a military barracks -- with the beds made and stuff stored in lockers. One of the bunkrooms had beds that were unmade, like the Masks had left in a hurry and never returned. We suspected that these were the ones we’d fought in the cave.

In the middle of the room was an open cage with doors at either end. There was child-sized furniture, some toys and some games in the cage -- none of that was new. It all looked slightly worn.

The cage was totally empty -- there were no kids inside.

The teleportation circle points into a room that had the floor totally covered and trapped with Symbol of [Badness] spells of various sorts.

At the top of the map was a door (going off to left on the map) that had a priest hole in it. Barnett was never able to get the Arcane Eye beyond that door and the priest hole never opened.

The room at the top of the map had a big crystal in one corner. All kinds of weird copper and gold tubes and cords connected that crystal to a stone table or bed with manacles. Another corner had a stone bin (made with a stone shape or wall of stone spell) that had a disintegrate spell in it that activated automatically once a day. Clearly that was some sort of disposal unit. That room, and specifically the crystal and tubes contraption, was apparently the actual Forge of Masks. That’s our target.

We spent the rest of the day talking with Barnett about what he’d found and what our options were. We asked if he could study the room with the crystal Forge in it, so we could teleport directly there. He said it was theoretically possible, but that there were limitations on the spell. (Note: Look at the teleportation spell for the consequences of failure. They’re bad -- and there’s no way to get better than a 75% chance of success.)

Getting through the Symbols of [Badness] is going to be a real problem. (Once again, feel free to look at the spell in the PHB.) When the spell is cast, the caster gets to decide what triggers the symbol and what doesn’t. So it’s possible that wearing a Mask mask is enough to allow safe passage. It’s also possible that the Masks know a code word that allows safe passage. (Though there are problems with this -- because they would trip immediately and not give anyone time to speak the keyword. We think.)

While everyone was talking about the map, Joybell took Tulmor aside to tell her what we’d done with the Crazy Book. Tulmor seemed a little conflicted about it.

Tulmor: She’ll definitely keep it safe.
Joybell: Have you met her?
Tulmor: No.
Joybell: We don’t trust fey nobles as far as we can throw them, but giving her the book for safe keeping was in line with her interests.

Tulmor smirked a little when Joybell said that we don’t trust fey nobles, but Joybell let it go.

She agreed that it was probably an adequately limited sort of deal with no ongoing obligations on either side.

We left after that, asking Barnett to spend as much time looking around with his arcane eye as possible.


4 - 8 Rippenin 748 (Campaign days 65 - 68)

These days passed as a montage of potion brewing, spell copying, and getting updates from Barnett.

During the course of the week Fiona sent to Sorla to ask her about whether there was anything going on in the cave and if things looked okay in Callallah. Sorla took a day to get back to the village but then reported that the village looked normal and the circle was exactly as broken up as it had been when we left. The dirt piles outside the entrance that Orryk made (and that we used so effectively to fight the Masks in the cave) were still there, apparently untouched.

Orryk and Joybell and the rest of the party talked about the possibility of sending Scooby, wearing one of the masks, through the gate to see if the mask would protect him from the symbols going off. Unfortunately the symbols are of insanity and pain and fear and that would be a horrible thing to put Scooby through. So Joybell is reluctant to sign on to Operation Masked Scooby, unless we have literally no other way.

We ended still talking about options and possibilities.

Next time, we can extend the montage as needed to cover what Mo was up to when he wasn’t wining, dining, and entertaining the Tash diplomatic mission on the Administrator’s dime.

Treasure:

Javelin of Lightning (Joybell)
Silver Raven, Figurine of Wondrous Power (Bag of Holding)
Mystery Key (Bag of Holding)


----------



## prabe (Feb 6, 2021)

Session 30: The Forge Of Masks

Dramatis Personae:

Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


4 - 7 Rippenin 748 (Campaign days 65 - 68)

Mo, once he’d sent the Tashin diplomats happily on their way (or returned them to the Administrator), gave us a report on his experience with them. He got them thoroughly drunk, even by dwarf standards, and used every trick in the book to keep them from drinking him under the table.

They told him that there had been Mask attacks near Tash focused not on assassinations or on kidnapping children but on stealing magic items. (Not their normal MO -- the ones in Pelsoreen specifically told Orryk that they didn’t do that kind of job.) They also told him that the Masks stole a dwarven crematorium/tomb/family shrine (about the size of a modern crypt/grave liner, with a hole for a chimney on the top) that was being transported to New Arvai. They recognized Steeltear as a duergar name and told Mo drunken stories of the duergar having been warped by generations as slaves of the Illithids in the underdark.

After putting the diplomats to bed, or under the table, Mo checked in with us in the evenings. And went to Trannell’s to buy the Broom of Flying. Because Broom of Flying!

We talked to Barnett and Tulmor about that information and Barnett found some more information about duergar -- it was hard to locate initially because the duergar are believed to be extinct but he found a bit more. He told us that most duergar could innately become invisible so he wanted to make sure that everyone who could possibly cast the spell See Invisible a) knew it and b) had it up when we teleported in.

Tulmor said that she would cast Rary’s Telepathic Bond on the party -- so we’d be able to communicate mentally with one another. So helpful! And she could cast that and not have to go with us. She also pulled out a little squirrel shaped entity with wings, Hulmon II, a homunculus. She has a telepathic bond with it and with an invisibility spell on it, it would be able to scout and keep an eye on things for us.

Barnett said that he could cast a wall of force, if we need it to keep the Masks out of the Forge room but if he does so, he wouldn’t be able to work on casting the teleportation circle we need to get out of there.

We reviewed again what Barnett had seen with the arcane eye in the Forge room and, on being reminded that the crystal is in some sort of mounting, we stocked up on crowbars and hatchets to have implements with which to free it.

Thneed asked what the Masks did during the day -- did they have watches or patrols around the complex? Barnett said that he never saw patrols or sentry duty -- just Masks sleeping, eating, cooking, and in that not-turned-off standby mode. Cool.


8 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 69)

Before going to pick up her armor, Joybell passed out the healing potions she made -- one each to Mo, Thneed, Fiona, Taman and Barnett.

Then, on her way to Brightforge’s to pick up her armor, Joybell went by herself to the Administrator’s office and signed up on the list to talk to Thalith, thinking that the Administrator might like to know what we were planning. She wrote her name, Joybell L. F. Sympony, Rider of Wolf, and wrote after her name “Important!!”. After a few minutes waiting, she went back over and wrote, “probably”. After another couple of minutes, in which she realized that maybe the Administrator didn’t really care about this thing happening so far from Embernook, she went over and added “maybe”. Then she looked around at all the people there waiting, the tense faces and white-knuckled grips on packages and purses and realized that every single person there had a very important problem for the Administrator. So she went back to the list and crossed that all out and just left her name.

(Thneed's player: That’s the most Joybell thing ever.)

After a bit Thalith called her name and she went into his office. She told him that we were going to the Forge of Masks to bust things up and stop them being able to make more Masks again ever.

Thalith: That sounds very brave.
Joybell: It needs to be done.

He asked if that was what all the activity with us and Barnett and Tulmor was about.

Thalith: The Administrator would appreciate it if you don’t get Barnett killed.
Joybell: We’ll do our best. Umm, why?
Thalith: They have a good working relationship and he’s proven valuable to the Administrator in the past.

Joybell wondered a bit what if that meant the Administrator cared less if we got killed or just wasn’t as worried about us, but didn’t dwell on that too much. She accepted the charge of bringing him back safely.

Joybell: Some people in my party think that the Administrator is evil and we’ll have to fight him someday.
Thalith, laughing: There are many people in Embernook who think the Administrator is evil. He’s just doing his job.

Joybell then left and went to the forge for her armor. After a bit of time with final fitting and making sure everything went together properly, Joybell rode Scooby at full speed back to Tulmor and Barnett’s.

Once there, Tulmor cast longstrider on everyone in the party (giving us +10 movement speed). See invisible spells were cast by Barnett and Fiona. Tulmor cast invisibility on Thneed, Orryk, Taman and her homunculus. Tulmor cast mage armor on Mo and Thneed. Tulmor cast the Rory’s Telepathic Bond. And Joybell was given the steel plate we plan to use to barricade the door to the Forge Room.

Just before the teleport, Mo inspired Taman and Orryk.

Mo, to Orryk and Taman: I’ve known you guys for a while and I really want you to come back.

Mo, to Thneed: Good luck, new girl! (with no bardic inspiration)

Then Barnett cast teleport, teleporting us into barracks where the Masks we killed in the cave came from.

Team Invisible -- Orryk, Thneed and Taman -- were teleported to right near the entrance to the hallway/barracks. The rest of us were in the back of it, hopefully less likely to be visible to the Masks across the central chamber or in the next barracks/ hall over.

As soon as we arrived, we noticed that what we (or at least Joybell) thought we understood that Barnett had reported was not quite right -- there were five Masks not more than 20 feet from the entrance to the barracks/hall. They appeared to be waiting or watching for someone to come through the teleportation circle with all the Symbol of [Bad Stuff] spells in front of it. The other five were across on the other side of the cage. Barnett, not being a military-type mage, perhaps did not recognize sentry duty when he saw it. Fortunately their attention was away from us and toward the teleportation circle.

Almost immediately upon arriving, Taman (invisible) hid and ran as fast as he could toward the door of the Forge Room, making it to the doorway. He could see that there was some stuff in the disintegration chamber -- gruel residue (“gruel bones”), coffee grounds, dishes, chamber pots -- but otherwise it was exactly as Barnett had described.

Thneed hid and rode the broom of flying as far as she could go, not making it quite as far as the entrance, but well on the way and away from the Masks.

Barnett grabbed Joybell and cast dimension door, bamfing them both into the Forge Room. Mo, waiting for Fiona to dimension door them over with the cape of the mountebank, looked around to see what he could see without moving away from her. Unfortunately, all he saw was mussed beds. Orryk hid and then ran as far as he could (without spending a ki-point). Fiona put her hand on Mo’s back and used the cape to bamf them to the Forge Room.

Hulmon II, the homunculus, flew over the heads of the Masks, invisible, and observed that they did not appear to have noticed us. Tulmor relayed this information to the party through the bond.

Joybell took the steel plate and stood next to the door, waiting to put it over the door as soon as everyone was inside.

Taman, in the hall outside the Forge Room, poked at the priest hole in the other door -- it didn’t open, to his disappointment, then he ran inside.

Taman: Dammit!

Thneed came into the room and got off the broom. Barnett, who had been going to cast a grease spell outside the doorway, froze in place and didn’t move. Mo moved up to the other side of the doorway from Joybell, with the small iron boat and the feather token in his hands. Orryk moved into the room and used the wand to make a web spell right outside the door.

That made a noise (Note: Think Spiderman’s “thwip”), so we assumed the Masks would hear that.

Before they could react though, Fiona filled in the hallway outside the door, and some distance beyond, with a Wall of Sand.

Then Joybell closed the door to the Forge Room and put the steel plate up in front of it, holding it in place.

As she did so, we all began to hear cussing, lots of it, from Tulmor through the telepathic bond. The 10 Masks that were watching had turned, aware that something was going on back in the Forge room. And the wall of sand was dispelled almost immediately -- she saw something small with fluttering wings at the priest hole. The Masks immediately started moving.

Taman examined the Forge, looking for a way to disable it, but was unable to figure it out. Thneed looked at the table near the Forge -- it had cuffs and manacles on pulleys so that they were adjustable to the height of the subject on the table. Barnett was able to figure out the structure around the crystal and pointed out to Taman (and through the telepathic bond everyone else) the specific connections that needed to be un-done to release the crystal. Fiona started working on disconnecting those points.

Mo used the iron boat and the feather token to hold the steel plate in place and the door closed. Orryk put the immovable rod into place as well. We had secured the room according to the plan we developed over drinks at the Pewter Oar in the evenings during our week of preparation.

Tulmor reported that the web spell was burning -- lit up by a chromatic orb cast through the priest hole. And the Masks outside were moving up toward the door.

Taman helped with disassembling the Forge.

Thneed, worried about the reports of Masks right outside, readied herself to fire at anything that came through the door.

Barnett, looking visibly frightened with shaking hands, moved as far away as he possibly could from the door and started casting teleportation circle. Mo cast a rope trick, giving us a safe place to retreat to if the room was overrun by Masks. Especially since Tulmor reported again that the Masks were getting closer. Orryk moved to one side of the door and readied an action to punch something that came through.

Thneed expressed her concern to Joybell that if the door was blasted open or forced into the room, Joybell might be crushed or hit by shrapnel. Joybell agreed that was a reasonable concern. Rather than just moving aside, though, Joybell noticed that Barnett looked like he was fighting off a crippling fear, or struggling to, so she went over to him and, with his permission, cast heroism on him, because that would help him be less frightened. Then she headed back toward the doorway to stand guard with Orryk.

Before she could get there, the section of wall next to the door, where Joybell was heading to stand after Thneed’s advice, just disappeared. The whole wall disintegrated into a fine powder.

And a tiny flying thing shaped sort of like a dwarf with bat wings flew into the room followed by two Masks. And 14 more out in the hall with nothing to stop them entering.

Taman, turning around: Oh, naughty word!

He tried to use the eyes of charming on the tiny dwarf (Steeltear) but it didn’t work.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on Steeltear and took her shots at the tiny flying dwarf-bat. She hit with both of them, doing a lot of damage.

Tulmor: Barnett, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be a good time …
Barnett: Got it.

Barnett, given courage (possibly false courage) by Joybell’s spell, moved up to the corner of the disintegration chamber (lower left rectangle in the room) and cast sickening radiance. Fiona recognized that he was somehow managing to re-write the spell as he cast it -- creating a 30’ radius sphere of a sickly greenish/blackish glow that did necrotic damage to everything in its area. All of the Masks on the little map here, plus most of the ones outside, were stun-locked by it.

Barnett: I can keep this up for a while.

Tulmor reported that the Masks that weren’t caught in the greenish radiance, five of them, drew their bows and didn’t enter it, seeing what it did to the others. Since it blocked the entire hallway into the Forge room it was as effective as a wall at keeping the Masks out. So we only had to deal with Steeltear.

Mo, seeing that the Masks were under control, cast polymorph on the dwarf-bat, Steeltear. Unfortunately, Turnik didn’t turn into a newt.

Mo: Welp, that didn’t work.

Orryk moved around to where he could attack Steeltear without getting into the greenish radiance and attacked him. Fiona tried to get Steeltear in a slow spell, but unfortunately he saved. (Two of the stunned Masks failed their saves.)

Joybell moved around to a position between Orryk and Barnett and attacked Steeltear, who was apparently flying fairly low (or she was leaping energetically). Her first attack missed, but with her second attack she hit and called down as much divine energy into her attack as possible to hit him quite solidly.

Steeltear turned a little bit and started casting a spell, but before the spell could be complete, Barnett shouted “No!” and a prismatic spray spell fizzled under the power of his counterspell. Turnik then moved out of the sickening radiance. Orryk tried to stop him from moving by attacking and using his stunning fist, but he saved against that. Joybell missed with her swing at him as he went by.

He wasn’t able to move far, but he was able to get away from the sickening radiance.

His move helped us some, because it meant that Taman was able to get up close to him and stab him with a zephyr strike for a considerable lot of damage as well. Thneed then took her shots and the tiny flying dwarf fell to the floor, gurgling and gasping. Thneed got the sense that she could move her hunter’s mark, which meant that he was at least unconscious. She did so and took her second shot at one of the Masks, using her horde breaker ability on the one next to it.

On the ground, Turnik, bleeding out and gurgling, began to transform into a normal-sized dwarf.

Barnett, still riding the swell of bravery imparted by the heroism spell, looked down at the dwarf and sent three magic missiles one-by-one into his chest. The gurgling and gasping stopped.

Mo cast a shatter spell that got most of the Masks caught in the sickening radiance. Orryk moved to a position near the door where he could punch the ones in the doorway without being caught in the radiance himself.

Joybell threw her new lightning javelin, hitting three of the Masks, then turned and attacked the body of Steeltear on the ground, screaming in rage as she hacked at it with her sword.

The Mask in the doorway (the only one in range of a melee attack without entering the sickening radiance) dropped. Taman couldn’t get close to attack one with his rapier.

Joybell: You can shoot them.

Taman nodded, and put down his rapier by stabbing it into the body of Turnik. Then he dropped the one in the doorway with an arrow.

Joybell asked Tulmor, still using her homunculus as our eye in the sky, if the ones out there appeared to have noticed Turnik dying. She reported that she did not see any indication of that.

We then began killing the Masks -- with area effect spells until most of the ones that were in the sickening radiance had died, until Tulmor pointed out that the spell had outlived its usefulness.

Barnett dropped the spell, allowing the remaining Masks to enter the room.

Thneed, to Barnett: You’re probably going to be their primary target. Take cover.

Then she held her attack to shoot at the first one to enter the room.

Barnett nodded and moved back next to where Fiona had gone back to working on getting the crystal out of the Forge.

The Masks approached the room -- dropping their bows and pulling their swords.

Mo viciously mocked the first one into the room.

Mo: Your leader is dead like your parents.

(Note: I love how sort of gentle Mo’s mockery has been with the Masks -- the recognition that they’re victims in this.)

Orryk moved out into the doorway and attacked one, hitting with the gloves and stunning one.

Fiona recognized that she and Barnett were close to getting the crystal disconnected so she cast a Tenser’s floating disc for it to be carried on in preparation for it to be removed from the Forge.

Taman pulled his sword out of Turnik’s abdomen, then went and attacked one of the stunned Masks, dropping it and clearing the room of Masks again. Thneed took up a position to shoot any Mask that came through the door.

The Masks got to where Orryk was standing, the one he’d stunned no longer in the way, and two of them attacked him. The attack once again reminded us why these things are so very very bad -- the two Masks took him from uninjured to nearly down in one round. Fortunately, Mo was able to use his cutting words to reduce the damage they did so that he was able to remain standing. Barely.

Orryk used his ability to fade away to turn invisible, then attacked them. Unfortunately he missed both times. He disengaged and moved away to the far side of the room between the Forge and the rack.

We then proceeded to gang up on one of the ones that had attacked Orryk -- Fiona locking it with a Toll the Dead and Joybell, Taman and Thneed attacking it -- until it dropped. Barnett cast a chain lightning that weakened all of them.

With their numbers reduced to just a few, our well-established Mask fighting tactics stood us in good stead and we were able to kill the remaining Masks.

We ended with the party looking around the Forge room, which was littered with the bodies of dead Masks and Turnik Steeltear, strange bat wings still on his back, in a pool of blood and gore, in varying degrees of shock, disbelief, anger and elation.


----------



## prabe (Feb 14, 2021)

Session 31: And Now We Can Move On...

Dramatis Personae:

Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


8 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 69) (immediately after)

While everyone was looking around at the aftermath of the battle, Barnett went into a corner between the disintegration chamber and the table with manacles and sat on the floor huddled into a ball. Orryk went to a different corner by the table (between the table and the Forge) and meditated and rested, gathering his chi and marshalling his strength.

Joybell, shaking with fury and emotion, and still completely unconvinced that we’d killed the real Steeltear and not a simulacrum or something, released the immovable rod and wrestled the steel plate from between the door and the iron boat. She manhandled the steel plate over to the door with the priest hole, which we still hadn’t opened, then used the immovable rod to hold it in place.

Taman: Can we at least peep through the peephole?
Joybell: No. We can’t deal with anything we’d see back there right now.
Mo: I’m fine. You’re fine.
Joybell: Orryk isn’t fine and I won’t go without him. And I want my dog.

Then she sat herself down on the floor in front of it with her sword in her lap.

Joybell, to Tulmor through the telepathic bond: Scooby is about to disappear.

She then dismissed Scooby from the material plane and immediately began casting find steed to bring him to the Forge.

With Joybell resolutely blocking the door, the others set about occupying themselves during a short rest.

Fiona and Mo examined the “setting” the crystal had come out of, looking to see if there were any working or functional looking parts that might be what did the work for the transformation. What they found were copper rods that connected the contraption to the table, transferring the energy from the crystal. They figured out that the crystal was simply a battery or power source and the rods were just connectors to transfer the power. The actual “doing” of the transformation involved a ritual of some sort.

Mo then turned to search the body of Steeltear, using a mage hand (in case he’d trapped himself). Steeltear, now a normal-sized dwarf with slightly greyish coloring, was wearing studded leather armor, nothing particularly special, and had on a leather cloak and a necklace with a pendant. Nothing on his armor or clothing indicated a house or organizational affiliation. In his pockets he had seven sending stones -- each one half of a different pair.

Fiona took out her spellbook and began casting detect magic.

Joybell, now with Scooby to hold onto, sat in the hallway with Scooby’s head in her lap, crying and telling him everything that had happened.

Thneed gave the Broom of Flying back to Mo and Orryk gave Mo the Wand of Web, somewhat over Mo’s objections.

Orryk: It has literally never worked for me. It’s not useful.

Thneed, after examining the table and finding nothing but manacles and the other ends of the power-transfer rods, went out into the larger chamber, to check the bodies of the dead Masks, making sure all of them were really dead. Also looking for any unusual marks or features on them. When she’d finished that, she just stood sentry at that hallway to the larger chamber.

When Fiona’s detect magic went off she found that the amulet and the cloak that Mo’s mage hand had removed from Steeltear’s body were magical (evocation and transmutation, respectively). The disintegration “pit” radiated some transmutation magic. She expected that the crystal would be _very_ magical and found that it wasn’t, really -- there was definitely a glow there, essences of transmutation, abjuration and divination magic, but not the power source we expected.

Taman and Orryk, feeling more like himself after his meditation, went to examine the disintegration pit. They figured out that it goes off once a day at a fixed time -- there’s no switch or command word to set it off. It just goes at a certain time every day, regardless.

Mo suggested getting a bunch of raccoons or rats and releasing them down near the teleportation circle on the wall, in order to set off the Symbols of Badness. (Fortunately, Joybell couldn’t hear this suggestion or she would have been appalled.)

As Joybell heard the others moving around, and heard Orryk talking with Taman about the pit, she started pulling herself together. Wiping her nose and drying tears off her cheeks on Scooby’s fur. Scooby helped lick her cheeks clean. Then she put her happy face back on and was ready to go when the others were.

Barnett, sitting in the same place he’d retreated to as soon as the battle was over, was repeating over and over: It was me. It wasn’t me. It was me. It wasn’t really me.

Hulmon II, Tulmor’s little winged-squirrel homunculus, sat next to Barnett, gently shaking him, trying to shake him out of it.

Mo rolled a cigarette of his finest smoking weed, including some of what he got in Callallah and some of what he got in Pelsoreen, and gave it to Barnett.

Mo: Maybe it will calm you down. Maybe not. Don’t know how you’ll react. You can try it.

Joybell, with her normal mien pasted on, went to talk to Barnett while the others moved the steel plate away from the door and looked through the priesthole.

Barnett: Never cast that on me again.
Joybell, nodding: Okay. I did ask permission. But I won’t. Do you want Scooby to stay here with you? He’s very comforting.
Barnett: No, you may need the mobility.

Then she patted him on the shoulder and went to join the others ready to go through the door.

Looking through the peephole we saw a long room, much longer than it was wide, with a bed and a wardrobe against the far wall. There was an opening in the right hand wall, just a few feet from the door, that led to another room. There was no one moving or visible inside. So we went in. As we entered the room, we saw that there was another wardrobe on the same wall as the first one. Around the corner, not visible from the door was a long bookshelf, which Fiona and Orryk immediately gravitated to.

The bookshelves contained Steeltear’s spellbook (which Fiona set upon immediately), records of all the jobs done by the Masks for hire and records of Steeltear’s experiments with the Forge. Joybell started looking through the records of jobs done for hire, to see if she could find why hired them to take the children from the Wold, but there was no mention of that in the book.

From those books, we learned that there were still three squads of Masks active in the world -- one in New Arvai (working as enforcers for one of the underworld gangs), one in Lonoj (eliminating thieves on behalf of the goldsmith’s guild), and one in the vicinity of Auriqua (attempting to recover an item stolen by hobgoblins from one of the wealthy families).

We’re not sure what they’ll do when the current orders they’re under are no longer applicable. Will they return here and find the place empty and abandoned? Will they go out in the world on a rampage? We have no idea. But it’s not something we can deal with right now.

The books made it clear that Turnik Steeltear was the one totally in charge of the Masks -- he didn’t report to anyone else or take orders from anyone else. His records of experiments with the Forge end about 100 years ago. Fiona noticed something weird, or off, about the books, but couldn’t figure out what it was. They weren’t magical. Just off.

The wardrobes had clothes and basically bric-a-brac. Nothing terribly interesting.

Mo suggested that these might be Crazy Books, so Orryk pulled out the Orrery of Finding Outer Chaos Things. While it settled itself, we explained to Thneed about the crazy books and about the Orrery.

In the end, the Orrery didn’t settle on any direction, it continued spinning freely.

The room adjacent to the bedroom was a treasury -- with coins and things. Before we actually entered the room, Taman looked for secret doors in the bedroom. Thneed poked around with her rarely used sword, looking through the clothes. Taman found a secret door inside one of the wardrobes. He tried to figure out the mechanism, moving the bric-a-brac and shifting the clothing around but nothing worked. So he called the rest of us over to try. Fiona had to drag herself from the spellbook to give it a look, but her mind was not really in it because she found nothing. Orryk, still rattled from almost dying, didn’t find anything either.

With the secret door a bit of a conundrum, and the treasury right there, Taman checked for traps in the treasury room. Fiona took a few minutes to cast detect magic again and we went in and looked around.

We found (see the end of the notes for treasure breakdown and identification of the items found):

2 Potions
A Bead
A fan
A tan-colored cloth bag
A pair of boots

Also

170 pp
4500 gp
2000 sp
4 50lb silver trade bars (each worth 2500 SP)
800 cp
2 25gp silver ewers
2 25 gp statuettes
1 25 gp gold bracelet (Joybell would like for part of her treasure to include this if no one minds)
1 25 gp velvet mask embroidered with silver thread.
14 50gp gems

The mask is such an outlier that we feel like maybe we should keep it. It might be important at some juncture.

The money was neatly organized, not just a random heap of coinage somewhere. The trade bars had been stamped with the seals of many cities -- which indicates that the bar itself had moved around a lot. The seals that had dates included were many decades old.

Taman looked for secret doors in the treasury room, and didn’t find any.

Back in the bedroom, Thneed and Joybell tried to move the wardrobe away from the secret door, but it wouldn’t move at first. Joybell, still a seething ball of emotion and anger, and with Mo’s inspiration, roared and ripped the wardrobe away from the wall (moving it five feet down toward the other wardrobe).

Mo, singing to inspire Joybell: We’re gonna tear this mother-fucker down…

With the wardrobe moved, the entrance to the next chamber was revealed.

The long, angled wall of the room was a long bookcase absolutely FULL of books. In the corner immediately ahead of the door was the dwarven crematorium/tomb/family shrine that the Tashin diplomats had told Mo about while he was swanning them around Embernook. (Reminder: The diplomats told Mo that Masks had stolen the shrine from a caravan while it was en route to New Arvai about four and a half months ago.) It was about the size of a modern grave liner, with a flue that can be opened and a chimney installed on top. Fiona, still detecting magic, saw some items pop up on the bookshelves, but the crematory/tomb was not magical.

Taman checked for traps and found none. The instant he gave the all clear, Orryk and Fiona went immediately to the books. Taman, Mo, and Joybell worked on getting into the crematory/tomb. With some assistance from them (the sides of the thing were 6 feet high, so it is possible that most of the assistance was in the form of Mo being on all fours with Joybell standing on his back so she could shift the lid off the crematory. She moved it off to the side, where it landed with a loud, ringing clang.

Looking in, the crematory appeared to be empty, except for two potion bottles. Taman stabbed in randomly (and blindly) with his rapier and didn’t hit anything. Mo shot a faerie fire into it and nothing began to sparkle. Joybell just glared at it, because she still didn’t believe that we’d gotten the real Steeltear, so the son of a bitch had to be somewhere. And we’d been told he could be invisible.

Over at the bookshelf, Orryk and Fiona found records of _all_ of Steeltear’s experiments -- not just the older ones documented in the books out in the bedroom. While looking at these books, Fiona also figured out what was weird about the ones on the shelf in the bedroom -- those were all about the same age, even though they were recording transactions and experiments over a large period of time.

There were five magic items on the shelves, which got dropped into the bag of holding (identifications at end):

A deck of cards
A cloak
A set of shackles
A mace
A scimitar

During all of this, Thneed, getting bored, started wandering off and went back to the bedroom to look around in there again.

Back at the crypt, Mo pulled the bottles out of the crypt and found that they were empty. Taman inspected them and found that the potions had been drunk recently, very very recently. Like since we killed Steeltear in the Forge room.

Mo immediately started running to check on Barnett.

Taman, paying very close attention to listening and watching for the slightest disturbance, heard footsteps running toward the secret door and gave a yell to get everyone’s attention.

Fiona immediately cast see invisible and pointed to where he was -- along the wall between the crematory/crypt and the secret door. Joybell moved to where she should take a swing at the general area where Fiona was pointing. Then she cast branding smite and flailed at the space, hoping to get a hit. (Swing hard in case you hit it.) She did land a blow on the invisible Steeltear. Her sword flared and he was branded with a radiant light, rendering him visible and giving him a soft glow. Orryk, now able to see the target, hit him with fists of unbroken air. Then Joybell hit him again with her second attack.

Out in the Forge room, Mo got to Barnett, still sitting and rocking with Hulmon II by his side.

Mo, to Barnett: I assume you’re familiar with the Clone spell…
Barnett: naughty word!

Mo then turned and ran back into the bedroom and, unable to get to a position to attack, inspired Thneed.

Mo: You, kill the little one!

Taman moved to cover the secret door, to stop Steeltear from being able to get out of the room, then cast hunter’s mark and hit with his scimitar. Thneed cast her hunter’s mark and shot him soundly with an arrow, doing a lot of damage. Orryk attacked and attacked and punched and punched, landing both strikes from his flurry of blows. Unfortunately, the stunning strikes did not work.

Steeltear started casting something really quickly. Fiona tried to counter it, but was unable to do so, so Steeltear was able to get off his Far Step spell. He bamfed out of the room, past Mo, then took off running through the priesthole door, closing it behind him.

Fiona cast misty step to get herself into the bedroom, then opened the door. Joybell cast misty step as well, teleporting herself and Scooby into the bedroom just beyond Mo, then Scooby ran and dashed to get past Steeltear, so they could hopefully block him from getting to the teleportation circle. Joybell attacked him, hitting and doing a divine smite on him. Her second attack, in the whirlwind of adrenaline and Scooby skidding to a stop in front of Steeltear, missed.

Mo came out of the room and inspired Joybell. Taman missed with an attack. Thneed got into position to shoot, but was unable to attack him. Orryk ran out behind Steeltear, using his Step of the Wind, but then missed with both of his attacks.

Then Steeltear pulled a little dagger out of his pocket and waved it around with a flourish, casting a spell that attacked the entire party (because all of us were in range of it). Only Joybell wasn’t hit by it, though her paladin aura was able to give Orryk and Scooby resistance to the damage. Scooby was “killed” and disappeared out from under Joybell (back to wherever celestial wolf-mounts go), who dropped to the ground with a curse, but landed on her feet. Everyone else took quite a bit of damage from the spell, which is a nasty one, Steel Wind Strike.

As part of the Steel Wind Strike spell, Steeltear appeared on the other side of Joybell, closer to the teleportation circle. When he started to run away, Joybell took the opportunity to attack him again, and dropped him. She continued hitting him, just screaming and crying and hacking at his lifeless body, for about a minute, until Taman stopped her and led her away. Then he consoled her while she broke down and cried.

With Steeltear really dead, and even Joybell believing it to be so, we spent some time going through all of the barracks halls to make sure they were clear of anything either dangerous or useful.

When we’d gotten through all of those we considered how to deal with the teleportation circle.

Taman: Hey, Barnett!! Could you help us out with a non-combat related question?

Barnett emerged cautiously from the Forge room and asked what he could help with. We asked if he could help us disable the Symbol spells so we could get to the teleportation circle to destroy it. He suggested breaking the wall from this side. Which hadn’t occurred to any of us. So Mo cast a shatter spell on it, then Joybell pounded on the weakened rock with her flail until we’d broken through the wall where some of the runes were and the circle was destroyed.

Looking at the books as we were stacking things by where Barnett was going to cast teleportation to take us back to Embernoook, we found a notation where Steeltear described the Forge as equidistant from Embernook and New Arvai, under the Dunimar Mountains. Which narrows it down somewhat, but puts it squarely under the heart of the Green Quilt, with no cities or even notable roads anywhere nearby.

As we were clearing the place, we stacked the bodies of the Masks, and both Steeltears, into the disintegration chamber -- that would be as effective as cremation for preventing them from coming back as undead.

We also took a bit more time to clear out the secret room, finding a bunch more treasure:

2000 pp
4 50lb gold trade bars (2500gp each)
4000 gp
7 1000gp gems (2 black opals, 2 emeralds, a fire opal, a blue sapphire and a yellow sapphire)

We then teleported back to Embernook -- loading the Tenser’s Floating Disk, the bag of holding, and each of us (including Scooby, summoned once again), all to the breaking point to get the treasure, the library, and the crystal all out of there while the circle was open.


9 - 14 Rippenin 748 (Campaign days 70 - 75) (another downtime montage)

Back in Embernook, Fiona and Orryk read through the books. Fiona found the details of a high ritual called Your Time For Mine. As she read it, she cringed in horror and disgust -- the ritual involved killing a humanoid to add its remaining lifespan to that of the caster. She burned that, hoping that the knowledge of how to do that horrible thing would go up in smoke. That was what he wanted the children from the Wold, and elsewhere, for -- to provide extra years for his life. When she told the others, Joybell wanted to go back to the Forge so she could kill him again. He needed so many children because he wasn't particularly good at performing that ritual.

Fiona also got some details of his current research -- he was trying to work out how to tune the high ritual that turned human children into Masks so that it worked on other humanoids as well. That was why he had Masks kidnap the orc children -- he had paid Black Irnod’s apprentice, Tarly, to vivisect them and try to learn in what ways they were different from humans.

Steeltear’s books talked about the pattern of Symbol traps outside the teleportation circle -- they were programmed not to fire when touched on by Steeltear himself, humanoids in masks, and beasts when hitched to carts or wagons. Everyone else would set them off. So sending in Scooby with a Mask wouldn’t have told us anything -- because Scooby is a celestial, and celestials in Masks weren’t immune. And it would have just tortured him.

We also learned that he had a habit of using his Masks to attack trade caravans for their treasure. In one of those attacks, he found a scroll with the Clone spell on it. He traded it to a wizard in Pelsoreen named Altorian Galthoril, a high elf, in exchange for casting it on him. That was four months ago -- shortly after he stole crematory/tomb from the dwarven caravan to New Arvai.

We learned the locations and sigil patterns for the teleportation circles in Steeltear’s network -- the ones in the Forge and in the cave outside Callallah have both been destroyed. There are four still functional: one north of Auriqua, one outside Tash, one near Erlin, and one in New Arvai. Of those locations, New Arvai has an active squad of Masks working under the direction of one of the underworld bosses. And there is an active squad near Auriqua working to recover a stolen magic item.

Looking back through the records of jobs offered and accepted, we found that someone tried to hire the Masks to assassinate Administrator Alighieri. Steeltear refused the job. This was shortly after Alighieri became the Administrator of Embernook. We also learned that the biggest job he’d ever been paid for was sending two squads (which were up to 10 Masks) to a place called Kotima (which some of us had heard of as a continent a long way away) to take part in a succession war.

Fiona and Orryk talked with Tulmor and Barnett about the crystal. They confirmed that the crystal is just a battery -- it stores psychic power and then releases it. Steeltear’s method of charging it was torturing a humanoid to death. Horrible.

We wondered if perhaps exposure to happy emotions, like those at a concert or show, might be enough to power the crystal up. So Mo gave a performance at the Pewter Oar. The crystal was set on a floating disc in the center of the stage, spinning slowly, with a light spell over it so it glowed and sparkled like a disco dazzler ball. It looked _really_ cool and Mo gave a hell of a performance, but the crystal didn’t pick up the slightest bit of charge.

In addition to reading the library from the Forge, we had a week or so of downtime (until Joybell’s bulette plate shield was finished) and accomplished other things.

Orryk, now learning some wizardry from Tulmor and Barnett, performed a high ritual to summon a small elemental friend as his familiar -- something that looks like a mephit but is not evil and is friendly to Orryk and his allies.

Mo ordered a netting chair made for his broom of flying - so he could start the broom going then ride underneath it in a hammock-chair, able to play his pipe and cast spells as he liked. Sort of a combat hammock.

Fiona used a sending spell to let Rask and the Cracked Shield orcs know that it was safe for them to return to Pelsoreen. The Masks would not be returning there. She also cast sending to Wilm Orter, the town elder of Callallah, to let him know that the Masks would not be returning and that they should enjoy their children and the bounty of their village.

Fiona spent most of the downtime transcribing spells from Steeltear’s spellbook to her own. That plus the rest of his library kept her plenty well occupied.

Barnett, during all of this, was slowly recovering and getting back to his own normal.

Mo, who had taken possession of the seven sending stones we found in First Turnik’s pocket, waited for anyone to call on them. We learned that Turnik had people in many cities, though not Embernook (because Embernook is nice) keeping an ear out for business opportunities for him. When one came up they could use the sending stones to let him know about them.

After several days without getting any message through the sending stones, and after an evening spent drinking heartilly, Mo picked one at random and drunk called.

Mo: Just so you know, your boss is dead and you’re next.
Voice at the other end, after a moment’s pause: Good luck.

After he told us about that, we went to ask Tulmor and Barnett if it was possible to learn the location of the other one of a pair of sending stones. (Note: GM said he would get back to us on that.)

Thneed spent much of her time walking around talking to the guard in town, thinking they were perhaps kin to soldiers (one of her favorite enemy humanoid subtypes) and trying to persuade them to do harmless but silly things. She realized after several days of this that it probably came off as flirting. Especially since she’s an adjunct guard herself.

Toward the end of the week, before Joybell’s shield was finished, she, Orryk and Taman went out to the Basalt Henge. Because Taman is all interested in nature and rangering and so on these days, Joybell spent the trip out talking to him about the plants and animals native to the Black Field. Taman mostly tuned her out. While we were walking, Orryk had his new elemental familiar as a mud mephit flying along with us. Orryk was working on using mold earth to raise up walls of earth around us.

We took a moment to have a conversation with all three of us talking to a somewhat confused marmot who just wanted the eagles to stop attacking. One had just killed his brother. Joybell promised to warn him if she saw one while they were still close by.

While we were taking a break on the road, Orryk asked Taman to hit him, really hit him. Taman, a bit confused, complied and attacked him. Orryk tried to raise a protective earthen shield around himself, but it didn’t raise in time and he took the damage. But he was almost cheerful about it. The next day, when we were at the Henge, Joybell took a turn taking a shot at him at his request. The protective shield almost deflected the damage, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. Orryk smiled even bigger.

When they got to the Henge, Joybell told Nailo, the head druid, and Green Hope, her fighting trainer, that we’d avenged the Wold. They seemed somewhat taken aback by that -- not upset, just surprised. Joybell agreed that it wasn’t entirely in keeping with her oath to seek vengeance but it needed to be done. Then she went off to the henge itself to pray and try and atone and to reaffirm her commitment to her oath of the ancients.

Orryk told them about going to the Primal Atoll and shared what Irlua had said about fire being out of balance. He then asked if they knew anything about the Umbral Circle. Nailo said that it had been a few years since they’d seen anyone from the Umbral Circle. He asked after the staff we were charged with recovering, Adnorga’s Staff. They had heard of the item but weren’t aware of it being missing.

We stayed at the Henge for a couple of days while Joybell atoned (including having a Ceremony: Atonement spell cast on her behalf). Toward the end of the time, Taman used his new ability to sense planar portals and found a dormant portal to elemental fire about a mile away out in the Black Field. We all took a walk out there, across the lava flow, and realized when we got to the location that the portal itself was under the lava field in the dormant volcano. Nothing to see.

The third day of our trip, Joybell attacked Orryk again, to test his new earthen shield and it rose up to protect him just as he wanted it to. Orryk was almost happy.

The next morning, we returned to Embernook.


14 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 75)

Joybell’s shield was ready and she picked it up from Brightforge.

(Note: The montage can continue from here as we buy a house and furnish it.)


Treasure:

The DM notes that Turnik had High Ritual gear in his bedroom. Blocky and square, not particularly attractive but well made, including ritual clothes sized for a dwarf. The party can sell the lot for 1200 gp.

Totals:
PP: 2170
GP (including trade bars, art, and sold Mask gear): 19450
SP (including trade bars): 12000
CP: 800
Gems: 14 x 50 GP, 7 x 1000 GP

Per person:
PP: 361
GP: 3241
SP: 2000
CP: 133
Gems: 2 x 50 GP, 1 x 1000 GP

(Note: Joybell is going to take the Velvet Mask and the Gold Bracelet as 50 of her, erm, 3241 gp. Which is not going to make an appreciable difference to anything. Just we’ll have that mask and she wants the bracelet.)

Leftover:
PP: 4
GP: 4
CP: 2
Gems: 2 x 50 GP, 1 x 1000 GP

Which leads to a Party Kitty Update:

Party Kitty update:
8 pp, 7 gp, 10 sp, and 18 cp. Also 2 50gp gems and 1 1000 gp gem.

The kitty will go a long way toward buying us a house, I reckon.

Magic items:

+2 Scimitar [Martial Weapon limits to Joybell/Taman/Thneed]
Bag of Tricks, Tan
Bead of Force
Boots of Elvenkind
Cloak of Displacement [Attunement, Joybell]
Deck of Illusions
Dimensional Shackles
Mace of Smiting [STR/Monk Weapon limits to Joybell/Orryk]
Periapt of Wound Closure [Attunement]
Potion of Frost Giant Strength
Potion of Invulnerability
Wind Fan
Wings of Flying [Attunement]


----------



## prabe (Feb 21, 2021)

Session 32: The Perils of Traveling By Water; Also, We Own A Whole Town!!

Dramatis Personae:

Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


15 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 76)

We’d decided during the course of a week of downtime that we wanted a place of our own -- preferably one that was a bit outside of Embernook. So, after Joybell picked up her new shield, we all (except Fiona who spent a week and a half doing little but learning spells from Steeltear’s spell book and, when reminded, eating and sleeping) went to Tulmor and Barnett’s. We wanted to ask them if they knew who we should talk to about maybe buying Harl’s house up in Kalmarn (or maybe all of Kalmarn).

Barnett started laughing and said that he was the person we needed to talk to. He’d inherited Harl’s house and the entire village. He also said that he didn’t want any of it.

Mo: So, for this house you don’t want, how much?
Barnett: I can sell you the house and the town all the way to the pier on the river for 8000gp.
Joybell: Only 8000? For a whole town? Are you sure that’s enough?
Mo: Yes. He is.

Barnett said he’d get the papers drawn up -- we could close the sale the next day, on the 16th of Rippenin (campaign day 77).

We discussed various plans -- Joybell and Orryk didn’t want to spend a lot of time _personally_ furnishing the house and finding villagers to live in Kalmarn. Mo and Taman had some ideas about what tradespeople we needed for the village. Also, they wanted to start an inn, which is a fine idea. But we decided to start from baby steps -- getting our house in order, without spending a lot of time in the weeds of that.

(Note: Also not spending a lot of time at the gaming table on recruiting blacksmiths and buying furniture.)

We decided that we needed a castellan. Joybell was pretty definite that’s what we need because we definitely didn’t want a vizier, they’re always evil, or a majordomo, they’re usually evil. Castellans are nice and honorable.

We figured that maybe we could get a recommendation for someone who would make a good castellan from Tillaron Zun. Taman had a question for him anyway, since our next adventure is going to be up to Auriqua to deal with the fey that killed his family.

At the Zun estate, we got taken directly to see Tillaron. Joybell asked if he could recommend someone very trustworthy to be our castellan.

Tillaron Zun: I hate to say this, but the best, most qualified and most honest person for the job is a halfling named Chulty. He’s Thalith’s nephew.
Joybell: Do you know how to get in touch with him?
Tillaron: No. You’ll have to ask Thalith. I’d appreciate it if you mentioned that I gave you the recommendation.

Joybell agreed that she would.

Taman: You’ve been to Auriqua. How do I get in touch with the Fey?
Tillaron: Any one in particular?
Taman: Yes. But the Fey will be best situated to help me find the one I’m looking for, Ildna.
Tillaron: Well, I can tell you that if you’re at the Blue Gate on the first night of the Festival Of Sky you can probably talk to the Tundra Queen.
Taman: In person?
Tillaron: Yes. She’s contractually obligated to be there, I believe.

We don’t want to wait that long to go to Auriqua and find Ildna (it’s currently about 2 weeks to the Autumnal Equinox festival, so a long way from the Feast of Sky, which is the Winter Solstice festival), so we’ll have to find another way to get in touch with they Fey up there.

We thanked Tillaron and left for Thalith’s office. Joybell put her name on the waiting list and waited patiently, while the others looked at her in something like disbelief.

After a few minutes, we got called in, ahead of our time in line.

Thalith: What is it with you?
Joybell: Everyone out there has business that’s important for their lives. Ours isn’t more so. Anyway, we’re buying Harl’s house and all of Kalmarn from Barnett.
Thalith: Oh!?
Joybell: Yep! And we need a castellan. Tillaron Zun recommended your nephew, Chulty, as the best and most honest choice.
Thalith: He’s right. Chulty is the best choice. And Tillaron clearly wants something.
Mo: That was subtle...
Joybell: He didn’t say to be subtle. He said to mention his name. If he wanted me to be subtle he needed to tell me that.

Thalith, after confirming that the best place to get in touch with us was still the Pewter Oar, said that Chulty would come by after dinner so we could talk to him and meet him.

Taman: How do I get in touch with the Fey in Auriqua?
Thalith: Do you want the Tundra Queen?
Taman: That’s months away and she’s not the best choice.
Thalith: You’re looking for the one who destroyed your family...After the Autumnal Equinox, some of the Fey with cold powers come out north of the city to play. You might be able to talk with one of them to find the one you’re seeking.

After dinner at the Pewter Oar, we saw a young, barely adult, hafling enter and look around the tavern. When he saw the party, he came over to us. We bought him a beer and began a sort of awkward interview. He was a robust looking halfling -- he clearly spent time outside doing things.

Orryk: What do you do now?
Chulty: I’ve been doing errands for my uncle around town.
Thneed: If you had your uncle’s job, would you enjoy it?
Chulty: I think having the Administrator looking over your shoulder constantly would be tiring.
Thneed: Have you been out of Embernook?
Chulty: I’ve been to Erlin and Lonoj. I walked most of the way, which was a good way to travel.

Someone asked if he’d be okay alone for extended periods of time, because we were probably not going to be consistently in residence.

We talked some about how much he expected to be paid (2gp/day) and agreed to his rates. We paid him three months in advance and told him that we’d be closing on the sale the next day.

The night then passed with those staying at the inn safely there and those at Queena’s lodging house safely there.


16 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 77)

At breakfast, we got a note from Chulty that he was going to be taking a trade boat up the river to Kalmarn to start taking a look at the house. We weren’t going to be getting there for a few days but he wanted to hit the ground running.

First thing after breakfast, Joybell and Thneed went to the guard house to see if they needed any help. Joybell was very disappointed that they said no. She and Thneed did however do some practice and training there -- Thneed with the archery targets and Joybell sparring with some of the guards and doing drills with dummies.

Fiona’s work learning spells from Steeltear’s spellbook continued -- some of it at the Pewter Oar, some of it at Tulmor and Barnett’s (for more privacy), and some of it outside the city walls (such as practicing making a wall of fire).

When she was at Tulmor and Barnett’s, around when we did the paperwork for the closing, Tulmor went to her with a stack of paper glued on three sides (so the pages stay together solidly but can still be readily separated). She explained that these are dragon pages -- magical paper. If you write a message on the page, fold it in half, and then write a name on the outside, the paper will magically fold itself into an origami dragon and fly to the person you’re writing to. (The paper becomes invisible after a few feet of flight.) The paper arrives at its destination within a day. If you fold a blank sheet inside the one addressed, it will provide a way for the recipient to respond.

Tulmor: There are 50 pages there. It’s a gift, but don’t tell Barnett. He doesn’t know I can make them.

Orryk also spent some time at their place learning Jump, Longstrider and Expeditious Retreat from their spellbooks. (There’s definitely a theme to his research there.)

While that was happening, Joybell and some other folks went to the docks to charter a boat to take us up to Auriqua, with stops as needed along the way, including one in Kalmarn. We found The Gellyan, captained by Tavin Lamerin, a human. He asked for 250 gp to take us there and wait for 6 days to bring us back. If we aren’t ready to leave at that time, he’ll just load cargo and come back without us. We agreed to those terms, and Taman paid for the entire group. Mo paid him an additional 50gp to load better food than would be their norm for us and the crew and everyone on board.

That evening, Fiona sent a message to Rask and the Cracked Shields about coming to Kalmarn. She told him that it’s an empty town about half a day from Embernook. We own the village. Rask said that sounded like a very tempting idea.

Joybell: Maybe they’ll adopt me after all!

The rest of the day and the evening passed without incident.


17 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 78)

Mo went and bought beer, distilled spirits (moonshine) and wine for the trip.

Joybell and Thneed went to see if the guard needed any help. Joybell was once again disappointed that they did not. They spent the day training and practicing.

At some point in the day, Joybell bought a bottle of really nice wine and put it in her pack.

The day and the night otherwise passed without incident.


18 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 79)

We went to the Gellyan bright and early first thing in the morning. We told Captain Lamerin that we needed to stop in Kalmarn for the rest of the day. The pier in Kalmarn was still there and in good shape. The signal flag, which indicates that someone in the town needs a ship to stop, was not out. As we walked through the town, we noticed that there weren’t any corpses still around -- we couldn’t remember if all of the corpses had been cleared away and burned before we went back to deal with the gribbly monster in Harl’s house or not.

Anyway, we walked through the town to get to Our House. Mo suggested renaming the town Mo City, or perhaps Mo Village. Someone else suggested Motown. The idea of renaming Kalmarn didn’t gain much traction. However, Joybell did enthusiastically back calling our house Stately Kang Manor.

When we got there, we found all the windows and doors thrown open and a tent pitched in the front yard. Chulty stepped out of the tent as we approached.

Chulty: Howdy!
Joybell: Why are you staying outside?
Chulty: The place has been closed up for a month and it’s stuffy.
Joybell: Fair enough. How much do you think you’re going to need to fix it up?
Chulty: For paint and furniture and so on, 3000 gp. Do I need to know anything -- like is anything on the walls?
Orryk: There’s a teleportation circle on the floor in the library, hidden with an illusion spell. We’d like to keep that.
Chulty: Good to know.

We gave him the pad of dragon pages so he could reach us, and the money he said he’d need. Mo gave him some extra money to stock booze so we wouldn’t come back to nothing to drink when we returned.

Mo then headed out to cast the 8-hour version of the Plant Growth spell -- to make the land around Stately Kang Manor very fertile and productive. While he was doing that Joybell talked with Chulty about maybe needing a gardener, so we don’t have fertile and productive weeds and stuff. She slipped him some extra money to hire a gardener or any other staff he might feel he needed.

Joybell: Are you going to be okay?
Chulty: I’ll be fine.

She told him about our invitation to the Cracked Shield to come and settle in Kalmarn.

Joybell: They’ll be a tribe of orcs and half-orcs, with some children as well as adults. They have cracks painted on their shields. They’re really awesome. I just don’t want you to be surprised or taken aback.
Chulty: Okay. I’m glad you told me.

After talking with Chulty, Joybell walked around the house and picked herself a room on the ground floor, because she wanted a window Scooby could jump in and out of. The others picked out rooms according to their preferences.

Ultimately though, because we had no furniture, and the house was kinda stuffy still...and maybe because we’re used to it, Fiona made a Tiny Hut in the garden for people to sleep in if they wanted. Orryk, Joybell and Chulty stayed in the hut with her. Taman slept outside the hut in the garden. Thneed found her way to the edge of some trees so she could sleep under those. Mo started the broom flying and spent the night sleeping strapped into his combat hammock a thousand or so feet in the air.

The night passed without incident.


19 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 80)

We headed to the river bright and early in the morning. In honor of our water voyage, Omnath (Orryk’s Awesome Mephit Friend) was in the form of a steam mephit.

Aboard the Gellyan, Joybell, Scooby, Thneed and Taman sat right up in the front of the boat looking at all the neat stuff going by and talking about it. (Well, Scooby didn’t do much talking, but they were able to sort of lean back on him and relax.) Fiona and Orryk were reading below. Mo was flying along above the boat, relaxing in his combat hammock -- where he mostly lives now.

The day and the night passed quietly.


20 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 81)

Most of the day passed in very similar fashion to the day before. Dinner was shortly before sunset. After dinner, Joybell, Thneed, Taman, and Scooby, went back to the bow of the ship to watch the sunset. Mo was getting ready to start the broom of flying again. Fiona and Orryk were once again reading below.

Our post-dinner reverie was interrupted by a huge surge in the water ahead of us, as a hydra with five heads rose up out of the river immediately in front of the boat.

Before the crew could even react, Thneed had drawn her bow, cast hunter’s mark on it, and shot it twice. Taman cast hunters’ mark as well and shot it as well.

Because there was no screaming or commotion yet, Orryk and Fiona just kept reading.

Mo puffed on his pipe to get some smoke going well, then blew out a cloud around the hydra and cast polymorph. Unfortunately, the hydra saved against that. He then inspired Joybell.

Joybell considered jumping from the boat to the hydra, but it looked like it was maybe a bit too far and she was afraid that it was a bad idea. So she fired magic missiles at it from the wand instead.

Joybell: Orryk and Fiona, we need you!

The hydra moved up to the side of the boat right near Thneed and attacked her with all five of its heads. Two missed, two hit (one critically), and Mo said some cutting words to cause the last one to miss.

Mo: Hey! You got too many heads!

Thneed disengaged and moved back from the railing of the ship to be near Scooby.

Taman did what Joybell had only thought of -- he took a running leap and jumped onto the back of the hydra and slashed at it with his new scimitar, getting a good hit.

Orryk trudged up on deck muttering about Joybell interrupting them for some damn thing or another. Then he saw the hydra.

Orryk: <<swearing in gnomish>> Fiona. Hydra.

He took a shot with his shortbow.

This wass about when the crew started screaming.

Mo: It’s not nice to waste someone’s high level spells.

Then he cast polymorph on the hydra again. It resisted again.

Fiona came up onto the deck.

Fiona: Huh!

She cast polymorph and turned the hydra into a trout. Taman fell into the water with a big splash. Joybell ran over to the side of the ship and threw him a rope and pulled him back on board.

Taman: That was really cool for about five seconds.
Joybell: It was awesome!
Mo, to Fiona: Polymorph was a great idea.

Captain Lamerin came out on deck to see why his crew were screaming and what the commotion was -- only to see absolutely nothing threatening the ship. Joybell explained to him that there was a hydra and that it had been turned into a fish, but only for an hour, so maybe we ought to get well away.

The captain agreed with that and we sailed away with alacrity.

Joybell sat back down in the bow of the ship, leaning against Scooby, to watch the sunset.

After the Hydra Incident, we decided to keep watches while aboard the Gellyan. Joybell took first watch and it was very quiet and peaceful. She woke Orryk up for second watch.

After an hour or two, Orryk heard a really bad impersonation of a red-tailed hawk, which he knew to be a daytime bird, not prone to calling in the middle of the night. It sounded to him like someone doing a signal call to someone else.

He sent Omnath, still a steam mephit, around to wake everyone up. Omnath was able to talk to Fiona, who was able to explain to us why we were being woken up. Thneed went to the captain’s quarters and banged on the door.

We stayed upstairs for a while, but no one saw or heard anything further, so Fiona and Taman went back to bed. Joybell curled up with Scooby on the deck and slept there. Thneed, having already gotten as much time for her trance as she needed, stayed on deck with Orryk, until he went back to sleep, then took over for third watch.

The rest of the night passed without any anomalous animal noises or other incident.


21 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 82)

The next afternoon, we sailed along with Joybell, Taman and Thneed in the front of the ship, with Scooby behind them where Joybell could lean on him, watching the banks go by and pointing interesting things out to each other. Orryk and Fiona were reading and Mo was a couple hundred feet up and about 10 feet behind the back of the ship lounging in his combat hammock.

We were snuck up on (sort of) by a troop of five hill giants about 40 feet away on the banks of the river. It was pretty clear that they could wade right up to the boat without much trouble because the river wasn’t all that deep.

One of them stepped forward as their leader.

Giant (in common): Pull boat to shore or we throw rocks.
Captain Lamerin (to us): I’m not going to let them hole the boat. I’m pulling over.
Mo (to the giants): What do you want?
Giant: We want treasure. Empty boat.
Mo: We don’t have any treasure.

It was clear that the giants did not believe that we had no treasure on board the boat.

Joybell moved to the deck railing where the giants would be reaching us and told them that we didn’t have anything for them and to let us be. Then she held an attack in case one of them made an aggressive move on us or the ship.

Taman tried to use the Eyes of Charming on the leader but the attempt failed because Giants are immune (the Eyes of Charming work on humanoids). The giant was clearly aware of the attempt though because he said something about human tricks. Then he moved aggressively toward the side of the ship.

Joybell decided that was enough of a threat for her and used her held action to attack, drawing down divine energy into the hit and striking a blow that the giant actually noticed.

Taman, did something really cool -- he traced the edge of his scimitar with his thumb, causing it to glow bright green, then did his attack. As the sword slashed across the giant’s chest, there was a shockwave that radiated out from the blow, rippling through the corpulent body and doing extra damage.

Orryk who had been alerted while we were moving to the shore came on deck and attacked the giant, getting lots of hits with the daggers. Mo blew a ring of smoke and cast hypnotic pattern over the three closest to us who were not the leader. Two of them appeared to stop moving much and just blinked slowly. Then he floated closer on his broom, but was still in the air.

Joybell attacked the giant leader twice, without smiting, and dropped him.

Joybell: Your leader is dead. We’re going to sail on.

Before they had much chance to respond to that, Fiona cast a fireball, centered right on them but shaped around the two that were hypnotized. It did a lot of damage to the two that had not been injured yet. Thneed took her two shots on the nearest one, with her hunters’ mark, hitting solidly.

One of the two singed ones went to their fallen leader and put her hand on his body. The other one backed away from the edge of the river.

We sailed away down the river staying alert for them to throw any rocks at us. They did not.

Captain Lamerin: There are weird things on the river, but this is new. I’ve never had a trip like this.

Because of course all the bad stuff was coming out while we were passing through.


----------



## prabe (Feb 28, 2021)

Session 33: In Which We Break Rule #1

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


21 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 82)

After dinner, but before people retired for the night, Joybell broke out the bottle of good wine that she bought before we left and poured everyone a drink in honor of Thneed being with us for a month. With apologies for being one day late about it.

We all got a little bit of wine (some more than others) to celebrate Thneed and to celebrate all of us.

Then we went into watches and nightly activities. The night passed without incident.


22 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 83)

Mo had a brilliant idea in the night and tied a rope from the back of the Gellyan to his broom of flying, so he will be able to sleep in his combat hammock and get pulled along by the ship.

Shortly after lunch, Orryk and Fiona were reading on deck. Joybell, Taman, and Thneed riding in the bow talking about what they were seeing and passing through. Mo was riding on his combat hammock.

We spotted a dozen or so lizardfolk swimming out from the shore toward the boat. Mo cast a plant growth spell on the vegetation in the river, causing the river grasses and weeds to choke up the river bank and impede the progress of the lizardfolk. He left a strip of river wide enough for the boat to pass through unimpeded.

Then he asked the lizard folk what they were there for.

Lizardperson: We’re here to collect.
Joybell: What are you collecting?
Lizardperson: The passage your captain is going to pay at the wreck.
Captain Lamerin: We’re going to pay that at the wreck in a day and a half.
Joybell: We’ll pay then. Why are you asking now?
Lizardperson: Too many people are going by without paying.

During this conversation the ship was sailing on…

Mo: If you guys can catch us you’re welcome to try and kill us but otherwise…
Joybell (running to the back of the boat as we sailed away from them): Are you normally the ones who collect the money?
Lizardperson: We collect for the Green Lord, Tallyxtillon.
Joybell: Will Tallyxtillon be at the wreck? We can pay him then….

(We recognized Tallyxtillon as a draconic name.)

Joybell asked Captain Lamerin about the wreck. He told us that there’s a river ship, bigger than the Gellyan, that has been broken in two on a shoal in the middle of the river. The keel is broken and the ship set there as a warning. The Green Lord began collecting a toll to pass the wreck. There are often Lizardfolk there collecting the tolls and they say that the forest itself obeys the Green Lord, but Captain Lamerin has never actually seen him.

The captain said that he believes that the Green Lord broke the boat. The Lizardfolk are often on the wreck reminding people to pay.

Mo: Don’t pay the 100gp.
Thneed: I’ve never seen a dragon before.
Mo: That’s why I don’t want to pay.
Taman: We could not pay until the dragon shows up, then pay.
Fiona: I don’t want to meet a green dragon.
Joybell: I don’t think we’re up to fighting a dragon.
Orryk: We’re going to wind out fighting it, the way our luck runs.

We asked the captain if he knew what boat it was and he didn’t know. There were no reports of a boat going down or going missing and the nameplate on the stern is not visible the way the wreck is sitting on the sandbar.

Joybell: But what about all the people on board?

The captain hadn’t heard about sailors being missing either and had no idea what might have happened to the crew of the wrecked ship.

People just started paying when the wreck appeared and lizardfolk on and about the shoals demanded money. He said we’d get there the next day.

Thneed went off with Mo to teach him curse words in Draconic -- only she was teaching him innocuous words and telling him that they were curse words.

Orryk: Joybell, what if this is a druid, not a dragon?
Joybell, thinking: It could be.
Orryk: The lizardfolk say the forest obeys him. That’s not a dragon thing. It could be a druid thing.

We consulted with Fiona to draw on an additional brain with knowledge about dragons. Between Orryk and Fiona we knew that older, bigger and badder green dragons warp the forest around them. It’s not unheard of for them to get some spells, either innately or by learning some magic, which could be druidic magic.

Joybell agreed that it was a possibility. But an evil druid would still need to be stopped.

The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.


23 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 84)

Late the next day, we saw the wreck on a sandbar in the middle of the river. There were clear shipping lanes on either side of the sandbar, each wide enough for ships the size of the Gellyan or even larger to pass by. On the sandbar was a ship, a bit larger than the Gellyan, broken in half. The bow half was lying sort of on its side. The stern half was standing on the stern, mostly upright. The two halves were completely detached from one another.

Mo detached his broom from its tether to the ship and flew over to get a better look at things. He started out looking for markings or any indication as to what the name of the ship was. Unfortunately, all he could really tell was that it was a broken boat.

Orryk got the bag of 100gps that Captain Lamerin gave him and gave it to Omnath, his awesome mephit friend.

Joybell: I could go over, Mo could use...look, he’s landing…
Orryk: If he needs us, he’ll scream.

Mo threw his rope down into the broken stern and cast rope trick. Then he started climbing down the rope. Orryk sent Omnath over with the bag, looking through his eyes.

Orryk, through Omnath, could figure out that it was a weird ship -- or it was a weird thing shaped like a ship. But there’s no way to move around in it, because the decks don’t line up correctly between the two halves of the ship.

Mo looked around a little bit, but didn’t see anything of interest inside the wrecked ship, so he climbed up his rope trick to get out of the vertical belly of the epicenter of this outbreak.

Joybell tried to wave for him to come back to the Gellyan and land. Mo, totally missing the message, waved back.

Orryk had Omnath poke around a little bit on the two halves of the wreck after he left the bag of gold on the island. He determined that someone had taken parts of two ships that were being broken down in shipyard.

Mo, still over on the island, cast polymorph on himself and turned into a giant ape. Joybell, hoping to be there for Mo if something went pear-shaped on the island, asked the captain if we could borrow a dinghy to row over to the island. When he said we could, she asked him to please stop the ship when he got a bit beyond the sandbank, so we could look around a bit and not have too far to row to catch up.

Then she got in the dinghy with Taman and Thneed and began to row. As we rowed over, Giant Ape Mo began (Magilla Gorilla) breaking up the wrecked ship, violently, throwing the pieces to the side of the river. He roared and tackled the standing stern of the boat knocking it over and breaking it into pieces. When those were thrown to the shore he turned to the bow-end of the wreck smashing it with his giant ape fists.

Orryk and Fiona stayed on the Gellyan watching the antics on the sandbar.

Mo finished breaking up the wreck about when we arrived at the sandbar and polymorphed back into himself. He grabbed the bag of gold that Omnath had dropped onto the sand, then climbed back on the broom and deployed the combat hammock as we pulled onto the bank.

Before we even got out of the boat, Taman noticed movement on the far shore of the river -- some of the foliage was moving and he heard an _elephant_ trumpeting. Or someone mimicking an elephant trumpeting.

Joybell (with a bit of assistance from Taman and Thneed) portaged the dinghy across the sandbank and then rowed to the other shore. We found a little beach where we could pull the dinghy out of the water and look around. Omnath flew along with us and was there on the island, but none of us there could speak any dialect of Primordial, so he didn’t really have any way to communicate with us.

We looked for tracks around the beach. Joybell and Thneed also looked for elephant tracks -- because although it would have been very unlikely to see an elephant, it would have been awesome as well.

Taman and Thneed saw prints from big, clawed feet with tail drag-marks between them. They identified those as lizardfolk tracks. This was about where Taman saw the movement on the shore.

Joybell: Should we follow them?
Taman: Orryk and Fiona are on the boat.

He waved at Omnath.

Taman: Hi, Orryk!

Thneed shouted out a demand to parlay in draconic, but there was no response.

Joybell, to Omnath: Please ask Orryk to ask the captain if these lizardfolk have hurt anyone.

After a few moments, Omnath shook his head no.

Mo reached into his new Bag of Tricks for the first time and pulled out a Giant Hyena.

Mo, to the Hyena: Go get ‘em! Just hassle the lizardfolk. Have fun!

It bounded off into the woods.

We went back to the Gellyan discussing the fact that there were clearly a passel of lizardfolk running some sort of scam. Though that doesn’t explain how they got the boat halves at all, let alone how they got them placed convincingly on the sandbank.

As we got back to the Gellyan, Joybell reminded Mo to give Captain Lamerin his money back. Mo, without telling anyone, gave the captain his money bag, lighter by 25 gp.

Once back on the ship, we continued on our way.

The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.


24 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 85)

The next day Joybell suddenly realized that we hadn’t seen a single other boat on the river the whole trip. Joybell asked about it and the captain said that it was the time of year when traffic on the river began to slow down because winter in Auriqua is unpleasant.

Mo asked the captain if he’d made a deal with the Tundra Queen.

Captain: I’ve overwintered in Auriqua and seen her there. I was not foolish enough to make a deal with her.
Taman: Administrator Alighieri tasked me with annoying her as much as possible.

Shortly after lunchtime, everyone topside on the boat (which was everyone) noticed a large group of lizardfolk (a dozen to eighteen) standing on the shore watching the Gellyan pass by. The shore was 60’ away and they made no attempt to contact us or to attack.

Thneed, to the lizardfolk (in draconic): Did you see those assholes in that other boat tearing things up?

There was no response.

Mo, to the lizardfolk (in common): Did you come here to die?

Then he threw out a few of the choice swears that Thneed had taught him.

Mo (in draconic): Fishsticks! Mother fluffing!

The only response was perhaps a bit of stifled laughter.

The Gellyan sailed on by, moving at her usual speed (about walking speed). The lizardfolk did not move from their position on the shore.

Joybell, to Captain Lamerin: Is this normal?
Captain Lamerin: No. It’s really not.
Joybell, to the lizardfolk (in common): Your beef is with us, not the Gellyan or its crew. Don’t take it out on them…. That’s not quite totally true. Just talk to us.

We never stopped sailing by and they never responded at all.

Mo used the flute of scribing to write “Alighieri was here” on the bank. Once his back was turned, Fiona dispelled it.

Orryk: So the question is when we’re going to fight 30 of them.

That night, just before dawn, during third watch, Mo, Thneed & Taman noticed a green serpentine thing flying down the river. Mo used mage hand to wake everyone up.

As it flew over the Gellyan it waggled its wings in a mark of recognition, acknowledging us and our presence.

Mo, to dragon (in draconic): Fishsticks!

When we told the captain about it, he took the bag of gold that Mo had returned to him and put it next to the wheel on the top deck.

Captain: Next time anyone tries to collect passage, we pay.

Neither the boat nor the dragon ever stopped.

The rest of the night passed.


25 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 86)

We spent the day arguing political theory (is the dragon’s toll to pass along the river illegitimate, could it become legitimate simply by the fact of people paying it, is any toll really legitimate) in a non-heated way.

Around dinner time, we saw the first other ship we’d seen the whole trip. It was a merchant vessel sailing down the river toward Embernook. It was flying Auriquah’s flag. (When we noticed that we compared that to the colors the Gellyan was sailing under -- those of Embernook, the Zun family, and another merchant family we weren’t familiar with.)

The Gellyan’s crew furled the windsail and waited for the boat to draw alongside.

Captain of Other Ship: What’s on the way?
Captain Lamerin: There were hill giants, a hydra, and lizardfolk. The wreck got trashed.
Joybell: The wreck was fake. But there really was a dragon flying overhead.

Thneed taught the other captain how to greet the dragon in draconic (honestly and for real). Joybell taught him the dragon’s name: Tallyxtillon.

Then both ships unfurled their windsails and continued on their way.

Joybell: When we go back down this river, it’s going to be such a mess!

The rest of the day and the night passed.


26 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 87)

The next morning, early, we sailed past a town pier (like the one at our village, Kalmarn) that had a flag out. This is how villages indicate to passing ships that they want a boat to stop. Captain Lamerin said that the flag was looking for a boat heading downstream to stop, so we sailed on by.

(Mo's player: Pier-to-pier communication.) ( )

The rest of the day passed. So did most of the night. Just before dawn, Thneed, Taman and Mo were on deck on watch. Joybell was sleeping curled up with Scooby on the deck.

Thneed was teaching Mo a “bawdy drinking song” in draconic. (In reality it was something like “I’m A Little Pork Roast”.)

Another, smaller ship heading downstream passed the Gellyan shortly before dawn. Because of the darkness, neither of the Gellyan nor the other ship had much chance to slow down to communicate before it passed.

Thneed and Taman noticed that the ship was flying Auriqua's colors (so leaving that city, not returning to Embernook) and that there was no cargo on the deck. There were also no people on the deck who were obviously not crew. They suspected it might be a charter, much like our trip on the Gellyan.

Thneed tried to warn the other ship about the perils we’d encountered.

Thneed: Giant Dragon Hydra
Mo, in draconic: Fishsticks!


27 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 88)

The next day we traveled without much incident. Around noon, we had to slow down because of a ferry that crossed the river, connecting villages on either side of the river. We asked if they’d been having problems with lizardfolk and they said they had never been bothered by them.

After the ferry crossed the river, we sailed on.

Mo, singing: I’m sailing away….

That evening after dinner we saw a boat docked at a pier going up river, the same direction we were. The captain slowed to ask how their trip had been going. Theirs had been uneventful (of course). We asked if they had paid at the wreck and they said yes. When asked if the wreck had looked legit to them they said that it had looked a little weird, but even if it wasn’t a real wreck, something had taken those boat halves there. So they paid the toll.

We continued moving on and the rest of the day and the night passed without incident.


28 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 89)

As we got further into the plains, and the area of the Tundra Queen’s influence, the woods got looser and looser. Just after lunch, we noticed a circle of standing stones through the trees.

Joybell: Oooooh!

She asked the captain if we could stop the Gellyan and row the dingy over to look at the standing stones.

Taman did his special thing to check for planar portals nearby (within one mile). He detected one very near us and we guessed that it was most likely at the standing stones, though his ability doesn’t tell him where the portal goes.

We travelled over in two dinghies, except Mo who was on his broom of flying, to the shore and went to check things out. The stone circle was a few hundred yards from the edge of the river. The stones were something similar to bluestone (which is a form of sandstone, only blue).

As we got close, we could see that the circle hadn’t been used in months, but it was clear that it does get some use and it had been used some months ago. Some of the stones had carvings on them in Sylvan which indicated that this circle is a portal to the Feywild. The carvings go around all of the stones and said that the portal can be activated at any of the four festivals (for the solstices and equinoxes). The circle has to be decorated appropriately for the festival and then there is a call and response ritual to do in order to activate it. The ceremony is described in the carvings.

Joybell tried to talk with a little chipmunk to ask when people were last in the circle, but it wasn’t up for more conversation than just saying hi.

In the face of that lack of information, Joybell walked into the circle. The carvings continued onto the insides of the stones, but conveyed the same information about how to activate the portal to the Feywild.

She looked around at the space inside the circle and determined that it was set up for it to be possible to perform druidic rituals (like the ones she was familiar with from her youth) there, but that there was no sign that any had been performed there in at least the last several months.

Several of us marked the location of this circle on our maps of Urnod - then we returned to the Gellyan. It was going to be a couple of days before the circle could possibly be activated and we weren’t going to hang around waiting that long.

The rest of the day and night passed without incident.


29 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 90)

First thing in the morning, Mo pulled an animal from his bag of tricks so he could have a little furry friend. He got a Giant Weasel and named it Checkers.

Joybell immediately set about making friends with Checkers, giving it treats of jerky and plenty of scritches. Someone teased her that she was ignoring Scooby.

Joybell: I’ve got two hands. I can scritch two critters.

In the early afternoon, we arrived at the docks in Auriqua. As we left the Gellyan, we confirmed with Captain Lamerin that he’d be leaving on 4 Harfastin (Campaign day 96) if we haven’t returned before then (or paid him money to stay).

Before we left, Thneed gave the captain a bag with 100 gold pieces and a note in draconic that said that the Gellyan and its crew were not responsible for anything we did. She told the captain to use it to pay the toll when they head back downriver if we weren’t aboard.

It was the day before the Festival of First Fruits and the town was busy. It was also thoroughly decorated with ribbons and decorations in reds, oranges and golds. There weren’t a lot of leaves, because the tundra had thinned the forest almost entirely away, but gourds and fruit (apples and pumpkins) and sheaves of grain were common.

Taman tried to sense his favored enemy, Fey, within five miles and found that there were a large number of them to the north, a few miles away. We figured that was the fey we’d been told would be gathering to the north of the city outside the gates.

When we got off the boat, Joybell asked the harbormaster for a recommendation for an inn. The harbormaster recommended two for us -- the Dancing Otter in the New Walk and the Platinum Arrow in the Old Walk. The Platinum Arrow was the nicer and more flashy choice. Joybell pointed out that the Dancing Otter had the better name.

Taman: Part of my plan is to be super ostentatious. Staying at the fancier inn will help that.
Joybell: Couldn’t we be ostentatious at the Dancing Otter?

We agreed that we’d head to the Platinum Arrow. As we passed through the gate between Oldest Town and the Throat parts of town we saw that the gate was painted a beautiful light blue. This was the Blue Gate -- the gate where we’d been told the Tundra Queen was contractually obligated to appear during the Feast of Stars.

Taman told a person on the street that if he knew someone named Ildna to let him know that someone named Taman was in town looking for them. Confused, the person said he would.

Once in Old Town we went to Platinum Arrow. Taman paid for us to stay for one night at the inn.

Taman, to innkeeper: This is the party of Taman. I’m looking for a man named Ildna.

It was apparent that the innkeeper knew of Ildna.

Innkeeper: You probably won’t find him here.
Taman: Where will I find him? We have important business with him.
Innkeeper: People who have met him and survived have done so nearer to the mountains.

Mo made arrangements with the innkeeper to perform around dinner time in their roomy dining room.

We went out to look around Old Town a bit. Orryk was looking for magic shops. Joybell and Fiona were looking for a place to buy some warm clothes. Joybell bought some really fuzzy, furry pieces and put them on under her armor so that the fur was poking out between the plates of the armor. Then she promptly overheated and took it all off again.

Joybell, who had been looking at the decorations and commenting on them as we travelled through the city saw that there were decorations that included artificial or preserved fruits, grains, and ribbons in a combination of the blue of the Tundra Queen’s Blue Gate and a reddish brown color. Joybell stopped in a shop and bought enough of the characteristic festival decorations to decorate the stone circle we’d seen -- including some of those blue and brown ribbons.

Shop clerk: Why are you getting those two colors? You’re not from around here.
Joybell: Nope. We’re from around Embernook. I’m just getting the decorations because they’re pretty and we might want to decorate our house. What do those ribbons mean?
Clerk, looking really uncomfortable: It’s local.

Joybell got the feeling that she was treading on a local taboo and figured out that the ribbons perhaps had something to do with the taking of children to make them into dilyarli.

Joybell: Okay, I’ll just take these other decorations and a bunch of ribbons in other colors.

After we left the shop, Joybell started watching more closely the houses decorated with those brown and blue ribbons. She saw one with the ribbons and some kids playing in the yard.

She realized with dawning horror that all those fey Taman had sensed outside of town were going to come into town the next day -- maybe at night -- and take children. Except...the people didn’t look really distressed. They didn’t look like people to whom something horrible was about to happen. Joybell pointed this out to the others.

Orryk: You have to enjoy the good times as much as you can, because the next day is going to suck.

We got back to the Inn before dinner.

Mo performed a pretty standard set and performed it well. Toward the end of his set, he said that he was going to perform a Draconic song he had newly learned, a bawdy drinking song. He then played the special song Thneed taught him, “I’m A Little Pork Roast”. By the end of his performance, everyone in the bar was doing the dance and singing along.

After Mo’s awesome performance, we headed to our rooms. The night passed without incident.


----------



## prabe (Mar 7, 2021)

Session 34: In Which Taman Thinks About Doing Something Stupid...Mo, Too

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else

Before we went to bed, or back to the inn for Mo’s awesome performance of “I’m A Little Pork Roast”, the bawdy Draconic drinking song, we had a bit of shopping to do.

Orryk found a shop selling some magic items in Oldwalk. The shopkeeper had a few things of interest.

Joybell bought a bag of holding which was offered at a deeply discounted price because it was frayed and stained around the opening. Before she bought it, she did some careful questioning of the shopkeeper, and asked Fiona to cast identify in the shop, to make sure it was really a bag of holding.
Thneed bought 5 “Designating” arrows, which put a Faerie Fire effect on a target on a hit.
Taman bought a Key of the Keepers, which will lock or unlock something once a day, with some other effects.
After that, Mo went off on a personal Mo-project. Joybell suspected he was buying pipe-stuff, but he never said.

Then we returned to the Inn, Mo did his awesome performance, and we went to bed. The night passed without incident.


Festival of Firstfruits (Campaign day 91)

We went downstairs for breakfast. People seemed generally festive and happy. Despite the dilyarli coming to take their babies. Joybell was confused. The tavern’s breakfast spread was lavish and had many baked goods, egg dishes, and fruit dishes.

Orryk: Good breakfast.

While we were eating, we discussed our plans for the day. Taman used his Ranger Senses to detect Fey -- as he had the day before, he picked up 40 or 50 of them right at the edge of his 5 mile range, outside the city to the north.

Mo: What’s our objective?
Taman: I’m just trying to find the one guy who killed my family.
Mo: So the genocide…?
Taman: The genocide can wait for later.

Joybell asked the barkeep if there was temple of the Lightbringers in town. She was told where to find one in New Walk. She had some questions about how the “giving over babies to become dilyarli” thing worked and figured the Lightbringers would be a good place to ask.

Thneed went to the bartender to ask about dangers in the area.

Thneed: I was supposed to meet someone outside of town to the north. Is there anything dangerous up there?
Bartender: Well, this is the time of year when the cold beings do a lot of non-violent harrassment.
Thneed: How non-violent?
Bartender: They don’t start actually interfering with or hurting people until after the Festival Of Stars, now it’s just taunting and pranks. Though some of them can get a little over-enthusiastic about it and get violent.
Thneed: What kind of cold beings are we talking about?
Bartender: Fey with cold powers. Some frost giants come down from the mountains to play in the cold with the fey as well.
Mo, sauntering over: Are there any people who are more vocally unhappy with the fey situation? Any who’ve lost their children, maybe?
Barkeep: There are some people who complain. There was one family who lost the lottery 3 years in a row….
Thneed: The lottery?
Barkeep: This is the day they have a lottery in the city square. Each family with a kid or kids of the right age, eight to ten, registers for it. They put one ball in a bag for each family. Three of the balls are blue, the rest are gold ore.

(Note: Gold ore is reddish brown. Hence the red-brown and blue colors of the ribbon decorations.)

The bartender told us that no child is at risk more than once and only one child from any family is at risk in any given year. Three children are chosen in the lottery but the Tundra Queen doesn’t always take all three of them. Sometimes she doesn’t take any. No one in Auriqua has ever been able to figure out a pattern or what her reasons might be.

The lottery is held just before sundown in the town square, which is just on the south side of the blue gate. The children are selected in the lottery at the Feast of Firstfruits. They don’t get taken away until the Feast of Stars, when the Tundra Queen comes to the city in person. The children are presented to her then and she takes the ones she wants.

Mo started talking to Thneed and Taman about possibly hooking up with the discontented contingent in town to derail the lottery and prevent any kids from being selected in it.

After breakfast we broke up into groups. With no library in town, we had Team Temple (Joybell, Orryk and Fiona) going to the Temple of the Lightbringers and Team Malcontents (Mo, Taman and Thneed) looking to find people unhappy with the situation in town and maybe stir up trouble.

We agreed to meet up again at the North Gate so we could head out to see if Taman could talk with some fey and maybe get a line on Ildna.

At the Temple of the Lightbringers, we found a water genasi cleric named Tolrin who was available to talk to us and answer our questions. Joybell hemmed and hawed and ummed a bit, trying to figure out how to talk about the city’s deal with the Tundra Queen. After a moment, Orryk jumped in to the rescue.

Orryk: What were people offered to give up their children to the Tundra Queen? Were they threatened?

Tolrin explained at some length. When the deal was originally made, 200 years ago, Auriqua was much smaller and under a lot of attack. In addition to the cold fey, there were frost giants, ogres, orcs, and goblinoids all besetting the city on a regular basis. Some people from the city set out to see what they could do to moderate it. They met the Tundra Queen and in speaking to her made a deal. Originally the deal was for one child every year to become a cherished and treasured servant of the Tundra Queen, a dilyarli. She’s obligated by the contract to neither harm the children she takes nor to cause them to come to harm.

Since the deal, Auriqua is no longer under attack by her forces and her forces appear to have stopped the other attacks.

Orryk: Can the city get out of the deal?
Tolrin: Yes -- they can theoretically walk away at any time, and have done so a couple of times, most recently 70 or so years ago. Every time, within a decade, the attacks on the city have gotten to a point where they renegotiated and reinstated the deal. That’s why she takes three children now.
Joybell: It sounds a little like extortion. You know -- That’s a nice city you have there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

Tolrin told us that the Tundra Queen, per the terms of the deal, takes human children between the ages of 8 and 10. The children of other races are entered into the lottery at an equivalent developmental stage. There’s a three year window of danger, but each child can only be in the lottery once.

Orryk: Who protects the city now? Does Auriqua have its own guard or army?
Tolrin: Auriqua has been growing so rapidly, because of the mines in the Ice Rasp, that the guard and the watch can’t keep up. They’re very overtaxed for the size of the city and we have crime problems as a result.

(Note: Think gold rush town...only 30 days away from the mines.)

Joybell: If the Tundra Queen was found to have harmed one of the children, what would that do to the deal?
Tolrin: I don’t know.
Joybell: Is there a written record available to the public?
Tolrin: I think there is a record in the city hall somewhere, but it’s not available to the public.
Orryk: We’re not the public.

Joybell thanked Tolrin and we left.

Meanwhile, Team Malcontents headed deeper into the city toward the Throat, looking for a seedy bar. Since that’s the seediest part of the city, finding an appropriate bar was not difficult. Once inside, Mo looked for someone who was angry drinking, or maybe an angry drunk. First thing in the morning. On a festival day.

He found someone right off. Mo ordered a drink for himself and sat down next to him.

Mo: It’s all naughty word.
Drunk: Yeah. It’s all naughty word!
Mo: Have you lost someone to the lottery?
Drunk: That’s not the naughty word I’m talking about. I’m talking about how we’re the ones who risk our lives. We go into the mines, travel the roads. The naughty word is that we have to fight the ogres and the fey out there as we go to and from. We bring back gold and get paid copper! That’s naughty word!
Mo: Yeah. That’s naughty word.

Mo then finished his drink and left, rejoining Taman and Thneed.

Mo: Well. That was the wrong guy.

They then figured that maybe they needed to go to a more family-friendly part of town and a more family-friendly bar. They went over to the Greenside part of town and found a middle class bar there. Mo went inside and looked for someone who appeared not to fit in.

He found a sullen looking dwarf.

Mo, in Dwarvish: Hi. You seem not to be enjoying the festival.
Dwarf: No. Not really.
Mo: Why?
Dwarf: Do you see any other dwarves around?
Mo, looking around the bar: No.
Dwarf, grumpily into his beer: Too much sky.
Mo: Why are you up here?
Dwarf: I heard there was gold mining going on and I thought I could help. Maybe get paid for my expertise. I’m good at mining. But it’s too easy up there in the mountains, they don’t need my help. The gold is practically lying on the ground -- you can just pick it up. It’s more like farming than mining.
Mo: Do you know anyone who does odd jobs?
Dwarf: Maybe me…
Mo: It might be considered unethical.
Dwarf: Whose ethics?
Mo: That’s the question, isn’t it? Mine…
Dwarf: Then if you think it’s okay, it’s not unethical.
Mo, appreciating that answer: We may be looking for a bit of a distraction at the lottery. What’s your name?
Dwarf: Tallok. What kind of distraction?
Mo: Just something loud and attention-grabbing on the other side of the square. We’re not sure we’ll need it.

Mo arranged to meet with Tallok just before the lottery outside the square to let him know if his services would be needed.

As Team Malcontents walked to the North Gate, Mo explained that he had an idea to use prestidigitation or other magic to change the colors of the balls and mess with the lottery, so that no family draws a blue ball.

Team Temple and Team Malcontents met up at the gate to head out of town.

Orryk: Why are we doing this?
Taman: We’re scouting.
Orryk: Okay. What about Joybell?
Joybell: Well, he wants to talk to the fey. They can’t talk to us if they don’t know we’re there. I don’t think we need to be sneaky about this.
Orryk: We have never had an ambush that you haven’t messed up by standing in the road.
Joybell: I didn’t know we were trying to ambush those times.

Orryk explained that ambushes don’t work when one person is standing in the road. Joybell nodded and took that in.

We headed out of town in the directions where Taman had earlier sensed a lot of fey. We were surrounded by low grass and scrub (the forests had been cleared in the early days of Auriqua as a city and never grown back) and there was a gentle roll to the land. We’d learned from research that the Tundra Queen was pushing the tundra further south and we could see the effects of that here.

After a couple of hours, we spotted two very large figures, frost giants, some distance away. They had clearly spotted at least some of the party members and were heading in our direction.

Orryk moved off the side of the road and hid in the scrubby bushes. Joybell, seeing that and having just been fussed at, moved off the road and hid (poorly) under Scooby’s belly. Mo also hid in the brush, with his giant weasel, Checkers. Taman, who wanted to talk to them, stayed in the road, as did Thneed.

The two giants approached Taman.

Giants (in broken Common): Hello, Small One.
Taman: Hello, Big Ones. I seek the servants of the Tundra Queen.
Giant: Why?
Taman: To parlay.

The giants had to think about that for a moment.

Giant: You mean, like, deal?
Taman: Sure…
Joybell (still hiding under Scooby): No…
Giant: Hmmm. Uh. We can maybe find someone. You and your friends in bushes wait here.
Taman: Okay.

Everyone but Orryk came out of hiding after they left.

They were gone for about an hour, during which time we took a short rest, relaxing and hanging out.

Mo spent 10 minutes of the time casting comprehend languages. He spread out a line of small whiskey glasses in front of himself on the ground and filled each one from his bottle of whiskey. Casting the spell involved drinking a shot and singing and drinking and singing until he got to a lovely stage of charismatic-tiddly drunkenness where he could understand everyone.

The giants came back with a beautiful young woman with stark white hair and skin the pale porcelain color of a frozen corpse. She was definitely not a dilyarli. At least some of the party thought she might be the Tundra Queen herself, but Taman knew that was almost certainly not the case.

Good.

Mo, sidling up to Taman as they approached: Do you know what you want to talk about?
Taman: No. I’m winging it.
Mo: You’re looking to find out about the people who killed your family. That’s your motivation in this scene.

Then he inspired Taman with some MOtivation (bardic inspiration).

Taman recognized the woman as one of the Tundra Queen’s Ice Maidens.

Taman: Word of me may have spread to you. I am Taman.
Ice Maiden: I am not aware…
Taman: Ah. Then I am not as important as I thought. I’m looking for one of your brothers. Ildna.
Ice Maiden: You’re looking because he killed someone who lived up to a deal, then.
Taman: I’ve no idea what deal my mother or father would have made. But yes.
Ice Maiden: I don’t have that information.
Taman: Where is he? How can I find him?
Ice Maiden: He’s usually up in the Ice Rasp. Usually.

She told us that Ildna is usually up in the mountains, though he does like to go after people who have completed deals with the Tundra Queen. The Queen herself is conflicted about him -- he’s one of her treasured servants and she can’t hurt him without violating the contract with Auriqua. But she has respect for the people who live up to the bargains she makes with them and doesn’t like that he’s killing them, and the deals she makes often include a promise of safety. When asked if the Tundra Queen would hold a grudge against us if we killed him, she said probably not. But we probably wouldn’t be rewarded or thanked either.

Joybell: Do you know how or why he went rogue?
Ice Maiden: Other dilyarli have interacted with him since he broke. They said he mostly wanted to talk to them. One mentioned that he said something about an epiphany. Another said he talked about a machine. Some of those he spoke to were able to walk away. Others of the Tundra Queen’s servants, including a sister-dilyarli named Allina, broke as well. It’s possible he’s broken a giant with his words of epiphany.

When the Ice Maiden mentioned that Ildna talked to people and broke them, Joybell immediately thought of the Servants of the Hunger.

Joybell: Maybe he ran into a crazy book.
Taman: Did he talk about books?
Ice Maiden: I’ve heard nothing about books. Just about him speaking many words.
Joybell: Words in many languages?
Ice Maiden: Yes.
Joybell: Oh, boy.

Orryk mentioned that though we hadn’t heard anything about a machine in connection to the Servants of the Hunger before, we did know a little bit about the machine in the Forge. That didn’t make Joybell feel much better.

Taman, to the Ice Maiden: Okay. So what’s a quick and dirty deal to make with you?
Joybell: Oh, not with her. With the Tundra Queen.
Ice Maiden: I do not make deals. But I can take you to my Queen.
Orryk: I’m not going to the Feywild and losing a thousand years.
Joybell: I’d love to go to the Feywild. I mean I don’t want to lose time there. But I’d love to see it.

We decided that we wanted to get back to Auriqua for the lottery and agreed to meet the Ice Maiden back at this spot the next day to go to the Tundra Queen to talk about a deal.

Mo, to Taman: Do you want to think about this plan?
Taman: No.
Fiona: You might want to think about the deal you want to offer?
Taman: That I am thinking about.

He was trying to think about a deal that could be completed quickly so that Ildna would possibly come find him. But Ildna doesn’t come after everyone who completes a deal with the Tundra Queen. And we don’t know the details of any of the deals involved to know if he has a pattern.

Orryk reiterated his stance that he wasn’t going to go into the Feywild and risk losing years of time there. We all agreed that we didn’t want that. However, we figured that if the Tundra Queen makes a deal that’s time sensitive, it’s in her interest for the people she’s dealing with to get out of the Feywild without losing that time. So maybe we’d be okay.

Orryk didn’t really seem persuaded.

We went back to talking about possible deals -- and whether we could set up a deal with her where we could force her to default on it and the consequences of her default would be that she no longer could take children from Auriqua but still had to protect the city.

This led to the observation that the frost giants we’d spoken to were working with the fey, possibly for them. And frost giants were among the attackers that fall upon Auriqua when it is not under the Tundra Queen’s protection (and she is not getting children from the city every year). It really does smack of extortion.

Someone said that we needed to talk to a 700 year old lawyer.

Joybell: Do we have any information we can trade to the Keeper of Secrets?

While we were still on the road walking back to the city, Orryk pulled out the Orrery. Slowly, very slowly, each spinning ring began to point north toward the Ice Rasp. Like there was a very distant signal in that direction. However, if we were getting a signal from that far away, it had to be a VERY strong one.

We decided that teleporting to the mountains might be the best approach after all. The orrery could then possibly guide us in the direction we needed to go. That meant returning to Embernook so Tulmor or Barnett could teleport us to the Masks’ Circle in the mountains.

We turned our attention back to the lottery in Auriqua. Mo tried to sound out whether the party was interested in disrupting the lottery. Joybell was very torn -- absolutely opposed to the children being taken away, so she wouldn’t stand in Mo’s way, but we don’t know what the consequences would be of the city breaking the deal with the Tundra Queen. At best they’d have to renegotiate it and would probably wind out having to give over four children a year instead of three. Orryk didn’t think it would lead to a good result. Fiona kept her counsel to herself, but didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea. Taman and Thneed seemed like they’d back Mo’s play but weren’t totally on board either.

We got back to town without running into anything on the road. Once there, we headed toward the Town Square where the lottery would be held.

Mo, disappointed that no one was entirely with him on his plan to disrupt the lottery, went to the bar to tell Tallok, the shady dwarf, that his distraction would not be needed. And to pay him a couple of gold for his time and willingness.

Taman, to Tallok: We’re all agents of chaos. You could just do it…

In the square, we saw all kinds of families -- all races, all classes -- stepping up to put their names into the lottery. We learned from the crowd that even the richest families participate and even the richest families have had their children taken. We got the sense that everyone in the city was aware that it made for too much social unrest if the children of the wealthy and the ruling classes weren’t at as much risk as those of the working classes. Some of the wealthier families will take their children out of Auriqua “for the winter”, but it is frowned upon and socially stigmatized for them to do it more than once in the life of any child. A considerable amount of effort appeared to be put into keeping the lottery actually fair.

The Town Square is shaped on one side by the City Hall, which has a balcony about 15 feet up. The guard were keeping a clear perimeter around the entrance to the hall (under the balcony) so that people could leave and enter freely. And so that order was maintained among the crowd. The city’s leaders were on the balcony -- one with a list, one holding the bag of balls, one making a record. Each family’s name was called. Someone from that family would step out onto the balcony and draw a ball. There were only townsfolk present, no dilyarli or other fey. There were also no kids of the relevant ages in the square -- it was as though the families protected the children from the process.

Joybell realized that it would have been really hard to get Mo into a position to be able to mess with the lottery such that no kids got selected this year. They had good precautions against shenanigans in place. (At the very least, we would have needed to know more about what was going to happen -- we might be able to plan something for next year….)

Joybell watched carefully to see how the families who drew the blue balls reacted -- they looked sad, but not as gutted as she would have expected. The ones who drew brown balls showed relief, but there was no happy exultation either (because that would be pretty awful to the folks who’d just drawn blue ones).

Taman and Joybell took note of which families drew blue balls - a tiefling family, a half-orc family and a human family were the losers of the lottery.

After the draw, people dispersed to other neighborhoods to go home. Joybell followed the half-orc family, just sort of going along in the same direction, trying to be a bit deceptive about not really following them. She was not successful. When they noticed her behind them, she peeled off and spotted Taman, who’d been following her, curious about what she was up to. Joybell waved for him to continue following the family.

He followed them to their home and made note of where it was.

They met up again, with the rest of the party, at the Platinum Arrow. He told her that the family had gone straight home.

Joybell: Oh, man.
Taman: Come. Get drunk. It’ll make you feel better.
Joybell: No it won’t.
Taman: Always has for me.
Orryk: It makes you feel less…

Joybell waved the rest of the party off and left the inn. She found her way to the guard house.

Joybell, to guard: Do you go through this with the lottery every year?
Guard: Yeah.
Joybell: Does it make you sad?
Guard: A little.
Joybell: Is there anyone here I can spar with? I want to fight. Is there someone here?
Guard, looking sympathetic: Yeah.

Joybell worked out and sparred with members of the town guard until she was exhausted, then she returned to the inn, where people were engaged in their usual sorts of activities.

The rest of the evening and the night passed.


1 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 92)

The next morning we headed out to go talk to the Ice Maiden again. The decorations for the festival, including the blue and brown ribbons, were mostly already taken down. As we walked through the city toward the gate, Joybell took a little detour to go by the house of the half-orc family that had lost the lottery. Like everyone else, the decorations had been taken down. There was nothing to distinguish the house -- no obvious mark that they had lost the lottery.

As we walked along the road, we went back to talking about what kind of deal Taman should make.

Orryk: If you want to make a deal that gets attention, make it something where the town still gets protection but no longer has to give up children.
Taman: But she probably won’t take that deal. She’s like a thousand year old lawyer.

We decided along the way that there wasn’t any deal that Taman could make that would be likely to get Ildna’s attention and also be something we could do without danger.

However, we did have some information we could offer to Nicolana, the Keeper Of Secrets, in exchange for information that would help us find Ildna. And also that might help us get Auriqua out from under having to give children to the Tundra Queen, without losing her “protection” over the city.

The Ice Maiden met us again at the same place on the road we’d encountered her the day before. Once again, she was escorted by the two frost giants.

Taman: We have returned. The group has come to an agreement that making a deal isn’t in our best interest. But we thought to show up to tell you personally.
Ice Maiden: We appreciate the courtesy.
Orryk: Could the Tundra Queen guarantee that time passes there for us as it would here?
Ice Maiden, to Orryk: She can ensure that.
Ice Maiden, to Taman: You are under no obligation to make a deal.
Joybell, before she could leave: Ummm... I’ve heard that the Feywild...I used to have a friend, a pixie named Wren, you probably don’t know her. Anyway, she told me that the Feywild is beautiful. I’d love to see it, but we don’t want to lose lots of time. Can I just maybe peek through a portal and see it?
Ice Maiden: I could, but I probably shouldn’t.
Joybell: Is it as beautiful as I’ve heard?
Ice Maiden: More.
Joybell, shoulders slumping: Yeah, I thought so. Okay.

WIth that we headed back toward the city and arrived there without incident. Mo headed off to follow up with his personal mission from a couple of days ago.

We went to the boat to talk to Captain Lamerin about heading back to Embernook. He wanted to leave in the morning, rather than this close to sundown, which made sense. So we made plans to spend one more night in Auriqua.

Back at the Platinum Arrow, Thneed asked the innkeeper if the town somehow recompensed those who lost the lottery. Apparently they do not do anything for those who merely draw the blue balls. Those who actually lose children do get some support from the community.

Over dinner we talked about Fiona doing a sending spell to talk with Nicolana about whether we can make a deal for information about Taman’s parents deal with the Tundra Queen. Fiona couldn’t do that until the next morning though.


2 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 93)

The next morning, while we were at the inn eating breakfast, Fiona sent a message to Nicolana.

Fiona, through the spell: What information do you want in exchange for Taman’s family’s deal? We think we may know what happened to Ildna.
Nicolana, after a short pause: We’ll have to negotiate. I’ll be there.
Fiona, to the party: She’s apparently coming to negotiate.

Joybell, knowing that the Captain was expecting us to leave on the Gellyan first thing, ran to the docks to tell him that there would be a bit of a delay, but hopefully not too much. She got back to the inn about half an hour later -- just in time to see Nicolana, still appearing to be a human woman of about 25 years old, walk into the bar.

She sat down at the table with us.

Nicolana: What do you have?
Orryk: We have Turnik Steeltear’s information on how he made Masks. And his lists of jobs and contacts.
Nicolana: Do you have that information here?
Orryk: It’s in Embernook.
Nicolana: I can’t go to Embernook. When you get back there let me know and we can meet somewhere else.

We told her about buying Kalmarn and having a whole village outside of Embernook at our disposal. She appeared to be amused.

Orryk: What is this information worth? Is there anything else we can ask for?
Nicolana, dodging that question: What do you think happened to Ildna?

We told her what the Ice Maiden had told us about him speaking in many languages and his mention of having an epiphany and something about a machine.

Joybell: We think he may have gotten exposed to the Hunger Between Worlds, like with that book we gave you.
Nicolana: Do not under any circumstances go into the machine. The Epiphany Machine tells nothing but lies. It is a connection to the Hunger Between Worlds.
Joybell: We think we might be able to find it and destroy it.
Nicolana: It is probably not still where Ildna found it, if that is what happened. It doesn’t stay in one place for long but moves around on its own. It gives people epiphanies that change them, or reverse them, perhaps.

Huh.

We agreed that we’d send to her from Kalmarn once we had the books there and she left out the door of the inn. We did not attempt to follow her.

We headed to the Gellyan, about an hour after our intended departure, to sail back toward Embernook.

Mo: This will certainly be a consequence-free boat ride!

As we boarded the boat, Joybell asked if we could please stop at the stone circle on the way to see if it was used during the festival. The others in the party, and the captain, agreed.


----------



## prabe (Mar 13, 2021)

Session 35: What Have We Done?

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


2 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 93) (immediately after)

Before we got on the boat for our consequence-free boat ride, Taman stopped at a shop and bought a shield. Very good idea.

We got to the Gellyannn and boarded for our return to Embernook (and Kalmarn). We noticed that Captain Lamerin had done everything he could to change the appearance of his boat as much as possible -- repainting where possible, shifting things around on deck, and so on.

After we boarded, Mo gave Captain Lamerin the gold he’d taken from the bag of money recovered from the sandbar that the wreck had been on (the money given in response to the dragon’s extortion).

Joybell asked the captain and the other sailors about other boat traffic on the river and if there had been reports of what was going on. There had been a couple of other ships that had arrived from Embernook, and a few that had headed downriver, since we got to Auriqua. The arrivals reported that the wreck was entirely gone, the work of MOgilla Gorilla on the way up. All of the sailors reported a strong sense that they were being watched as they traveled up the river.

To support the captain’s attempt to make the ship look different, Mo tried to use prestidigitation to change the color of the sails. He managed to make a sort of patchy green shade. He also agreed to the captain’s request that he not ride in the battle hammock behind the ship, because that’s very distinctive and would undo all efforts to make the Gellyann look different.

Before we set sail we reviewed all we knew about dragons in general and green dragons in specific. Dragons are inherently magical -- they all have magical abilities innately. In addition, many if not most also get levels of one or another (or several) spellcasting classes.

Green dragons are lawful evil -- so they’re socially controlling. They can be negotiated with and are willing to do so.

(GM: If there’s anything else the party wants to know about dragons before heading out ...
Orryk: We know enough to make an ill-informed decision.)

Mo: There’s a dragon without income and a city that needs protection for less than three kids a year.

Mo had an idea that if we got the dragon to agree to be the protector of Auriqua instead of the Tundra Queen, the dragon would just want _gold_ and not want children. He thought this should be our main play in negotiating with the dragon -- brokering this deal. Joybell objected that we didn’t have any right to negotiate for the city or offer the city to the dragon or anyone else. It’s not our place and we have no power over it.

Those of us who saw it agreed that the dragon didn’t look all that big when we saw it flying over. But it’s hard to gauge the size of something flying overhead because of a lack of reference points.

After about half a day of travel, we arrived at the stone circle and the Gellyann pulled over so that Joybell, Orryk, Taman and Thneed could go see if it looked like it had been used to make a portal to the Feywild during the festival.

When we got to the circle, it clearly had not been decorated for the festival at all and didn’t appear to have been used either for regular ritual purposes or for making a portal. Joybell pulled some of the Festival of Firstfruits decorations she’d bought out of her bag of holding and left some decorations on the altar.

Taman carved his name on a tree nearby.

Orryk: Let’s head toward the dragon…

We travelled the rest of the day without incident.

That night we could hear the sounds of movement and activity on the shore so Orryk brought Omnath out as a steam mephit and sent him flying around the riverbanks. Omnath saw some gnome-sized winged, reptilian humanoids (winged kobolds). One of the kobolds spotted Omnath, freaked out, and ran away. Omnath could still hear chattering and rustling in the underbrush.

Having seen one kobold there were undoubtedly lots of them as kobolds mainly come in groups.

Orryk reported Omnath’s kobold sighting to the group.

Orryk: Kobolds aren’t worth our time, unless they make themselves to be.

The rest of the night passed without incident.


3 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 94)

The next day, Mo spent the day changing the color of the sails every hour or so with the prestidigitation spell, so that if the dragon had multiple agents keeping an eye on us, they’d give confusing reports.

At various times during the day, the party, while watching the shore, spotted groups of lizard folk on the shore watching the ship. They weren’t doing anything other than watching. Joybell wanted to talk to them to try and find out what was going on with the dragon, but we didn’t stop.

Other than seeing the lizardfolk and not interacting with them, the day passed without incident.

During the night, while Thneed and Mo (and Checkers) were on watch, Checkers looked up at just the right time to spot something falling out of the dark night sky. It was about the size and roughly the shape of a cinderblock and it hit the deck with a thud. No one on the deck could see anything up in the sky -- it apparently had been dropped from higher than darkvision could see.

Everyone in the party, and in the crew, woke up at that because it was like something punching the ship.

On investigation, there was a piece of cloth wrapped around the dust and shattered chunks of a rock. Mo cast comprehend languages so he could read the message written on it in draconic.

You owe me a wreck.

Captain Lamerin: What was that?
Taman: Are you familiar with thugs throwing a rock through a window?
Thneed: It’s a message from the dragon.
Lamerin: What’s the message?
Mo: We owe him a wreck.
Lamerin: That’s it! Come morning, I’m putting you off the ship.

That lead to a bit of chaos that culminated in Fiona thwapping Mo for something he said.

Joybell, very earnest: I’m very concerned about your proceeding without us. If the dragon wants your ship, it will try to take it with or without us on board. And you won’t be able to fight it.

We asked him to keep us on until halfway through the day, just to get us closer to the wreck so we don’t have to walk as far to get there, which he agreed to. He also agreed to let us off and wait for a bit, though not forever, for us to return.


4 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 95)

As the ship pulled to shore and we prepared to debark, Mo threw a card from his deck of illusions onto the deck.

Mo: This might help you.

The illusion was of a lich.

The captain screamed until we reassured him that it was just an illusion and maybe having an illusory lich aboard would be helpful.

Before we got off, Joybell gave him 100 gold pieces and told him that she’s very concerned and hopes they stay for a day or two because she is worried about him being undefended.

As we walked away, Orryk sent Omnath flying back to the ship with a pouch with 25 gp. It also had a note that said “Sorry for Mo.”

Mo got in his battle-hammock and flew up high enough to get a bit of an overview as we proceeded down the road. He spotted some lizardfolk walking around out in the distance and we could see some lizardfolk tracks in the road.

As we walked, Mo was working on perfecting his performance of “I’m a Little Pork Roast”.

After a bit, we ran into a cluster of lizardfolk -- all of them armed with javelins and clubs and carrying shields. Except the one in the middle who had a staff. They seemed a bit puzzled that we were there in the road.

Mo: Hello. We’re looking for the Green Lord. Do you happen to know where he lives?
Lizardman with Staff: Why do you want to see him?
Mo: Joybell, earmuffs. We want to see if we can make arrangements.
Joybell: We don’t want him to attack the Gellyann when his beef is with us.
Lizard Shaman: We can take you to him.
Mo: Why don’t you tell us where he is and we can go talk to him ourselves.
Lizard Shaman: We can take you to him. Otherwise you’ll have to fight your way in.
Mo: How many are in your village? We don’t want to kill you.
Taman: He does not speak for us.
Mo, to the party: Huddle up. We could let them get us most of the way there...then kill them.

We ultimately agreed to let them lead us. There was a bit of shuffling and negotiation after that as we made it clear to them that we were not comfortable having any of them behind us. They weren’t really comfortable with having us behind them.

Joybell, to the Shaman: We will not attack you from behind, I give you my word. If any of my friends try to do so, I will defend you.

That calmed their concerns enough that we could proceed.

They led us off the road and through the forest. After an hour of traveling, Taman and Thneed were able to point out to the lizardfolk easier paths (doing their ranger naughty word) and we were not hampered by the difficult terrain in the forests. The lizardfolk took their advice without comment, but without acknowledging doing so.

After a while, two of the lizardfolk peeled off and left us with an escort of four, including the Shaman. Joybell chatted with them all day, trying to get a sense of what kind of people they were -- she found that they were okay people, the normal mix of good and bad, basically well intentioned, that sort of thing. The Shaman was a druid, so they talked about that and the forest and the natural beauties they’d seen.

Mo figured out which one was the most naive and talked to him.

Mo: How long have you been patrolling?
Lizardman: About a month. We eat well.
Mo: How long have you been living under the Green Lord?
Lizardman: As long as I can remember.
Mo: What do you do for fun?
Lizardman: We don’t have time.
Mo: That’s a shame.

Mo pulled out his pipe and smoked, blowing out smoke rings. He offered the pipe to the Lizardman.

Lizardman: It smells like someone killed a skunk and left it in a well and lit it on fire. No thanks.
Mo: That’s a good description.

When we made camp, Fiona cast a tiny hut for the party to sleep in, but the lizardfolk had to sleep outside. Which suited them fine.

During the night, some winged kobolds came to talk to the lizardfolk.

Kobolds: What are you doing with these?
Shaman: They want to talk to the Green Lord.
Kobold: What??

After that some of the winged kobolds flew away. After a while, the rest flew off in a slightly different direction.


5 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 96)

The next day, Mo talked with the lizard folk about Tallyxtillon, the Green Lord.

They told him that he’s big and old. He appears to them to have learned some druidic magic, but he also definitely has other magic as well. They said he’d been in his current lair for some time and has modified the populations of local kobolds somehow -- there are a lot more winged kobolds than would be normal and some other weirder kobolds as well.

Mo: So why was he doing the river scam?

The shaman said that he didn’t know what the dragon had in mind but he might have been trying to get some sort of control over the (largely) human societies in Embernook and Auriqua because he seems to like having control over the local societies.

Mo: Do you worship him?
Shaman: We try to avoid him. When we can’t, we try not to displease him.
Orryk: Do the kobolds worship him?
Shaman: The kobolds consider him to be a revered ancestor. He’s had some influence on their development and their form as a race. Lots of kobolds can do magic around here. The dragon uses them as his tools.
Joybell: So the lizardfolk doing the scam at the wreck were in his employ?
Shaman: The ones who live close to him can’t avoid him.
Thneed: How do your people get along with the kobolds?
Shaman: We don’t like them tons, but they’re closer to the dragon and we don’t want to anger him.
Mo: Is he bigger than a giant ape?

When the lizardfolk just looked confused at that, Mo cast polymorph and turned himself into a MOgilla Gorilla, size huge.

The lizardfolk, taken a bit aback, agreed that the Green Lord was about that same size, though he’s longer.

We took that information and figured that the Green Lord is an adult dragon, about 100 years old, perhaps. Could be worse.

Joybell, to the Shaman: What will happen to you when we get to the Green Lord? We don’t want to call you to his attention.
Shaman: We can pass you off to the kobolds.
Mo: Do you feel oppressed by the dragon?
Shaman: If he were gone we wouldn’t have to avoid him.
Mo: How many of you did you say there are?
Shaman: I didn’t.

We were not sure how to use the information that they don’t like the dragon.

Thneed: If we do fight the dragon in his cave…
Orryk: Does the dragon live in a cave?
Shaman: Of a sort. He lives in a cenote. There’s water at the bottom of a large hole. The main entrance to his cave is under the water. There are ways to get to him that don’t go through the water -- that’s how the kobolds get to his chamber.

As we had these conversations, we continued to proceed.

The day passed without incident. During the course of this day (and the previous) we saw parties of lizardfolk in the forest -- mostly just walking by or going off on their own business.

When we made camp, Fiona again cast a tiny hut for the party to sleep in with no objection from the lizardfolk.


6 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 97)

The next day, we resumed on our way. We didn’t see any more lizard folk around, as we had been the previous two. We also didn’t see any of the kobolds, but that was less surprising. When one of us commented on it the lizardfolk told us they don’t like day.

Toward the end of the day, the forest started becoming more thicket-y and underbrushy. The thickets and underbrush started form twisty and turny little mazes of brush.

The animals we saw were all watching us -- deer, squirrels. Expecting the usual level of conversation she got from squirrels (not a lot of depth or vocabulary), Joybell decided to talk to one.

Joybell, to a squirrel: Hello.
Squirrel: Good day.

This was a bit creepy and disconcerting.

Joybell: Is someone watching through your eyes?
Squirrel: Yes.
Joybell: Is it the Green Lord?
Squirrel: Yes.
Joybell: Tell him hi for us.
Squirrel: Good day.

During the course of the rest of the day, Joybell occasionally talked to the squirrels, as she had opportunities -- in the same vein as waving at security cameras.

Toward the end of the day, the Shaman leads us to a cave with kobolds. After some discussion in Draconic with the kobold who appeared to be in charge, the Shaman and the lizardfolk agreed to stay the night with us on the outskirts of the kobold village. The kobolds appeared to believe that we were there to kill the Green Lord and didn’t want to be responsible for taking us to him and getting killed themselves.

Ultimately, it was agreed that the kobolds would take us to Tallyxtillon in the morning. And they hoped we’d fit in their tunnels.

Joybell talked to the Shaman in Common and asked if they could wait for us, maybe half a day back, before where we talked to the squirrel, so they could lead us back to the road.

Joybell: We’ll know if we’re going to live or die in half a day or so, so you won’t have to wait long.
Shaman: We can wait.
Joybell: We’d hate to have to fight our way through all your people.

FIona cast a tiny hut and made a safe place for us to camp overnight.

During the night, we heard some argument between the kobolds and the lizardfolk. The kobolds were not thrilled that we’d been brought there and were not inclined to let the lizardfolk leave.

The folks who can understand draconic (and who translated for the rest of us) got the sense that the kobolds felt that if the lizardfolk brought us here to kill the Green Lord, they want the dragon to eat _them_ when we fail.

In our hut we spoke quietly among ourselves, trying to get at least a sense of what our goals and aims were.

Mo: My nanny killed a dragon single-handedly. The way she told it it was a giant, ancient dragon.
Thneed: That’s the way I’d tell it too.

Joybell asked if she could start the conversation with the dragon, because she’s really not comfortable with offering Auriqua at all -- it’s not ours to offer and she wasn’t convinced that it would really be a trade up from the Tundra Queen, even with the price of up to three children per year.


7 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 98)

The next morning there were 3 kobolds ready to take us to the Green Lord. Three of the lizardfolk left the village, but the Shaman remained to go with us.

As with the lizardfolk, there was a bit of shuffling as we made it clear that we weren’t going to let any of the kobolds be behind us. Eventually we wound out with the Shaman leading the way with the three kobolds immediately behind him. They accepted that without too much argument.

We spent half the day proceeding single file through many narrow passages, taking various turns and with side passages coming in and out, heading generally down. In several places we had to squeeze through. At times, Mo was riding flat on top of the broom because that made it a bit easier for him to navigate the tight passages. Taman tried to keep a mental map of how to get back out as we were proceeding.

Around noon-ish we arrived at a sharp dip in the path, with water in it.

The water disappeared and we went down a steep incline and then back up it. After we got back up to the top of the incline the bottom of it re-filled with water (like the U-trap in a sewer line).

(Note: My notes about this entire conversation are terrible and very spotty. I’m not good at taking notes about conversations I’m involved in and then I was sort of being gobsmacked at what was going on.)

Joybell started with asking how we could turn his ire away from the Gellyann and turn his attention away from travel and trade on the river.

Tallyxtillon: I want to shape the decisions of the governments in Embernook and Auriqua.
Joybell: What decisions?
Tallyxtillon: Embernook’s people won’t turn on each other. And there are protections there.
Joybell: But what are the decisions?
Tallyxtillon: They’re all too connected to the Basalt Henge. Why should druids be interested in rock?
Joybell: As a member of the druidic faith and someone who trained at the Henge, I can talk to that. Rock, earth, is the foundation on which plants and ecosystems live. Without rocks, the other elements are out of balance and without support. The Basalt Henge strives to maintain balance and that provides a foundation on which forests like this one can live.
Tallyxtillon: The problem with Embernook is that I want to control the government.
Joybell: That won’t work there. The Administrator is powerful.
Tallyxtillon: My agents have been unsuccessful. I cannot get a toe-hold over the people or any power over the government in either city.
Joybell: You’ve chosen your territory poorly. Auriqua is under the protection of the Tundra Queen. Embernook is under the protection of a powerful entity as well.

Joybell got the sense that Tallyxtillon thought there was more than one entity protecting Embernook. Huh.

Joybell: Maybe you need to find a different territory….

As she said that, she realized that she was basically setting him to go be a problem for other cities and other people without such powerful protections and got very quiet.

So Mo stepped in.

Mo offered him a 1000gp gem, which he wasn’t overly interested in. He wasn’t disinterested, but it wasn’t going to be a big motivator either.

Mo: We’re working on a long-term plan to deal with the Tundra Queen.
Tallyxtillon: What’s your plan?
Taman, waving his rapier: Stab her with this.
Tallyxtillon, laughing: Not much of a plan.
Mo: We’re starting with her underlings and working our way up. But our interests may be somewhat aligned.
Thneed: If your agents have failed, you need better agents.
Tallyxtillon: Are you offering your services?
Joybell, immediately concerned: For what?
Mo: For a single, discrete service, maybe...
Thneed: Have you tried opening diplomatic relations?
Tallyxtillon: The problem with that is they then know you’re there and are coming from the outside.
Joybell: So you want to subvert them from within?
Mo: What do you want from us?
Tallyxtillon: If you can cause Auriqua to break its deal with the Tundra Queen that would be helpful to me.
Mo: They would be unprotected from the cold fey and giants and other dangers of the north.
Taman: If you would protect them from those dangers…
Tallyxtillon: I would prefer the town to break their deal without my mention….but as long as the city is undefended.
Joybell: If we leave the town undefended, how would you treat them? Would you treat them well?
Tallyxtillon: I would treat them the way I’d treat any other servants.
Joybell: Oh, dear.
Mo: I think we can get them to break their deal. We can give it a good shot.
Tallyxtillon: If that’s what you’re offering….
Mo: On one condition. That you not slaughter the citizens indiscriminately.
Tallyxtillon: Oh, I’m very discriminating.
Mo: There are great riches in the town, but the lives of the citizens are not part of the deal.
Tallyxtillon: Hmmm. Well. I think that if you want to make a deal where you cause the town to break their deal with the Tundra Queen and I don’t kill and eat you right now, I need collateral. Some reason for you to come back.
Mo: I’ll offer my broom of flying with the battle hammock. Also all the money I have available.
Tallyxtillon: Money works less well as collateral than one would expect. Especially with adventurers.

Mo then offered him a locket that he pulled out from under his armor (and which none of us had ever seen).

Mo: This was a gift from an admirer. I’ve worn it since I left my village and I would definitely come back for it.
Tallyxtillon: So you’d come back. What about them?
Taman: We’re a group.
Joybell: We’re the Wonderful Band.

The Green Lord thought for a moment.

Tallyxtillon: I will hold the river travel that concerns you so as your collateral. I will cease interfering with travel on the Hochor River, for the time being. If, after the Festival of Stars, Auriqua is still under the Tundra Queen’s protection, I will start destroying every ship that passes the sandbar that my wreck was on.

That was the final word in our conversation and the kobolds led us out past the U-trap.

Mo, as we walked away: That’s not an improvement.
Joybell: We have three months.

We ended as we walked through the tunnels following our kobold escort.


----------



## prabe (Mar 20, 2021)

Session 36: In the Kobold Warren


Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


7 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 98) (immediately after)

We were led away by the kobold escort/guards past the u-trap entrance. Our escort consisted of one of the human-sized, burly over-muscled (“Steroid kobolds”) kobolds, one human-sized kobold with a shield (“Shield kobolds”), one normal-sized kobold who looked perhaps a bit more on the ball than your average kobold (“Sorcerer kobolds”), and one entirely normal looking kobold. The hallway was worked stone and we could see some arrow slits, at kobold height, in the walls as we passed.

As we were walking down the corridor, Joybell, hoping to find a language in which we could talk freely, started cussing in Gnomish. She used all the curse words she’d heard Orryk use, insulted the kobold’s parentage, called them the dragon’s anal beads, all the worst things she could think of about kobolds in general and the one nearest to her in specific.

Orryk started laughing. Taman walked along just staring into the infinite distance. The Lizardman shaman, named Ssythrov, chuckled. (Yes, by special request, the Shaman has a name, since he’s apparently going to be with us for a while.)

The kobolds however, didn’t react.

Once she’d established that Gnomish was a language that at least part of the party could use to talk freely, she had no idea what to actually say and just sort of floundered. We got about 100’ down the hallway past the u-trap with Joybell swearing and then just stammering.

Thneed, in Elvish to Fiona: We don’t need to make a plan now. We can make it later.

Thneed then started talking to Ssythrov, telling him a joke about something.

While Thneed was talking to Ssythrov, Mo was watching for a good moment. When he saw that the corridor ahead of us widened out and our escort had entered the chamber, and we were past all but the last arrow slit, he used the wand of web to tie up the four escorting us.

As soon as the web hit, Thneed yelled out for people to get down and drew her bow, waiting for a clear shot. Mo started mocking one, leaving it looking deeply wounded by his insults.

Some of the kobolds were stuck in the web and struggled against it. The Sorcerer started firebolting the web he was stuck in, burning it and himself.

Orryk ran up and shivved the one that Mo had mocked, dropping it, then attacked the Shield kobold. Omnath breathed a cloud of dust on the Steroid and Shield guys and blinded them both. Fiona followed up with Toll the Dead.

The Steroid guy, blind, ripped himself out of the webbing in a burst of brute strength then ran right into the wall.

Joybell, confused: Wait? We’re attacking now?

Then she attacked the Shield guy and dropped it.

Taman cast ensnaring strike on the Sorcerer and caught it in his ensnaring vines, then he crouched down to get cover behind Orryk, and to get below the last arrow slit, because an arrow from it had narrowly missed him.

Ssythrov dropped to the ground, giving Thneed a clear shot, which she took at the Sorcerer, dropping him. Then she was able to fire again and took two shots at the Steroid guy. Mo then immediately mocked him.

Mo: Steroids are going to shrink your testicles.

Orryk pummeled the Steroid guy with fists of unbroken air, staying out of the webbed area. Fiona stepped over Ssythrov, prone on the ground, and Tolled the Steroid guy.

As soon as she did that, someone on the other side of the arrow slits cast a shatter spell, causing a clap of thunder that the dragon certainly heard back in his chamber that did damage to Fiona and less to Ssythrov.

Joybell peeked in the arrow slit -- there was an unarmed kobold running away sort of in the direction of the dragon cave (but at an angle that looked like it might be going around) and another, puzzled looking kobold with a shortbow. She fired magic missiles from her wand through the arrow slit, dropping the archer and hurting the sorcerer, but not killing it.

Taman killed the Steroid guy, the last kobold standing, with arrows. Mo immediately dropped the webbing and ran into the chamber.

Mo, yelling: Let’s teleport out of here.

Then he threw up a rope trick and we all climbed up, handing Scooby up into it as well. Mo used prestidigitation to to make a circle on the ground and Orryk used his power over the elements to reinforce the effect of us having teleported out of there.

Once we were all settled, and Fiona had been cured with the bead from Joybell’s necklace, we started talking.

Orryk: What’s your plan?
Mo: First, I apologize. This is at least 30% my fault.
Fiona: ::eyeroll::
Taman: We weren’t going to walk away to do this deal…

Before the conversation could go any further, a group of four kobolds (looked like 2 sorcerers and 2 shields) came running down the hall into the chamber. They saw the corpses and the fake teleportation circle on the floor. They looked a little puzzled at the circle and the two sorcerers started talking about it. Thneed reported that they’d never seen one that looked quite like this, but maybe it was possible. They couldn’t rule it out for sure.

Thneed: They don’t know we’re still here or where we are. That’s an advantage.

We asked Ssythrov if he knew of any other way to get to the dragon chamber, but the only other time he’d been taken to see Tallyxtillon, he’d been brought the same way.

Thneed: Once the coast is clear, we can try to get into the side tunnels.

The kobolds below us started brushing the circle out and as they did so, Orryk let his mold earth drop and Mo let his prestidigitation drop. The kobolds then went away down the tunnel.

After we’d rested for an hour, and were all feeling a bit better, we came out of the rope trick. Orryk had Omnath explore down one of the arrow slit tunnels to see if we could figure out how it connected. Omnath followed the tunnel that Joybell shot magic missiles into and found that it connected up with the passage we were in a ways ahead. Omnath also saw one shield kobold and one sorcerer kobold walking along, talking, and heading sort of in our direction. Orryk popped him back into his pocket dimension before he was spotted.

We all did our best to move into sneaky-type positions - Joybell failed terribly but Scooby nudged her into a better spot and covered for her. The two kobolds walked down the tunnel toward us, talking with one another. They were clearly expecting no trouble and their weapons weren’t out.

Orryk popped out of hiding, hit the Shield kobold with his fists of unbroken air, then popped back around the corner out of sight. While that kobold was looking around, very confused at having been punched by air out of nowhere, Thneed shot it twice and jumped back around her own corner. Joybell galloped up on Scooby, dropping the Shield guy and hitting the Sorcerer with a “glancing crit”. Other party members tried to hit the sorcerer, but missed, until Fiona cast acid splash on him and then Orryk punched it to death with his fists of unbroken air.

We put the bodies into Joybell’s bag of holding.

Joybell: ::sigh::
Mo: Before we go into this fight that I started, I have plenty of potions of healing.

We continued down the tunnel on the other side of the arrow slits from the corridor to the u-trap and the dragon chamber. Ssythrov the Shaman wild-shaped into a very large snake, which was pretty cool.

Thneed and Taman did ranger stuff to keep us from getting lost.

(Player: Mo’s subplot is to fight this dragon.)

We proceeded along the tunnel -- it only had one arrow slit onto the corridor to the dragon chamber, then it pulled away from that corridor and continued off at an angle and a slight incline. We proceeded along it for about 15 minutes, getting way past where it could possibly hook directly up with the dragon chamber.

We weren’t surprised when the 5’ tunnel we’d been moving along widened out into a large chamber with three other exits. A group of five miners (ordinary kobolds) were working on one side of the room and there were two clusters in the vicinity of the other three exits. Each of these clusters had a Sorcerer, a Steroid and a Shield. (The three other exits went off the irregularly roundish room roughly at 10 o’clock, 12 o’clock, and 2 o’clock. There was a Sorcerer- Steroid-Shield cluster at 11 o’clock and one at 1 o’clock. The miners were in an alcove at 7 o’clock. Our tunnel entered the room around 5 o’clock.) The Sorcerers and miners were completely unaware that we were coming down the hall, even with Joybell leading the way, but the Steroids and Shields did hear us approach.

Joybell ran into the room then jumped on Scooby and charged the nearest Steroid. Mo used the wand of web to catch the miners and the more distant Sorcerer-Steroid-Shield cluster then dropped to the ground so people behind him could see and shoot. Taman and Thneed waited for the party in front of them to clear a bit so they could dash into the room, but were bottled up in the hallway in a manner quite reminiscent of the staircases in the boarding house in Embernook.

The two Steroid guys attacked Joybell, but both of them missed -- then Orryk created a bonfire right underneath one of them. If that weren’t enough problems for him, Taman then stepped into the room and attacked him as the flames licked around him.

Thneed climbed over Mo and squeezed past Fiona and took two shots at the guy in the fire and the Shield Kobold next to him.

The two miners who were stuck in the web got free (three of them were trapped by the web into the alcove they’d been digging out) moved out of the web toward us. The other ran away down the hall away from us.

All of us were keenly aware of the problem of that one miner running away and getting the word out that we were still there, but there wasn’t much that Joybell could do except attack the guy in front of her. Mo had Checkers attack one of the Steroid guys and threw a fuzzy thing from his back of tricks into the web, just as he let the web drop. A baboon landed and looked around for a moment, before being killed by the Shield kobold that had been trapped in the web.

There was some fighting and combat, shuffling and scuffling. Orryk let the first bonfire drop then cast it again on one of the miners. We were all trying to get through the combat without using any spell slots or items that we needed to worry about recharging.

Taman chased after the running miner to keep it from getting away.

There was more combat -- Taman got hit, Joybell failed to drop someone. Mo cast another web, catching the miners, a Sorcerer and a Shield.

Fiona, fed up and realizing that we’d gotten into the realm of a false economy in prolonging this combat rather than using spells, cast fireball, getting almost the entire room and everyone in it. The miners and Sorcerers died instantly in the flame. One of the Steroid guys, who’d been taking a lot of blows, died. The other one survived, but looked hurt. One of the Shields died in the fire.

The other Shield got dropped by Orryk who then turned to the surviving Steroid and hit him as well. Thneed dropped the Steroid shortly after.

All that was left at that point was the fleeing miner, who Taman had caught up to at that point. After a shriek and another attempt to run, Taman dispatched him with his scimitar.

While FIona used her firebolt cantrip to reduce all the kobold bodies (including the two in Joybell’s bag of holding) to ash, Taman and Orryk sneaked down the hall the miner had fled down to see what they could see down there. The passage opened into a small, natural-looking chamber with two other exits. The chamber looked semi-abandoned -- it appeared that the miner had simply been running away, rather than running toward anything in particular.

The rest of the group headed down to the small chamber. Listening for noises at the two other exits, we heard lapping water and smelled fresh air at one of them. The other was quiet and smelled like nothing more than the air we’d been breathing (parfum de kobold cave). So we headed toward the lapping water and fresh air.

We came out at a small cavern open to the cenote above the lake. We saw a couple of humanoid skeletal remains in the cave with lime crusting the bones. One of the skeletons was wearing a bright green knit cap that was in good shape considering the condition of the bones.

Fiona spent 10 minutes casting detect magic (yes) and then ten more minutes casting identify. As soon as the spell gave her the information that this was a cap of water-breathing we all heard a voice.

Voice: Are you here to kill the dragon? Good. I was hoping someone would find me.

We realized that the cap was speaking to us. Mo put it on, to see what happened, but he was not possessed and nothing bad happened.

Cap: I’m hoping you have better luck than these guys. My name is Suutha. They tried fifteen years ago -- I cast water-breathing on all of them.
Fiona: How strong were they?
Mo: On a scale of one to twenty.
Suutha: They were proud that they’d just figured out how to polymorph into animals and such.

(Note: They were seventh level.)

Taman looked out the mouth of the cavern -- the water level in the cenote is about twenty feet below the ledge.

Mo, to Suutha: Weird question, why do you talk?
Suutha: Magical accident, I think. That’s how items get sentient.
Orryk: The people you came with had items of their own that are now in the dragon’s horde. Is there anything we should be running to grab and use in a fight?
Suutha: No. The dragon seemed to have a ring of fire resistance though -- they weren’t expecting not to be able to use fire against it. The dragon is also a druid, just so you know.

Through conversation with Suutha we realized that it wants to go to the Plane of Water. That made it sort of a kindred spirit for Orryk, so he got the cap. The further information from Fiona’s identify was that the cap would make a bubble of breathable air around the head of the wearer. Suutha can also cast the water-breathing spell, which will be enough to allow all of us to get to the dragon’s cave without having to worry about drowning.

Suutha reported that this was an abandoned cave that no one had come to before us in the 15 years it had been there. We decided to take a long rest and attack the dragon first thing in the morning.

We will wake the next morning at 9th level.


----------



## prabe (Mar 28, 2021)

Session 37: We Killed a Freakin’ Dragon, Y’all!!

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


7 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 98) (immediately after)

While we were hanging out in the cavern, Fiona got contacted by Barnett via a sending spell. “The Gellyan got back to Auriqua. Captain says he dropped you off to fight a dragon. Are you okay?”

Fiona thought for a moment then responded: “Going to fight a dragon, yes. If you don’t hear from us in the next couple of days, assume the worst.”

Before we settled down to rest, we talked to Suutha, the cap of water breathing, about the fight that its previous party had with the dragon. Suutha gave a detailed after-action report that basically boiled down to -- they died quickly and horribly. The two that survived to escape swam through the cenote and found that the water had piranhas in it that were attracted to blood. And the dragon can cast something like an entangle spell, though it seemed more powerful than that and perhaps to be connected to it being his lair.

We decided to use a pass without trace spell to try and sneak into the cavern -- having some element of surprise seemed like it would serve us well.

We speculated a bit as to whether Tallyxtillon could see through the eyes of the piranhas in the cenote. Someone (maybe Fiona?) remembered some research done on dragons that said that as forest creatures, green dragons can see through the eyes of forest animals, mammals and birds, but not fish.

Joybell decided to dismiss Scooby, on the grounds that he would inevitably die to the first poison breath attack and why put him through that. To keep her from being locked down and unable to move, she borrowed Mo’s broom of flying.

Mo taught her the command word for the broom (the dwarven word for “dick”).

We decided to give Taman the potion of invulnerability, because he’s prone to rushing into things and a little fragile. (Note: Also because John arrived late and we were playing Taman by committee -- we didn’t want him dying on our watch.) We gave Orryk the potion of frost giant strength.

Joybell suggested that Mo’s polymorph could be a rescue option -- if anyone got really beat up and said the code word “Banana” Mo could turn them into a giant ape and they’d get a huge supply of hit points.

Ssythrov, the lizardman shaman we’d been traveling with for several days at this point, said that he could cast protection from poison on all of us -- some while we were sleeping and the rest as soon as we woke up.

Mo, to Ssythrov: When we take this dragon out, how long do you think it’ll take your people to get here to back us up against the kobolds?
Ssythrov, pointing into the cenote: We won’t be able to get here at all.

Thneed and Taman looked at where Ssythrov was pointing and saw that the high water mark on the inside of the cenote was quite a lot higher than the top of this cavern. He told us that the dragon kept the water level exactly where he wanted it to protect the entrance to his cave. If Tallyxtillon dies, the water level will begin to rise to its natural high water mark.

Oh.

Then we rested for the night. We all took watches, with Joybell and Ssythrov taking the last watch so we could cast spells on people just before waking up and beginning the new day. Joybell cast Aid on everyone at the end of the last watch and then dismissed Scooby with a big hug and a promise that she’d see him again. Ssythrov got half the party with protection from poison.


8 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 99)

First thing in the morning, Ssythrov cast protection from poison on the other half of the party. Suutha cast waterbreathing on all of us. And Thneed cast pass without trace.

Ssythrov turned into a small lizard and scuttled up and away out the top of the cenote.

Then we jumped down into the water and began to swim toward Tallyxtillon’s lair, guided by Suutha’s memory of how to get there.

As we were swimming, just before we emerged into the cavern, Mo inspired all of us.

We sneaked up out of the water, grateful for the pass without trace, because it didn’t appear that any of them had seen us.

There was a ledge near the water that had two winged kobolds on it -- one with leather armor and some weapons at his belt, the other with a wand held lightly in one hand. Looking around the room, we saw another couple of winged kobolds off on the distant other side of the cavern, and a few of the Shield and Steroid kobolds on the ground between the raised “mesa” in the middle of the cavern and the ledge Tallyxtillon was on.

Thneed came up out of the water as sneakily as possible and shot one of the winged kobolds that was holding a wand, dropping it. Then she moved to a position near the wall of the cavern. Orryk shot the other winged kobold on the ledge near us - dropping it.

Joybell, on the broom of flying, flew out of the water and threw her javelin of lightning at the dragon. The lightning blasted one of the Shield kobolds along the way. Then she turned the broom around and flew back under the water.

Mo stepped out of the water and started playing 10 Little Indians on his flute -- as he did so, ten gems from the hoard animated and started flying in a cloud around Tallyxtillon. Then they dove in and attacked, getting many small hits that all added up. Then Mo lay back down in the water.

Taman walked out of the water and took a shot at the other wand-carrying winged kobold, far on the other side of the room, then he moved forward and hunkered down behind the “mesa” in the middle of the chamber.

They were all, including Tallyxtillon, surprised by our sudden arrrival and just gaped for a second or two.

Thneed moved her hunter’s mark to the Steroid kobold nearest us and shot him twice, then she went back into the water. Orryk went to the Shield kobold that had been hit by the lightning, and by an acid splash from Fiona, and hit it with the mace of smiting. He dropped the Shield with a follow up punch to the temple. Then Orryk moved into cover behind the mesa with Taman.

Joybell flew out of the water and unloaded the wand of magic missile, using all of its charges -- three on each of the two Steroid kobolds in the room.

Tallyxtillon flapped his mighty wings, buffeting most of the animated gemstones Mo had created to the ground, and flew into the air toward us.

Fiona, in the water, stood up and cast a storm sphere spell centered on Tallyxtillon. He was shaken up by the howling wind blowing within the sphere, then she called out a bolt of lightning that hit him for even more. Then she got back into the water.

Mo sent the animated objects after the Steroid kobolds, Tallyxtillon having gone too far for them to follow him immediately. Then he drew a fuzzy object out of his bag of tricks and threw it out into the cave -- a baboon appeared.

Taman, concerned about us being too concentrated in a dragon breath formation, shot an arrow through the winged kobold sorcerer on the other side of the room, then moved some distance away from Orryk around the base of the “mesa” -- to spread out and keep out of dragon breath formation. Doing so he noticed some of the Steroids going around the back of the “mesa” to get to us that way and avoid the storm.

Tallyxtillon moved right near Joybell and Orryk and breathed a cloud of poison gas that got almost everyone in the party, including those who were trying to hide in the water for safety. Only Taman was out of the area of the dragon breath -- everyone else, including Checkers and the baboon from the bag of tricks were caught in it. Fortunately, the protection from poison spell kept any of us (except Checkers and the baboon, who died horribly) from dropping to the poison gas, even those who were unable to save against the effect of the poison

Thneed got a critical hit against the Green Lord, which seemed like a victory.

The remaining Shield kobold moved up close to Orryk, which worked out well for us, because Orryk was able to proceed to punch it, doing a stunning strike, with the deathtouch (vampiric) gloves and healed himself up some. Then he moved away from the dragonshield.

Joybell, on the broom of flying, flew around to Tallyxtillon’s back and attacked him, trying to find a sensitive spot behind his ear or somewhere. Somewhere less armored than the rest of the dragon. She did her most powerful divine smites with both of her attacks, and getting a critical hit with one of them. (Which reminded her to save her strongest smites for critical hits.)

In response, Tallyxtillon smacked her with his tail, but she’d still done a lot more damage to him than he did to her.

Fiona sent another lightning bolt from the storm sphere into the dragon and hit him with that. Then Mo got out of the water and moved to a more spread out position before he cast shatter on the Shield and on Tallyxtillon. The Shield dropped. Tallyxtillon took some damage but did not drop.

Taman took a shot at the last winged kobold, which had been moving across the cavern toward us. He hit it slightly and it decided to bail out -- leaving the cavern through the U-trap entrance we’d entered and left through the day before.

The Green Lord moved away from Joybell, going to attack Fiona. Joybell hit him as he left but couldn’t stop him from biting Fiona and hurting her. But the storm sphere stayed up. Then he tried to claw at her, but both of the claws skittered off her shield spell.

Thneed climbed up onto one of the ledges and shot Tallyxtillon from that vantage point, hitting twice. Then she called him a “pot roast”.

Tallyxtillon took a tail swipe at Thneed in response but missed.

Orryk took on the Steroid kobolds circling around the mesa, hitting one of them twice before Omnath cast a sleep spell on them, knocking one of them out.

A puff of smoke came out of the wall of the cavern near Thneed and she became charmed by the dragon for a round -- unable to attack him, but still free to take other actions beneficial to the party.

Joybell circled around and got right up in Tallyxtillon’s face and attacked him twice, smiting him both times.

Tallyxtillon, in response, flapped his leathery wings, buffeting both Joybell and Fiona to the ground with them, and then flew over toward Mo. Fiona hit him with a lightning bolt from the storm sphere then she cured herself. Mo also healed Fiona, with a powerful healing word. Then he drew his rapier and stabbed the dragon in the face with it.

Taman moved and dashed to get into a position where he could shoot the dragon while its attention was on Mo, getting a really good hit.

Tallyxtillon bit Mo, not expecting that his Goliath heritage would give him special endurance to shake off the damage from the bite. The poison just woke him up. The two claw attacks both hit, but Mo was able to withstand the damage.

Thneed took out one of the Steroids that Orryk was fighting. Orryk punched the one that Omnath had put to sleep, waking him up, then dropped him with his second punch. He’d managed to heal most of the damage he suffered from the dragon breath by punching on the steroids with the deathtouch gloves. Then he moved up onto the mesa.

At about that moment, thick ropy vines emerged out of the ground, wrapping up Joybell and Taman. Fiona, fortunately, managed to stay out of the vines.

Joybell cast misty step, with the broom still active and between her legs, so she appeared at a point behind Tallyxtillon’s head and stabbed him in that sensitive place she’d found behind his jaw again.

Mo slapped himself on the cheeks, healing himself as he did so, then stabbed the dragon in the face again.

Taman put his hunters’ mark on the dragon then used the cape of the mountebank to get right up behind him, but was then unable to attack. As soon as Taman appeared, Tallyxtillon flapped his wings, knocking Joybell prone on the broom again, but didn’t fly away anywhere.

Tallyxtillon tried to cast a dimension door spell, but Fiona said “Stop that!” and cast counterspell at a high enough level to cancel to spell. When he tried to fly away, Mo, Joybell and Taman all got to take opportunity attacks against him. Only Taman hit, but that hit was enough to drop him!!

Orryk, Taman and Joybell immediately moved toward the horde. Mo turned into MOgilla Gorilla and began ripping the dragon’s head off. Omnath waited by the U-trap entrance for kobolds to come in.

Of course, any kobold coming in would see a group of people looting the treasure pile and a giant ape ripping the head off their god.

The hoard consisted of:

A set of dwarven splint armor with a shield and a hammer -- this belonged to one of the members of Suutha’s former party. Mo recognized some of the runes as connecting it to a clan in Tash.
A mithral chain shirt (+1) [elven chain]
Potion of Animal Friendship
Potion of Necrotic Resistance
Oil of Etherealness
Driftglobe
A scroll of Sending
6 sheets of Dragon Paper
A Ring of Fire Resistance -- later identify spells would reveal this to actually be a ring of Fire Elemental Command (Orryk)

1096 pp
1936 gp
16 x 1000 gp gems (5 blue sapphires, 5 star sapphires, and 6 opals)

As Orryk, Taman, and Joybell were scooping coins into the bags of holding, Giant Ape Mo finished ripping the head off of Tallxtillon. Then he dragged the body over and shoved it into the U-trap entrance to the cavern as far as it would go. We took a couple of claws and scales off of it as trophies.

As this was happening, Taman noticed that the water level was rising, so we took that as our cue to leave. We all swam out through the cenote, with Mo in the lead with the dragon head.

The water level was 150 feet below the top of the cenote. Joybell flew up on the broom of flying to the top, then sent it back down to pick up someone else.

While the broom was shuttling people up out of the cenote, Joybell sat down on the edge of it and began casting find steed to bring Scooby back. The broom had gotten everyone up and out (except Mo, who, still a giant Ape, clambered up the side of the cenote cave with the head) well before the spell was done. No one was willing to wait for her to finish, so she abandoned the spell.

Thneed cast another pass without trace and we proceeded for a while away from the cenote. We hoped to see some lizardpeople so that we could tell them that the dragon was dead, but we saw none. We also didn’t see any kobolds, but that was expected, because kobolds don’t like to go out in the daytime. Also, with the water rising in the cenote, they were soon going to have other problems.

We stopped and made camp, with a Tiny Hut to keep us safe. Once safe in the hut, Fiona used sending to check in with Barnett.

Fiona: It wasn’t easy, but dragon is dead. We have stuff. We’re taking a rest.
Barnett: Well done.

Joybell put the dwarven armor and hammer into her bag of holding. We’ll return them to the family of the dwarf from Suutha’s former party when we’re in Tash at some point. Then she cast Find Scooby -- once she had Scooby back, they cuddled up together off on the side of the hut and she told him everything that had happened, including that Checkers had died.

Mo pulled himself another pet from the Bag of Tricks - getting a tiger. Cool!

We ended in the safety and comfort of the tiny hut, with the dragon head just outside of it.

Treasure division:

4 people get: Three 1000 gp gems
2 people get: Two 1000 gp gems and 100 pp

Everyone also gets:
149 pp, 3227 gp

Leftover for party funds: 2 pp, 5 gp

Items:

Scroll of Sending (Fiona)
Drift Globe
Potion of Necrotic Resistance
Potion of Animal Friendship (this feels like a Joybell thing)
Oil of Etherealness
Ring of Fire Elemental Command (Orryk would probably fight anyone/everyone for this)
Elven Chain (assuming a DEX of at least 2, this would give AC 16. What's Mo's AC right now?)
6 sheets of DragonPaper (added by GM in Meetups)(in the bag of holding for party use)


----------



## prabe (Apr 3, 2021)

Session 38: And Now We’re In the Icerasp Mountains


Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)

Player Absent:
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else

Note: Thneed's player was unable to attend this session, but she followed along with the party, cheerfully engaging in some minor mischief with the town guards while we were in Embernook and generally going where we went.


9 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 100)

The next morning, Mo quickly drew a teleportation circle on the ground where the hut had been and began to play something on his pipe. Then he stopped, fixed the circle a bit, played some more. Stopped again, redrew a whole section of it, played some more. After about a minute of refining his circle, smoke began to pour out of his pipe as he played filling the circle. We all entered it and teleported back to the library in Stately Kang Manor.

We also found some frogs and squirrels in the library -- test subjects Mo had sent through while he was on perfecting the spell.

Work is happening around the house, which is good. We found Chulty, with some friends and former party members, camping in tents in the dining room. We inquired about why the tents and they said the bedrooms were still works in progress and this was a comfortable way for them to sleep but not be in an actively under repair part of the house.

Joybell: Okey doke. Welcome, Chulty’s friends!

He said that most of Kalmarn has been razed because the village was sort of...well, haunted and parts of it blood-soaked. When we start having citizens in town, they can re-build what they need.

Chulty, looking at the dragon head on the floor: You’re not going to have that in the house, are you?
Joybell: Do you know if there’s a taxidermist in Embernook? Maybe we can mount it once it’s taxidermied.
Mo: It seems that this town is going to need a place for people to get drunk.

He gave Chulty rather a lot of money to fund the construction and stocking of a tavern by the waterfront and said that the dragon head could decorate the tavern.

Taman: We could call it the Dragon’s Head.
Joybell: No, the Green Lord.
Mo: Those are great suggestions, but I was thinking...Mo’s.
Joybell: Mo’s Green Lord?
Mo: Mo’s.

Chulty said that he would take care of getting the dragon head taxidermied. Excellent!

Joybell gave him some additional money so that his friends and their work would be paid for as well.

Joybell: Is there any sign of the Cracked Shield orcs showing up yet?
Chulty: No orcs yet, no.
Joybell: Okey doke. Well, they have a ways to travel, I expect.

Orryk and Taman started talking about how we’d destroyed the kobold civilization, despite the fact that they had done nothing to harm anyone. Joybell and Mo weren’t buying it -- they served the Green Lord and made it possible for him to have agents in Auriqua and Embernook trying to subvert the governments of the two cities.

Eventually, Joybell got upset and went to talk to the squirrels and frogs that Mo had test-teleported into the manor, helping them find their way outside and telling them about the forest.

Orryk took some of the dragon pages we’d given Chulty and used a couple to send a message to Irlua asking about breaches of creatures from the fire plane or fire elementals in the world. Also generally whether the balance had changed since we last spoke. We also took some of them for the bag of holding so we’d be able to send message when we need to.

Orryk took a moment to talk with Suutha (the cap of water breathing) about if it has any goals other than going to the Elemental Plane of Water.

Suutha: If I hear about any incursions from under the sea, like in Pelsoreen or somewhere, I’ll want to stop those.

We agreed that we need to talk to the Keeper of Secrets about Taman’s family’s deal with the Tundra Queen, the Tundra Queen’s deal with Auriqua. Orryk and Taman also want to know about Alighieri’s deal with whoever he made a deal with.

Fiona used a sending spell to ask Tulmor if we could get a pickup to Embernook. Tulmor said she’d be right up and, indeed, just a couple of minutes later she and Barnett both appeared in the library.

We filled them in on the fight with the dragon.

Barnett: Did you get a name?
Joybell: Tallyxtillon
Tulmor: He must have grown up some. When I met him his name was Tallyxtlon. They add syllables as they get older.
Joybell: Oh, you met him? He was kind of a naughty word.
Tulmor and Barnett: ::nods::
Orryk: How are things in Embernook?
Tulmor: The same.
Taman: There’s something north of Auriqua. The Machine.
Joybell: The Epiphany Machine...
Taman: It’s associated with the outer chaos.

Tulmor seemed upset that it’s there.

Joybell: Where should it be?
Barnett: I think it disassembles itself and reassembles itself elsewhere if it’s not being used.
Tulmor: I just don’t really like it up there.
Joybell: We understand that it’s possibly turned a giant.
Tulmor: Exactly.
Barnett: It’s something you walk into or through…
Joybell: If it’s turned a frost giant it must be pretty big. How do we destroy it?
Barnett: Don’t know.
Mo: Does someone use it on someone else, or on themselves?
Barnett: When it shows up, one person goes through it and gets changed. Then they can persuade or convince others to go through. Some of the madnesses it creates are quasi-contagious, people can be affected even if they don’t go through the machine. Some people go through the machine more than once.
Mo: This is all a trap by the Outer Chaos.
Barnett: Except that the Chaos is not sentient, so there’s no planning involved.
Mo: Like a Venus Flytrap.
Barnett: Not a bad simile.
Taman: Is this like the process where the book turned a person inside out?
Tulmor: You could run into all sorts of things coming out of the Machine.
Taman: Would it work on a book? Could you put a book through and have it come out a crazy book? (Note: They didn’t seem to know the answer to that.)
Mo: Have people tried to destroy it?
Barnett: It’s not uncommon for people to go to it with the intent of destroying it, but then find it hard to actually summon the will to do so.

We then teleported back to Embernook. Barnett taught Mo the sigils for the circle in their library and said that we were free to use it. They just requested that we send a message to them so they’re awake and dressed when we arrive.

Before we left their place in Embernook, Orryk asked if they knew any young wizards we could hire to scribe spell scrolls for us. They said they could certainly find someone who would appreciate the work. We ordered two Longstrider scrolls and 4 Protection from Evil and Good scrolls.

They said that they could teleport us up to the former Mask circle in the Icerasp Mountains whenever we were ready to go.

In Embernook, Orryk went to Trannell’s magic shop looking for information about elemental related items, particularly rings. Once again, he gave Trannell some money to keep his ear to the ground.

Joybell went to talk to Chief Truehammer. As she was telling him about the dragon and about his agents subverting the city, she realized that she should really be telling the Administrator about all of that.

Joybell: Oh!! Anyway, we killed the dragon and I have to go now. Thank you!

Then she hurried over to the Administrator’s office. She signed in on the sheet right next to Thalith’s office but before she could even walk away he was there and he immediately took her in.

She told him about Tallyxtillon and the agents he said he had working in Embernook to try and get a toe-hold into the government. Also about the extortion scheme on the river. Thalith said that he didn’t know anything about it, but perhaps the Administrator did.

Joybell: Well, he does now.

By the time all of our errands in Embernook were done, it was late in the afternoon. We went to tell Tulmor that we’d like to be teleported in the morning, please.

Orryk: Would it be possible for Barnett to do his Arcane Eye trick so we know what’s on the other side?
Tulmor: That’s not necessary. I’ve been. It’s in an abandoned mine in the southwest part of the Icerasp Mountains. It’s probably snowing and cold.

We then went to our respective lodgings in town -- Joybell and Orryk to Queena’s and the rest of the party to the Pewter Oar.


10 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 101)

We had breakfast at the Pewter Oar, then donned our winter clothes to teleport to the circle in the Icerasp Mountains. We were near the entrance of a clearly worked mine shaft and could see the light from outside. Going further into the mine, we didn’t have to travel far before we got to where the mine was collapsed.

This was one of the circles that Turnik Steeltear had as part of his network -- with the moveable tiles to dial out to different locations. We noticed that the tiles were gone -- not only was there no address set as the destination of the circle, the entire box of tiles was missing. One of the outstanding squads of Masks was active somewhere in the vicinity of this circle, though we didn’t know where, or what they would do when the orders they’d been under when we killed Steeltear were over.

Mo looked around for footprints -- it looked like there had been a lot of foot traffic around the cave, perhaps a squad of people, but we had no idea how long ago and didn’t have enough information about how tracks age in this cave for Taman and Thneed to make an educated guess about timing.

Orryk pulled out the Orrery -- it pointed to the north-northeast, so deeper into the mountain range. It looked like a strong signal and like we were significantly closer than we had been when we were just a few miles north of Auriqua.

Taman and Joybell looked outside the mine - it was not actively snowing at that moment, though there was snow on the ground. There were some footprints in the snow, but Taman couldn’t get much sense of them. It was possible that they were mostly Tulmor’s footprints as she went to investigate what was on the other side of that circle.

We headed out of the cave -- Orryk brought Omnath out as a magma mephit. Fortunately Tony the Tiger (from Mo’s Bag of Tricks) is an Amur tiger (formerly called Siberian Tigers) and was therefore fine. Mo kept everyone in the party warm by occasionally warming up their clothes with prestidigitation spells.

Taman took a moment to check for active planar portals in the area and found none of them. Then he and Thneed both checked for their favored enemies. Thneed didn’t find any of hers (soldiers, hobgoblins and Fiends). Taman’s check detected scores of Fey clustered together about 4 miles to the north-northeast, though not directly on the line that the Orrery was pointing to. Those could be unrelated to Ildna and his Outer Chaos fey group. Or it could be a cluster of the cultists.

Scores of them.

We went in the direction the Orrery was pointing -- within the limits of what travel is possible and feasible through a mountain range. (Straight line travel is very difficult unless the line happens to be pointing up a valley or over a saddle between peaks. Going up and over mountains, even over passes, involves a lot of switchbacks. That sort of thing).

We proceeded along through the mountains, with lots of mountains around us. We made camp when it started to get dark (and even colder). Because of the relief, we hadn’t made as much progress as we would have expected along the way toward the cluster of fey. We also assumed we hadn’t made a ton of progress toward the machine.

Fiona’s tiny hut is colored to match the surrounding terrain, but can’t match exactly (and always looks like a perfectly hemispherical dome). Inside it’s always climate controlled for our comfort, so we were able to relax in the warmth of the hut.

During second watch (Mo and Thneed) a bunch of tiny, winged, blue-white flying things that looked like heads with torsos trailing off into long tails flew into view. They began to throw themselves against the hut, repeatedly. Nothing bad happened, except a sound like gravel pounding on the hut.

The tiny winged things flew away after a few minutes.

Mo didn’t wake anyone up, but when Taman and Fiona took over for third watch he told them about it.

He and Fiona had both heard of these creatures -- they’re called Sluaghs and travel in swarms. Each of those tiny things is a fey creature. There appeared to be five of the swarms of the tiny creatures. Mo and Fiona also knew that they don’t like fire or daylight. Fiona thought that they probably would follow the orders of the Tundra Queen if she gave them any, but they’re not very bright at all so she’s undoubtedly got better servants.

The rest of the night passed without incident.


11 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 102)

Orryk pulled out the Orrery again to make sure we hadn’t gone off in a wrong direction at any point as we were following to some extent the lay of the landscape. It was still pointing in the same north-northeast direction.

We couldn’t see anything in that direction except mountains and snow.

Taman checked for favored enemies again and detected a lot of them less than a mile away -- consistent with the Sluagh swarms we’d seen overnight. They were sort of in the direction we were heading in.

We continued on our way, following the Orrery.

About an hour after we headed out, the track (possibly a game trail) we were following went through a deep and steep-sided valley. Almost a canyon. There were deep shadows at the bottom because the sun was still below the peaks of the mountains to the east.

Almost immediately when we entered the valley, Taman, Orryk, Mo and Tony the Tiger spotted the swarms of Sluagh approaching fast. The five swarms surrounded us looking like five swirling clouds of winged...things. Taman dashed to attack one of them getting in some good damage because the swarm wasn’t expecting him to approach and was surprised. In response to his attack, it swarmed over him, attacking him for a considerable amount of damage, some of which he was able to dodge, despite the swarm attacking from all sides.

Fiona and Tony the Tiger both got hit for a great deal of damage, but survived. Orryk was missed and Mo would have been hit but used his cutting words to stop the hit.

Mo: Get out of my face….

Orryk moved out of the swarm and threw two daggers into it, hitting some of the tiny creatures, then swung at it with his fists. Omnath did a fire breath -- they didn’t like the fire at all, but they dodged out of the way pretty well.

Taman disengaged from the swarm on him then moved to help Mo -- his sword swung through them, but it was hard to make solid contact with the swarm of tiny bodies.

Then all five swarms attacking people they had swarmed over and were surrounding missed with their attacks.

Joybell went to help Fiona, attacking and critting with her sword. She called down the divine energy in a second level smite, which helped a lot.

The fight continued with people hitting and trying to move away from them. Fiona misty stepped out of the swarm that surrounded her and firebolted it -- there was a chorus of tiny shrieks as the tiny winged bodies fell, smoking, to the ground.

Mo inspired Taman: Could you give me a hand?

Taman immediately used the inspiration to hit the one on Mo really solidly.

Then Mo tried to use cutting words to protect Tony the tiger, but the swarm wasn’t affected and Tony was killed.

Mo: NOoo!

Joybell, never a fan of people attacking animals, rode on Scooby over the swarm that had just killed Tony and attacked, but not very effectively.

Orryk and Omnath attacked the same one and dropped it -- Omnath’s fiery magma mephit claws doing the final blow.

At that point, Fiona decided it was time to just end this and cast fireball on the three remaining swarms, sculpting the fire around Mo, Taman, Joybell and Scooby. There was a piercing wail of cacophonous shrieking from the dying fey, leaving only one surviving. Joybell’s attack of opportunity dropped it when it went to attack Taman.

We continued on our way until we were out of the shadowy valley and into a more normally sunlit area, then we stopped for lunch. Fiona made a hut for us to rest in.

While we were resting, Mo pulled another animal out of the bag of tricks -- a baboon he named Clyde.

After lunch and a short rest, we resumed proceeding, encountering no further problems the rest of the day. At a break later in the day, Orryk pulled out the orrery and it snapped more quickly to point to the north-northeast, which we took to mean we were making progress.

When we stopped for the night, Taman sensed for fey and picked up one single fey about a mile away. It was not in the same direction that the orrery was pointing. Fiona made a hut and we made our usual preparations to rest.

While we were doing so, a dragon page arrived bearing a response from Irlua to Orryk’s question regarding incursions of fire planar beings. She said she didn’t know where there is an active breach of fire elementals, but there’s something related to fire brewing near Erlin-- perhaps something forming or an instability.

We settled into the tiny hut and began to rest. About an hour into first watch, Joybell and Orryk noticed that the weather started turning for the worse -- over about an hour it went from cold and windy with a ground fog to white-out blizzard with horizontally blowing snow. It seemed to us to be awfully early in the year for this kind of snow. All we could see outside the hut was white-out conditions.

At the end of their watch, they woke up Mo and Thneed. Mo cast clairvoyance, sending the sensor 1000 feet straight up above the hut. All the sensor could see was more blizzard. Mo, thinking that the blizzard might be providing cover for someone coming to attack us, cast plant growth, so anyone trying to come close would find their way slowed by the difficult terrain.

Mo and Thneed woke Taman and Fiona for third watch. Taman checked for fey and detected one maybe half a mile away. When we made camp it was a mile away.

The rest of the night passed with the blizzard raging around our snug, climate controlled hut.


12 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 103)

When the rest of the party woke, the blizzard was still raging outside.

We all held a rope between us so that no one could get lost or separated from the rest of the party, and continued on our way. Fiona cast some dancing lights to help provide beacons to keep us together. Clyde the baboon rode on Scooby to stay warm in his thick fur. Taman lead us in the direction the orrery is pointing, avoiding a couple of short falls that would have really sucked for us. Taman had the sense that this weather was not entirely natural -- at the very least Fiona knew that this weather was nuts. There hadn’t been enough moisture in the air the day before to make for this much snow. Her opinion was that there was almost certainly magic involved.

After a couple of hours of slow and difficult going through the blizzard, the weather started to abate and over the course of about an hour, the weather went back to the normal cold wind and small snow flurries we’d experienced the day before.

When we were out of the blizzard, Taman sensed for fey again -- there was one, still half a mile away, but now behind us.

None of us liked that at all.

Mo flew up on the broom to get a bird’s eye view. He could see a hard line making a large circle where the snow had been. It was definitely the radius (if a large one) of a spell effect. It was centered maybe a half mile from our camp last night. We apparently got to the edge of the effect about the same time the duration ended.

We turned and headed straight back toward the fey that Taman was picking up. We were none of us okay with having something that could make a blizzard in a few mile radius behind us and following us.

About a quarter mile on our walk toward the mystery fey, we got to the base of a sheer cliff a few hundred feet high.

Taman: If you’re out there, come talk to us. I hate all this sneaking around.

(GM: An odd perspective for a rogue…)

There was no response.

Taman touched the cliff to make sure it was real. Mo flew up the cliff -- when he crested the top of it he saw rock and broken ground. But he didn’t see anyone or anything alive or moving around.

We all got up to the top of the cliff using the broom -- Scooby had to put up with the indignity of riding in the hammock while Joybell rode. Up at the top we looked around.

Taman spotted a figure moving at an angle away from us -- it was pacing us, keeping up but not approaching. We cast some spells on Taman (Joybell cast Aid and Fiona cast Bless) and Mo gave him some inspiration, then he jumped on the broom and took off like a shot to talk to the thing following us, with the sending stone in his pocket.

As Taman approached the thing flew from one mountain peak to another one, sipping straight across. Taman flew after it, he saw a humanoid about the size of Mo with blue/white skin.

He recognized it as a Bheur Hag -- a hag of the cold and frozen places. They are big on making it difficult for travelers in cold places and love watching them flail and not be able to get through. They like to watch people starve and freeze to death.

Taman: Stay away from my group or you’ll be dead.

Then he used the cape of the mountebank to get back to the group.

Orryk: If it keeps following us, Rule 1.

We agreed to that.

We ferried back down to the base of the cliff on the broom, then took a short rest (it being lunch time).


----------



## prabe (Apr 17, 2021)

Session 39: The Hag and Some Frost Giants

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


12 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 103) (immediately after)

We resumed following the orrery, which was still pointing in the same general direction it had been. The rest of the day passed. As we were making camp, Taman sensed for fey and found that there was one less than a mile away behind and to the left of us, so the hag was still presumably back there.

There were also two clusters of six -- one was one mile away to the left of us and the other about five miles ahead. We figured that we’d probably get to the ones ahead of us the next day.

We camped in a tiny hut and kept watches through the night, which passed without incident.


13 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 104)

The next morning, before the hut came down, Taman sensed for fey again and found that there was a cluster of six fey about half a mile ahead and to the left of us. The single fey (presumably the hag) was a couple of miles behind us.

We headed out, following the orrery and staying alert. Mo let Clyde the Baboon ride in the combat hammock, which he kept warm with prestidigitation.

Shortly after we headed out, the sword of warning alerted all of us (except Taman, who just spotted them) to the presence of small white figures with wings about 40’ up the sides of a rock-strewn gorge. They were standing on ledges part way up the sides of the gorge (the wall of which were 90’ high).

Taman took a shot at the nearest one to us.

Taman: Snipers!

Taman recognized that these are cold fey called Beli -- they have short bows and the shots have a chance of hastening death by exposure.

Mo cast hypnotic pattern on the three on the other side (that Taman hadn’t shot at), getting two of them caught up in the pretty lights. Then he inspired Joybell.

Mo: Go get ‘em!!

Thneed and Orryk worked together to take down the one that had saved against the hypnotic pattern. It fell off the cliff and landed with a thud. Thneed was confident it had been dropped because of the effect on her hunters’ mark spell, but the next second it stood up again.

Taman: They regenerate unless they take fire damage.

The Beli (other than the two hypnotized ones) began flying down towards us, shooting their arrows.

Joybell, noticing them moving into range: Bless them.

One of them got a critical hit on Mo, which left him weakened with exhaustion and caused the hypnotic pattern to drop. A couple missed. Orryk caught one of the arrows that would have hit him, dropping it to the ground at his feet. Taman also got hit.

Joybell cast searing smite and hit the one that had been dropped and regenerated, dropping it for real. Then she moved to where she could protect Mo from another attack.

Fiona cast a fireball on three of them, dropping two and leaving the third partially melted looking. Mo finished that one off, mocking it to death.

Mo: Your skin looks terrible…

Thneed moved her hunters mark to one of the remaining two, and did it a lot of damage with her two arrows.

Omnath finished that one off with his fire breath, getting his first kill! Orryk shot the last remaining one with his bow and in response it started to flee, flying away into the mountains. We all took shots at it and after a few hits by others, Thneed dropped it.

We wanted to examine the bodies, but they had melted away before we could look at them. When they were alive they’d looked like small, bat-winged, white-skinned humanoids with unpleasant mouths filled with many teeth.

We hadn’t been traveling for very long at all, so we continued on our way without a rest. Joybell used the restoration bead from the necklace of prayer beads on Mo, so he only had one level of exhaustion. Due to his exhaustion, he rode in the battle hammock.

At lunch, we stopped and Fiona made a tiny hut so we could have a nice, warm short rest. Taman checked for fey and found a single fey about half a mile ahead.

After our break, we continued proceeding. We’d gone about that half mile and found ourselves in another rocky gorge. In the gorge ahead of us, an unpleasant looking woman, Mo’s height, with blue-white scraggly hair, stood on a ledge about 50’ up on the side of the gorge.

Mo: Hello, young lady!

Orryk, to the rest of the party: I thought we were going for Rule 1?
Joybell: Maybe she’ll come down to us so we can fight her.

Hag: Top ‘o the afternoon!
Mo: Why are you following us?
Hag: For my own amusement. You’re a persistent lot…
Taman: Do you know a guy who looks like a dilyarli wearing a large hat? (Followed by a more precise description of Ildna.)
Hag: You’re looking for the broken dilyarli. I could make it easier for you to find him….if you do me a favor. There’s another hag in these mountains and I want you to kill her.

Orryk, to the rest of the party: She’s caused most of the problems we’ve run into. Is she just going to stop harassing us?

Taman How far away is this other…
Hag: You can call us hags. It’s about 10 miles that way.

She pointed off at an angle that would have taken us away from the route we were following.

Orryk: We can go and kill another hag so this one will leave us alone. Or we can just kill this one without traveling days out of our way and things will be easier.
Taman: You’re right!

Then Taman took a shot at her.

Joybell: Wait!? What? What’s going on?

Taman’s shot, unfortunately, missed. Joybell used the wand of magic missile, but the hag cast a shield spell and stopped them. Orryk moved, spreading out a bit, and shot at her, getting one through her shield spell.

The hag cackled at us then poured a vial of liquid over her head, disappearing as the liquid covered her body.

Mo tried to cast faerie fire on the area where she was, but she didn’t light up.

Taman took a moment to try and spot her -- after a second he saw a glitter of snow in the air in the middle of the gorge that he surmised was sparkling as it fell off of her broom of flying. He tried to shoot her, but missed. Joybell, seeing where he’d aimed, threw the javelin of lightning at her and hit with a great shock of lightning. Orryk followed up with an arrow shot.

After Fiona missed and we figured that she’d moved again. Mo held a faerie fire until someone pointed out her location to him and inspired Taman.

Mo: Find her.

Taman took another moment to look for her again and spotted her 120 feet down the valley, apparently flying away in the direction we were heading. She was out of range of Mo’s spell and none of the arrows we fired in her direction hit.

Joybell collected her javelin of lightning, Clyde was put back into the warmed battle hammock, and we resumed proceeding. The rest of the day passed without incident and we passed out of the narrow gorges and passes we’d been in and out into a large, open, relatively flat alpine meadow. Fiona created a tiny hut and we made camp for the evening.

Just before we rested, Mo created a teleportation circle to the library in Stately Kang Manor and sent Clyde through it with a note that said “From Mo.”

Chulty will take care of him.

During the first watch, Joybell and Orryk spotted two frost giants. They weren’t walking right toward us in a bee-line, but they weren’t just out on patrol passing by either. They appeared to be looking for us. They stopped about 200’ away and sat down, looking at the dome.

Joybell and Orryk woke up the rest of the party as soon as we spotted the giants.

Mo threw a card from the deck of illusions out through the dome -- an orc appeared outside the dome. Recognizing that an orc wasn’t an especially intimidating illusion, he threw another card -- an image of Mo himself appeared next to the orc.

As the second illusion appeared, the giants each threw a boulder, both of which hit the illusion of the orc. Because it was an illusion, it was still standing there, despite the boulders.

Orryk pointed out to Thneed that she could shoot out through the dome.

Taman, to the giants, in common: Hold your fire! We come in peace.

They didn’t respond, so he said it again in sylvan. They still didn’t respond.

At that, Orryk and Thneed started shooting arrows at them. After a couple of arrows hit, the giants moved back another couple hundred feet and sat down again, still looking at the dome.

We went back to our rest, Joybell and Orryk finishing out the first watch. They woke Mo and Thneed for second watch. Mo stepped outside the dome, thinking to polymorph himself into a giant ape and throw the rocks back at the giants, but they were too far away and he decided against and went back into the dome.

The second watch and third watches passed without incident. The giants were sitting comfortably and also getting a long rest.


14 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 105)

The next morning, just before the dome came down, Taman and Joybell left the dome first -- the giants didn’t react to that, so we continued on our way. As we proceeded, the giants stood up and stretched then they tried to sneak after us.

When we noticed that one of them had succeeded in sneaking off and we didn’t know where it was, Thneed cast pass without trace and we began sneaking ourselves.

We decided to set an ambush for them, but Joybell wanted a chance to talk to them first.

Orryk: No. Joybell messes up every ambush we’ve tried.
Joybell: Last time you fussed at me about this, I hid and Taman and Thneed stood in the road and you didn’t fuss at them!
Orryk: They do stupid things. I expect better of you.

We found a spot between a couple of boulders on the alpine meadow. Joybell and Scooby hid behind one (reasonably well for a change) and watched the giants (we had both of them in our sights again) cross the meadow. We saw 4 of the beli things with the giants.

Taman and Thneed took some shots, both at the giants and the beli. Fiona cast a fireball that caught one of the giants and two of the beli. The two beli looked pretty hurt by it, though the giant looked like he’d avoided most of the damage.

Mo cast hypnotic pattern on the larger giant and two of the beli, then he laid down to be a more difficult target for ranged attacks. Joybell moved out from behind the boulder she’d hidden behind and used the wand of magic missiles to shoot the two beli that had been in the fireball, dropping one of them.

Thneed stepped out from behind a different rook, took her shots, then moved back behind Fiona.

Taman and Orryk, each in turn, stepped out from behind rocks and took shots - focusing on the beli, because that ability to exhaust people is really dangerous.

The hag walked up at an angle from where the giants were. She looked at the situation and threw a snowball at the hypnotized frost giant, snapping him out of his fascination with the pretty lights.

The larger giant ran up on Taman, pulling out a huge great axe and swinging - it would have gotten a critical hit, but Taman got a lucky break and the swing instead was a mighty blow into the ground. Unfortunately, the giant’s second swing did hit him. The other giant moved up toward us, but wasn’t able to attack.

It was able to get into fireball formation with the other giant, though, and Fiona didn’t miss the opportunity. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very powerful fireball. Mo followed it up with a shatter spell that caught the two of them as well.

There were a number of attacks on the smaller giant - culminating with Taman dropping it with his scimitar before it ever got to attack.

Orryk moved so he could take a shot at the one un-hypnotized beli, then went into some cover. Omnath, waiting for an opportunity in the combat, moved next to Mo, who warmed his hands on the magma mephit.

The hag caught a glint of light with something in her hand and fired a bolt of cold light at Taman and Joybell. And Scooby, who dropped and went back to where celestial wolf-mounts are when they die here.

The big giant followed that up with a big hit on Joybell. His second attack only missed because of Mo’s cutting words.

Fiona cast scorching ray at the hag -- she protected herself with a shield of sparkling ice, but two of the bolts still got through. Joybell attacked the remaining giant, smiting it weakly, still upset about losing Scooby.

Taman turned away from the giant and charged the hag, casting zephyr strike on the way. He hit her for a lot of damage. Orryk spent a ki-point to dash over to the hag as well, hitting and stunning her with a stunning strike! (It worked!)

The frost giant, finding most of his opponents gone, hit Joybell two more times. Ouch!

Fiona dropped a fireball right onto the hag and a beli -- the hag was stunned and unable to dodge out of the way. The beli tried to dodge, but was killed anyway.

Thneed shot at the hag, then Taman moved into a position to flank her and dropped her with a sneak attack. Woot!

Orryk went back to the giant, making a couple of attempts to stun it, but neither of them worked.

Which was a pity, because the giant then hit Joybell and almost dropped her.

Joybell, remembering the code word from the fight with the dragon: Banana! Mo! Banana!

Mo didn’t cast a polymorph on her -- instead he cast a shatter spell on the giant and dropped it. Which worked out fine as well.

The two hypnotized beli were dispatched quickly.

And there we ended.


----------



## prabe (Apr 24, 2021)

Session 40: We Found Ildna! Also: How A Hag Repays A Favor

Players:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


14 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 105) (immediately after)

Immediately after the fight with the hag and the stone giants and a few beli, we took a short rest. Joybell, Taman and Orryk rested, strengthened by Mo’s song of rest. The others spent the time looting the bodies of the hag and the giants.

They didn’t find much on the hag’s body. We’d been hoping for another broom of flying, but it turned out that the staff she was flying on wasn’t magical. Apparently that ability to fly was inherent to her, not the object. They did find a potion, which Mo picked up with his mage hand and passed on to Fiona. Fiona identified it as a weirdly variant potion of cloud giant strength -- she couldn’t tell exactly what would happen but there will be something weird that happens at the end of the effect.

Thneed: I’d love that…

So we gave it to her. Orryk took the hag’s staff as a walking stick.

Toward the end of the rest, Joybell cast Find Scooby Steed. Taman did his ranger-thing and sensed for fey within five miles -- he detected something right at the edge of his range, vaguely (but not exactly) in the direction the orrery was pointing.

(Note: We realized later that we forgot to burn the bodies of the hag and the giants.)

After resting, we got back on our way, following the orrery. The rest of the day passed without incident.

The night passed without incident as well, except that Mo and Thneed whiled away second watch making hand shadows. (“Do Deformed Rabbit. I love that one!”)


15 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 106)

The next morning, Taman checked for fey again and detected none within five miles. The orrery, when checked, snapped quickly to point in the same direction it has been pointing all along. Which was the behavior we’d gotten accustomed to.

Shortly after we got started in the morning, we spotted two large trolls a fair way ahead of us. As we got closer it became clear that these were weird looking trolls, maybe a bit decayed or something. Thneed, who’d spotted them first, put her hunters mark on one and took a couple of shots at it.

We then began to focus our attacks on that one -- Joybell charged at it and attacked, hitting it with a searing smite to do fire damage. Taman ran over and attacked it as well, having to use his bonus action to dash the last five feet. Orryk and Mo both shot at it.

Fiona, realizing that she hadn’t done so yet, cast mage armor on herself.

The other troll moved toward us but wasn’t able to get into combat with anyone. Which worked out well for us, because we were able to drop the first one with a couple of shots from Thneed, a couple of big hits from Joybell, and a great shot from Taman.

It smelled like rot and nastiness. Worse than a normal troll.

Orryk moved out of range of the other one and took a couple of shots at it.

Mo used the wand of web on the second troll, catching it the webbing. Seeing it ensnared he decided to “inspire” Orryk.

Mo: See how easy it is to web things…

Fiona used scorching ray on the troll in the webbing -- even the ray that missed helped, because it set the webbing on fire. So it took fire damage from the scorching ray and fire damage from the burning web. But the web hadn’t burned enough for it to free itself from the restraint.

Orryk, either inspired or irritated by Mo, put away his bow and got right up in the troll’s face and punched it. Omnath flew over his and Joybell’s heads and breathed fire on the troll.

Mo then viciously mocked the troll.

Mo: You’re on fire….

The troll took damage from the fire in the web, which burned away to the point that he wasn’t restrained any longer (doing him damage in the process). It missed with both of its clawed hands, waving wildly at Taman. It hit him with its nasty necrotic-rotting bite.

Thneed immediately turned around and killed it with her arrows.

Fiona and Omnath worked together to burn the bodies. These trolls looked like they’d been exposed to some sort of nasty magic -- they didn’t appear to regenerate like normal trolls, they just looked like they were decaying. It seemed like it could have been the work of the hag (or a hag). Or maybe the Epiphany Machine, except that seemed like it had different sorts of effects on people.

We continued on our way. That fight had been pretty early in the day, so we spent the whole rest of the day going up and down switchbacked mountain trails. Orryk took the opportunity presented by the switchbacks and the twisting mountain trails to use the orrery to triangulate the location of the Big Chaos it was picking up. From this he confirmed that we are getting closer.

The rest of the day passed without incident. So did the night.


16 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 107)

We hadn’t noticed the day before, but when we woke it dawned on us that we were in a less snowy area of the mountains than we had been. It had been notably colder and snowier than average when we were being shadowed by the Bheur Hag (an ice hag) but it was now a bit warmer and less snowy than expected for as far north and as high in the mountains as we were. The rangers felt that this was a magical effect.

Taman checked for fey and found none within five miles.

We stepped out of the hut and in the morning light spotted a stone giant wearing a mask (not like the Masks -- a scold’s bridle) sitting on a boulder outside of our camp. He was sitting with a piece of paper pinched between his forefinger and thumb, watching the hut carefully.

(Note: Scold’s bridles were historically made in many forms, some more painful and inherently tortuous than others. Some covered all or most of the face.)

Joybell saw him, smiled, and waved. He waved back.

Joybell, pointing at the paper: Is that for us?

He nodded and handed the paper to her. It was a note which read:

Thanks for killing that bitch Icenipple. I owe you for that, you did me a real favor.
-- N.A. Stoneshite

The note went on to say that she hated to be in debt so to repay us for the favor of killing the other hag, she was giving us the services of the stone giant. He could guide us to where we were going -- if he knew the way -- though he would not go into danger for us. She also said not to try to remove the bridle because it would hurt him.

We asked the giant if he could take us to Ildna, the broken dilyarli. He nodded and, with gestures (because the bridle made it impossible for him to speak) let us know that it was four mountains away and would take us two days to get there. He tried to convey something else to us but we couldn’t quite get it.

We agreed to that and let him lead us away from camp. He didn’t go in exactly the direction we could have gone, but it didn’t appear to be crazy either. After an hour or two we came to a cave entrance. He gestured in there and we finally understood that he was telling us we’d be going through the mountains in caves rather than over them.

Very good.

As we walked, we decided to call him Lurch, with his acquiescence. Joybell talked to him about the caverns and he communicated with signs and gestures. We noticed during the day that he was neither eating nor drinking, but appeared to be okay despite that.

The rest of the day passed without incident as we moved through the tunnels. The tunnels, which looked like dwarven mine tunnels, seemed to wander around a lot less than the switchback paths over the mountains. We made camp and a dome in the evening.

Fiona, with Lurch’s permission, cast detect magic (yes, very) and identify on the bridle. She identified it as a bridle of sustenance -- the wearer doesn’t need to eat, drink or sleep while wearing it. However, if it is taken off without uttering the command word (which the identify spell did not reveal) the wearer gains one level of exhaustion for each week they’d worn the bridle.

We asked Lurch if he’d been wearing it for more than six weeks and he nodded vigorously. So we asked if he wanted us to try and take it off and he shook his head with even more vigor.

The night passed without incident.


18 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 108)

The next morning, Taman checked for fey and found none within five miles. He also tried to detect any planar portals and found none of those within a mile either.

We resumed proceeding through the tunnel. There were lots of branches we didn’t take and the path we took had some twists and turns, but Lurch lead us confidently through the tunnels (still looking like an abandoned dwarven mine) and the orrery, when consulted, indicated that he was at least not leading us astray.

Traveling with a giant had its advantages, because we had no trouble with anything all day.

Around dinner time, Lurch stopped at the entrance to a side tunnel or chamber and pointed in that direction. With gestures he made it clear that he would go no further but what we sought was that way.

Joybell thanked him for his assistance and wished him well in his association with the other hag. Orryk tied a note to the staff he’d taken from the Bheur Hag we killed (apparently named Icenipple) and handed it to Lurch.

Orryk: Can you deliver this to your hag?

Lurch nodded and took the staff.

Before we went through the entrance, Mo pulled an ape from the bag of holding, so he’d have a companion again. He used prestidigitation to color its fur purple and named it Grape Ape.

Orryk brought Omnath back from the pocket dimension as an ice mephit and sent him through the doorway and down the hall, watching through his eyes. The passage was dimly lit with patches of something, maybe fungi maybe something else with some bioluminescence, on the walls that gave off a greenish glow. This looked to be a natural cavern with large stalactites (which had merged with stalagmites to form natural stone columns) dotted about.

Omnath saw a number of round things with many maws and stick legs in the chamber. We recognized these as things we fought in Tumeleen with the Skinless One (just before we found the Crazy Book in Jorlas’ wagon). Omnath counted half a dozen of them.

We figured they probably were an early warning system (we remembered them as making noise when we fought them in Tumeleen) and expected that other things would come to fight with them.

In fact the beachball things, called Grues, began to chatter and gibber when they spotted Omnath in the room.

Thneed moved into the hall and spotted a giant, that looked to be about stone giant sized, but weird and lumpy looking and with mottled skin, just entering the back of the large chamber, obviously investigating the noise from the grues. She then took a shot at a grue, hitting it and killing it.

Thneed: There’s something else. Something big.

Joybell rode into the room, toward one of the two clusters of them, and dropped one with two blows. Three of them swarmed her and one moved toward Taman, but fortunately all of their attacks missed.

Orryk took a shot at one and dropped it. Mo moved up, with Grape Ape close behind him, so he could see what was going on better, but that left him unable to attack.

The weird giant, a fomorian, moved up and cast a spell that caught Mo and Joybell, Grape Ape and Scooby, doing a tremendous amount of psychic damage (synaptic static is the spell) and scrambled their minds up a bit. Scooby disappeared back to the celestial plane and Grape Ape dropped to the brain damage. Joybell fell prone to the ground as her mount disappeared from beneath her.

Fiona moved a little closer and cast storm sphere centered on the giant. It stood in the middle of a howling storm with lightning crackling around it.

Joybell was on the ground in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by grues and with the giant looming not too far away.

Orryk, to Thneed: Cover Joybell.

Thneed was able to take out two of the ones surrounding Joybell with two arrows. Taman dashed in, dropped the last one, then continued moving so we were spread out.

Joybell, pissed off, stood up and threw the lightning javelin at the fomorian, but missed because her brain was still sizzling from the synaptic static. She then moved to the very edge of the storm sphere and threw a regular javelin which also missed.

Orryk shot at it twice, then put away his bow to prepare for hand to hand combat. Mo used the wand of web to catch the giant, hoping to hold him in the storm sphere, but the giant misty stepped out of the storm sphere and the web and then attacked Taman with its great club twice. Fortunately he missed.

Fiona hit it with scorching rays and a lightning bolt then Thneed hit it with an arrow. Taman cast hunters mark on the fomorian and waited for someone in the party to get into combat with it.

Joybell immediately obliged and moved in to fight the giant. She missed with both of her attacks, but Taman hit with his held attack.

Orryk moved up and hit the fomorian then went into a defensive stance. Mo cast a vicious mockery on it.

Mo: We hit you in the balls. No. We hit your….I had it…

The fomorian cast a spell that had Taman, Orryk and Joybell resisting a force that felt like it would have moved or teleported them. We all saved, though, and the fomorian stayed in place.

Which might have been unfortunate for it, because Fiona promptly hit him with two searing rays and Thneed with two arrows.

As we were fighting the fomorian, some of us saw a dilyarli appear from further down the corridor, a patch of bioluminescent fungi reflecting off his white skin and blue hair.

Thneed, on seeing the dilyarli: Hey, there’s someone else back there!

Taman, to the dilyarli: Friend or foe?

The dilyarli answered his question by making a gesture and creating barely visible clouds of sounds, corrupting sussurations, that whispered at Taman, Orryk and Joybell and got into our brains doing rather a lot of damage. (This was neither an attack nor a spell.) Then he took a shot at Taman with a longbow, but Mo shouted some cutting words and the arrow missed its mark.

Orryk continued to focus on the fomorian. Mo tried to cast polymorph on the dilyarli, to turn it into a trout, but he saved.

Before anyone else could attack the fomorian, it cast thunderstep (damaging all three of the party members around it) and reappeared down the hall, then ran further away into the darkness.

So we turned our attention to the dilyarli. Fiona cast a guiding bolt on him, which let Thneed hit him with both of her attacks. Taman cast hunters mark on the dilyarli and took a shot at him.

Joybell almost cast misty step to get close, then Mo reminded her of the wand of magic missile, so she used that to shoot him instead.

The sussurating clouds, which looked like heat haze on a highway, moved to stay close to those they were afflicting, then the dilyarli took two shots at Orryk, which Orryk didn’t even bother deflecting. He just stood there like a badass and let the arrows come at him.

Orryk then closed his eyes and ran up to attack the dilyarli with his tremor sense to guide him. Mo cast a shatter spell, just missing Orryk, and hitting the dilyarli with a great crash of thunderous sound. Fiona hit him with scorching rays. The final blow was Thneed’s two arrows both hitting him and dropping him.

Looking at the body, this was not a dilyarli any of us recognized -- not Ildna and not the one who’d come to Embernook. He had some fancy clothes (somewhat bloodstained and tattered now), a rapier, a longbow, and 12 arrows, which were added to the hoard of arrows.

Joybell immediately sat down and started to cast Find Steed.

We’d noticed earlier that the fomorian was twisted and mottled, physically affected by something. As soon as we looked at the dilyarli, we could see that he was as well -- his bones and muscles becoming misshapen and asymmetrical. The blue-white of his skin was turning grey and black in patches.

We hoped to find papers or something like that on him, something to indicate what was going on, but we found nothing of that nature.

After a short rest, we began to track the fomorian based on the blood trail he left behind. As we did so, we noticed that we were also back-tracking the dilyarli. It had come from wherever the fomorian was going.

We were still in the abandoned, probably played out, dwarven mines and we passed several branching tunnels along the way, but we stayed on the fomorian’s blood trail. As we went Taman took a minute to check for fey and got two individuals, fairly close, in the direction we were heading. He took another moment to check for planar portals and detected a sealed portal to the Feywild -- one that was not merely closed or inactive/dormant, but positively sealed.

Taman explained as we went that the Fomorians used to be fey giants and were expelled from the Feywild because they tried to expose it to the Hunger Between Worlds. The Fey Nobles had cast them out.

Orryk checked the orrery -- it pointed in the direction we were heading but didn’t snap as quickly as expected for as close as Taman said we were to the two fey. So the Epiphany Machine was not with the fey.

After a bit of following the blood trail, we came to a natural arch where the mine opened into a large cavern. Inside there was a dead fomorian on the ground, which we recognized as the one we’d fought. It was not dead or even likely dying when it escaped from the combat so it might have been killed when it returned to the cavern. There were a couple of dead dwarves who looked like many cysts had burst open and things emerged from their bodies There were also two dilyarli -- Ildna and a woman, probably Allina (the dilyarli he’d broken according to the Ice Maiden we’d spoken to outside of Auriqua), a living fomorian, many of the grues (which had probably come out of the dead dwarves).

In the split second in which we took in what lay in front of us, we heard coming up behind us two manglers (the gribbly monster from Harl’s library) and a skinless thing (like we fought in Tumeleen with the grues).


----------



## prabe (May 1, 2021)

Session 41: Taman Gets His Vengeance

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)

GM - Everyone Else


18 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 108) (immediately after)

We began where we left off -- standing in a corridor inside a mountain looking into a huge room with 10 of the grues, a fomorian, a broken dilyarli female (Allina), and, most importantly, Ildna, the dilyarli who killed Taman’s family. The room had some pillars/joined up stalactites-stalagmites and a large double door at the far end. We could hear things coming up the hallway behind us and caught a glimpse of a couple of the manglers (the gribbly monster from Harl’s library) and a Skinless One (the thing from Tummeleen).

Orryk threw the last bead from the Necklace of Fireballs into the room to announce our presence (and kill three of the grues).

Then Taman stepped up to say something to Ildna.

Taman: At last we meet, for the first time, for the last time. You have slaughtered many, including my family, for unknown reasons. You will explain your motives now. The Knights of Luminosity will exact my revenge, and then we will destroy the Epiphany Machine.

(Taman's player: "The Knights of Luminosity" is a work in progress.
Joybell's player: I like it.)

Ildna: It came to me that by fulfilling their bargains, they were making the Tundra Queen stronger. And that’s not a good thing.

Then he slipped out of the room through the large doors at the far end. Joybell wished he’d stayed, because that’s an interesting concept and she’d have liked to talk with him more about that. She was expecting someone touched by the Outer Chaos to be totally gibbering and mad, but that’s not an inherently insane thought.

Anyway, he left, to Taman’s intense frustration and disappointment. So Taman put his hunter’s mark on Allina and shot her.

Joybell galloped in on Scooby, killing a grue and ending up behind one of the natural pillars in the room where Allina couldn’t see her. Mo moved into the room and viciously mocked a grue.

Mo: Hey, your balls are showing.

Then he inspired Taman.

Thneed moved into a room and took out a grue, then Allina moved up and shot her with her longbow.

The skinless one caught up to Fiona, just reaching her but not able to attack. She immediately misty-stepped away and ran behind one of the pillars. Then she firebolted Allina because she was one of the biggest threats in the room.

Three of the grues swarmed Joybell -- one of them got a critical hit. The fomorian also moved up on Joybell but then rather than attacking her, he gave Taman the evil eye, causing him psychic damage. Taman could feel his body starting to twist and cripple, but he shook off the effect.

The manglers ran into the room but weren’t able to attack anyone. Orryk threw the Bead of Force, trying to catch them both in a hamster ball, but they skipped out of the way. Orryk moved further away from them and sent Omnath around the side of the room out of danger for the moment.

Taman moved (dashing the last five feet) and attacked the fomorian, hitting because of Mo’s inspiration.

Joybell cast misty step on herself and Scooby to get out of the cluster of grues (and the fomorian) then charged Allina, hitting and smiting her twice.

Mo cast a hypnotic pattern on the skinless one and the two manglers, which hypnotized all three of them, at least for the moment neutralizing the threat from behind us. Then he ran toward a group of grues. Thneed shot one of them twice, but it survived her arrows.

Allina attacked Joybell and put her corrupting susurrations, the nasty whispers that aren’t an attack or a spell and just do psychic damage, on Taman and Mo. The whisper, and the ensuing mental pain, cause Mo to lose his concentration on the hypnotic pattern, so the manglers and the skinless one were once again free to attack.

Freed from the pretty lights, the skinless one rushed Thneed but couldn’t get to her. Fiona dropped a fireball on the manglers and the skinless one, then she ran around the pillar she was hiding behind before seeing how much damage she did.

Mo and Taman were attacked by the grues and the fomori turned to attack Taman. Taman’s good luck caused one of the blows to miss and the other just went wide.

One of the manglers ran at blinding speed to Mo and the other to Thneed. Then they extruded lots of bladed pseudopods or tentacles and attacked in a whirlwind. Mo took three hits for 39 points of damage, which he reduced with cutting words. Thneed was hit by five of the six tentacles from her mangler, taking 53 points of damage.

(Note: Deponent tries not to get that much into the details of a combat, but naughty word howdy that’s a lot of damage for one round!) (GM note: Two of those hits were crits, which goes some way to explaining how it was so much damage.)

Orryk moved up next to Thneed, with Omnath, and Omnath cast a fog cloud over Thneed, Mo, and the manglers. Then he used his elemental affinity, Patient Badger Waits, to sense the tremors in the earth from the manglers and attacked one of them -- stunning it with his stunning strike then hitting it again with his unarmed attack.

Orryk made it possible for Mo and Thneed to get away from the manglers safely, because the manglers wouldn’t be able to see to do an opportunity attack when they left.

Mo, after Taman repositioned himself and Joybell hit Allina twice, took advantage of the opportunity Orryk made and ran away, taking an opportunity attack from a couple of grues, but not from the mangler, then he cast a shatter spell back where he was, killing one of the grues and hurting the mangler. Thneed ran out of the fog cloud and killed the other grue Mo had run away from.

Allina attacked Joybell first with her sword, missing, and then with a breath of bitter cold, which also missed.

The skinless one moved toward Fiona and began to dodge and weave. Fiona ran away from it and then cast magic missile on it. The two remaining grues attacked - one came out of the fog cloud and attacked Mo, the other attacked Taman - both missed. The fomorian missed Taman because of another lucky break but then hit him again. Taman was able to dodge much of the damage from that.

The mangler that had been on Mo couldn’t see anyone or anything in the fog, but when it ran out of the fog it spotted Mo again and attacked. Fortunately it wasn’t able to do the whirling bladed pseudopod attack again, but it still hit twice and did a fair amount of damage.

Orryk pulled out the Mace of Smiting (from Turnik Steeltear’s hoard) and attacked the mangler he had stunned with it. He hit it twice with the mace and then punched it to death with his unarmed strike.

Taman disengaged from the fomori and ran away, throwing a dagger at Allina as he went. The surprise attack got through her defenses and did her a lot of damage. Joybell followed up with a hit -- she thought about drawing down power for a divine smite and decided against it. She immediately regretted that decision when Allina stood, staggered and bloodied and near to death at the end.

Mo cast a powerful shatter spell on the grue and the mangler immediately behind him. He inspired Orryk, hoping that Orryk would kill the monsters for him.

Mo: Please kill this thing.

Thneed moved her hunters mark to the skinned one and dropped it after two really terrifyingly solid hits.

Allina attacked Joybell, missing with her rapier twice but critically hitting with her chill breath despite the Cloak of Displacement. Fortunately, Joybell was able to resist much of the damage because of being a paladin.

Fiona shifted around behind her pillar so she could cast scorching ray, hitting the fomorian with it three times.

The fomorian moved to Mo, who was closer and not in cover.

Mo: That’s probably going to be unpleasant.

The fomorian hit Mo twice and even with Mo using his cutting words to reduce the damage, he dropped to the first attack. Orryk did something to lower the damage from the second attack so that Mo didn’t wind out with two failed death saves.

The mangler then moved to Orryk and attacked with the whirling bladed tentacle attack getting three hits but fortunately no crits. Orryk put the mace away and began to attack with his deathtouch gloves, getting some of his hitpoints back from the mangler with two hits, one because of Mo’s inspiration.

Omnath, with a healing potion on a belt at his waist, started flying toward Mo.

Taman attacked the last remaining grue, which had survived fireball and shatter and several attacks, and killed it finally. Joybell finally dropped Allina then rode over to the fomorian and smote it with her second attack.

Thneed put her hunters mark on the fomorian and then shot it.

Fiona cast healing word on Mo.

Fiona: Wake up, Mo!!

Then she firebolted the fomorian, but missed.

The fomorian then turned to Taman and attacked with his great club, hitting twice. Even with his uncanny ability to dodge damage, Taman was dropped.

The mangler attacked Orryk, fortunately just with two bladed pseudopods rather than six.

Mo, awake and still lying on the ground: Hey! Stop it!

His cutting words caused the mangler to miss with both of its attacks. Orryk then turned around and punched it with the deathtouch gloves, getting some strength back and dropping it.

Taman, dropped by the fomorian, lay on the ground and gurgled, a trickle of blood coming out of the corner of his mouth. Fortunately, Mo stood up and cast healing word on Taman before stabbing the fomori in the balls with his rapier.

With the fomorian the only remaining opponent, all of our attacks were focused there. Thneed shot at it. Joybell attacked with her short sword. Fiona cast a guiding bolt (which sadly missed). Orryk hit it twice with the deathtouch gloves, getting more of his strength back.

The fomorian turned to attack Mo, who had stood up too far away from Joybell for her to protect him with her shield, dropping him again. Taman moved right next to Joybell, so she could protect him, then attacked the giant as well.

Thneed and Fiona both hit the giant, Thneed with two arrows, Fiona with a ray from a Scorching Ray spell.

The fomorian attacked Orryk, who went invisible after the first hit. Despite that the fomorian’s second attack hit as well. Orryk immediately punched the fomorian with the deathtouch gloves, getting some of that strength back, then he too moved near Joybell. Omnath, who’d been crossing the battlefield for a few seconds, got to Mo and poured a healing potion into him.

Mobile medic to the rescue!

Taman attacked the giant, hitting well with his sneak attack, then disengaged and ran behind one of the pillars.

Joybell dropped the giant with her attack and actually remembered to do a healing word with the Sword of the Medic, healing Mo some.

We dragged the body of the fomorian in front of the double doors, blocking them shut, then Fiona made a tiny hut and we took a desperately needed short rest. Mo played us a song that helped us heal and rest better.

Looting the bodies, only Allina had anything at all and that was just a longbow, a rapier and 18 arrows, which were given to Theed (I believe).

After we finished our short rest, we dragged the dead fomorian away from the doors and proceeded through. There was a short hall with doors at the far end -- as we proceeded along it, Joybell talked with Taman about the possibility of casting an Aura of Vitality around herself.

Taman kicked open the double doors, which went into a large-ish room with no other exits. Most of the room looked like the same rock we’d been traveling through, but one corner looked pitted and weathered like it had been through a thousand years of freeze-thaw cycles -- with chips flaking off. Ildna stood in that corner.

Mo: Eureka! The Epiphany Machine!
Ildna: Not anymore, dammit.
Joybell: What does that mean?
Taman: It has abandoned you.
Ildna: It was here. Now it’s gone.
Taman: Did you know what deal my parents made with the Tundra Queen before you killed them.
Ildna: They promised <<then his words devolved into polyglot gibberish, each word and at times each syllable in a different language>>

Despite talking with Taman about casting Aura of Vitality as we approached the room, as soon as Ildna started talking in Outer Chaos Crazy Gibberish, Joybell charged him.

Joybell: We talked about it, but he’s there and needs attacking.

Her indecision affected her swings though, and she missed with both attacks. Fortunately, Thneed hit with both of her arrows. Joybell and Thneed both forgot to avert their eyes from Ildna’s gaze and began to feel cold freezing their bodies as they started to turn to ice.

Mo cast a faerie fire on Ildna, making him sparkle green, then he inspired Taman.

Mo: Make sure you kill him.

Ildna created his corrupting susurration, except instead of whispers, his were screaming in Thneed’s ears. Then he attacked Joybell with his rapier. He blew a chill breath on her and she could see that it was considerably stronger than Allina’s -- the water in the air turned immediately to tiny ice crystals which began falling to the ground. Fortunately, all of his attacks missed.

Orryk ran around behind Ildna then attacked with the mace of smiting -- he tried to stun it but it resisted the stunning effect. Omnath, now a magma mephit, cast heat metal on Ildna’s rapier. He immediately dropped the rapier.

Taman: I’ve saved something specially for you.

Then he pulled out a handful of salt from his pocket and threw it at Ildna’s eyes, to blind him and eliminate the ice-gaze but missed.

Fiona cast a high level scorching ray, hitting him with four of the five rays of fire. Ildna screamed when the fire touched him.

Despite the cold creeping over her, Joybell cast a searing smite and hit him, setting him on fire. Thneed hit him twice with her arrows, though her feet were frozen in place.

Mo inspired Thneed.

Mo: Stay toasty! Don’t freeze!

Then he shot Ildna with his crossbow and moved into the room.

Ildna started screaming in gibberish, and it _hurt_. Orryk, Joybell, Taman and Thneed all took psychic damage from the corrupting screaming gibberish. Thneed was dropped and immediately failed a death save.

Orryk closed his eyes and used his patient badger tremor sense to attack Ildna, hitting him and stunning him. Taman averted his eyes, put his hunters mark on Ildna and made a sneaky attack while Ildna’s attention was on Joybell and Orryk.

Fiona dropped a fireball on the cluster of combatants, shaping it around everyone except Ildna. Because of being stunned by Orryk’s strike, he was unable to do anything but scream as the fire burned into his icy flesh.

Joybell, fearing that she’d turn to ice with the Necklace of Prayer Beads on her, threw the beads to the ground then attacked, calling down a lot of divine energy on him. The furious energy warmed her and she shook off the freezing chill that had been overtaking her.

Mo took a shot with his crossbow from the other side of the room, then he inspired Joybell.

Mo: Please kill this guy for me.

Orryk hit him and tried to stun him again -- it took two tries and Orryk’s last bit of Ki energy, but he was able to stun Ildna a second time. Taman, realizing that while stunned Ildna couldn’t use his gaze attack, attacked without averting his eyes, but alas still missed.

Fortunately, Fiona still had enough magical energy left to cast a big fireball right on him -- he burst into flame. By the time the flames had dissipated, his body was melting away, leaving only a rapier, longbow and arrows.

Joybell picked up the necklace from where she’d dropped it and immediately used it on Thneed, restoring her to flesh and blood. Shen she laid on hands and healed her as well.

Thneed sat against the wall of the room shivering. Omnath, a magma mephit, moved next to her so she could warm up on his heat.

Fiona cast detect magic. None of the things left when Ildna melted away were magical. However, there were shelves in the other corner of the room and looking on those we found Wonderful Things:

There were coins:

8141 sp (some of it in trade bars)
2080 gp
107 pp

There were non-magical art objects (each worth 250gp):

A gold ring with bloodstones
A carved agate statuette
A large gold bracelet
A bronze crown
All were decorated with dwarven motifs and were clearly dwarven work.

There was a non-magical set of Dwarven full plate, obviously sized for a dwarf.

And then there were magical things:
Rope of Entanglement (Taman)
Ring of Channeling (attunement) (Only Joybell and Fiona can use this and neither of them really want to use an attunement slot on it, so it’s probably for sale or trade.)
Wand of the War Mage (attunement)(Fiona)
Book of Physical Prowess (Joybell latched onto this and will not let go)
Warhammer +3 (Joybell)
Amulet of the Planes (attunement)(Orryk)
Necklace of Adaptation (Mo)

As Mo picked up the necklace, it began speaking to him in dwarvish in a shy and halting voice.

Necklace: Are you going to Torm Danhar?

We learned that the necklace’s name was Emnoll and it, the dwarven plate and the warhammer were all the possessions of a dwarf warrior named Altor Ironhand, who fell to Ildna and his chaos thralls. Emnoll said that it, the armor and the hammer are all still the possessions of the Ironhand clan.

Joybell: We should take this stuff back to them. I also have some other dwarven things, armor and shield and a war hammer, in my bag. Though I don’t mind using the warhammer for a while before we get there.
Orryk: That is not our highest priority right now, but we definitely want to do that.

Treasure:

Merry loot-mas! Including the art, everyone gets: 17 pp, 513 gp, 1356 sp. Leftovers for party funds: 5 pp, 2 gp, 5 sp.

The magical items have been allocated as above. Fiona is going to un-attune with a Brooch of Shielding, so that will be available if anyone wants it.


----------



## prabe (May 8, 2021)

Session 42: Back to Kalmarn. Off to Erlin.

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Cleric (War)

GM - Everyone Else


18 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 108) (immediately after)

Thneed's player, explaining Thneed taking a level in cleric: Thneed had a near death experience and has found religion.

As we sat down and re-grouped after the fight, Mo shared some info he’d figured out about teleportation circles with Fiona. Joybell sat next to Taman and had Scooby sit on the other side, so Taman could pet him and warm himself if he needed to.

After a bit, Joybell waved Orryk over.

Joybell: Those monsters that came up behind us...where did they come from?
Orryk: Probably one of the side tunnels that branched off
Joybell: So we’re not worrying about clearing all the things out?
Orryk: We’d probably just wind out running into something worse.

After a while, Fiona made a tiny hut and we took a long rest.


19 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 109)

The next morning, Mo “helped” Fiona cast a teleportation circle to take us back to Stately Kang Manor.

Mo: You make a circle…I think the runes look like this. Sort of. It’s pretty close anyway.
Fiona: Are you sure it’s not this?
Mo: You’ve got it.

While they worked that out, Orryk pulled out the orrery to see where it was pointing. It pointed toward the same corner where we believe the Epiphany Machine had been standing, but not as sharply or strongly as before.

We speculated a bit about whether there’s a delay before the Machine reappears, and if there were limits on where it could reappear -- like would it be on Urnod, on Erkonin, on some other world, on some other plane? We realized that he had no real information about any of this stuff.

Fiona took over the casting and we stepped into the circle and out into the library at Stately Kang Manor.

It was clear that some interior work had been happening in the 8 days we’d been gone -- some painting.

Chulty was waiting for us (having possibly heard the teleportation circle firing up).

Joybell: Hello, Chulty!! How are things going?
Chulty: Well.
Joybell: No orcs?
Chulty: Based on what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t expect them for another couple of weeks.
Mo: How is hiring people for the tavern construction going?
Chulty: We’re getting together a crew, but construction may not be able to start until after the winter.
Mo: Be on the lookout for a bartender.

Joybell noticed that Chulty and his friends were still living in tents inside.

Joybell: You guys are welcome to find rooms and make yourself at home.

After that we settled down in the library, sadly devoid of books but with some reasonably comfortable furniture, to talk about what we wanted to do next.

Mo: Do you, Taman, want to kill the Tundra Queen?
Orryk: You’ve talked about genocide.
Taman: I wanted that. Now I don’t care.

We started to talk about what we wanted to do next, but got distracted wondering about where Mo’s baboon, Clyde, was.

Joybell: Chulty! Is Clyde the baboon around?
Chulty: He’s around outside.

Joybell sent Scooby to find Clyde and herd him back toward the house.

With that settled, we went back to talking about plans, specifically what we wanted to ask Nicolana, the Keeper of Secrets, in exchange for the papers we brought back from Turnik Steeltear and the Forge of Masks.

The questions we worked out were:

The details of Taman’s parents’ deal with the Tundra Queen.
The details of Auriqua’s deal with the Tundra Queen.
Any weaknesses of the Tundra Queen -- like psychological weaknesses or habits and behaviors that we might be able to make use of.
Lines of succession, or social organization, in the Fey Noble Houses.
When Thneed raised that question, Taman told us some of what he’d learned in researching the Fey Nobles and the Tundra Queen. There are three families of Fey Nobles, the Dantes, the Tizianos and the Vivaldis. The structure is generational -- and family relations are a bit loose. So a fey is likely to know who their parents are but may refer to all other fey of their parents’ generation as “aunt” or “uncle”. They may refer to all other fey of their own generation (other than siblings) as “cousin”. Lines of descent aren’t always clear.

They take titles or epithets for themselves -- when the Tundra Queen began calling herself that it was more aspirational than anything else. The epithets that the Fey nobles take for themselves define the personalities that they become locked into.

For example, the Tundra Queen has defined herself as a person who makes deals and that is a fundamental part of her personality. She has also identified herself with the tundra and the spread of the cold zones.

Succession in a sort of human sense isn’t really a thing -- no other Fey Noble felt strongly about the Tundra as their “thing” so she was able to take over that. But she’s not the leader or actual “queen” of any place in the sense that there are princes or princesses who will eventually take over the domain.

The Tundra Queen is believed to be third generation. The Fey are ageless, but can be killed.

The three families are not “themed” to the realms they wind up with, though there may be personality threads through the family. Certainly Nicolana, like her mother, makes deals, though she doesn’t feel that they’re zero-sum games in which one person is the winner and one the loser.

Taman told us about one he’d read about called The Peaceful Conqueror -- he was killed after the Fiend Wars ended. He was swaying what was left of the mortal cities with guile and rhetoric and was working toward gaining control of all of Urnod. His area of control got to where Ambernock (the city that existed before Embernook in the same location) had been, and he was killed (at least, it is presumed he was killed; the fey don’t talk about him much, either). It is believed he may have been killed by another Fey -- one called the Apostate or, sometimes, the Fratricide. His name was never used in any of the materials that Taman saw, just the epithets. He’s called the Apostate because he doesn’t like Fey.

We all immediately had our minds go to the Administrator and contemplated that for a while.

After a bit we moved on…

Orryk: Fiona, don’t you and your dragonborn friend have something going on?I remember you found something in a library in Pelsoreen.
Fiona: Yeah.

She then pulled out a paper from her bag - written in Celestial, it was a journal entry from an explorer who found an off-shore island, with a table on it. Engraved on the table were the names of the gods -- Moraddin, Wee Jas, Correlon, Tezcatlipoca, Coyote...and other names, not gods widely worshiped on Urnod (or at least not recognized as such by party members): Indra, Odin, the number 10,000. While researching in Pelsoreen, Fiona found a note in a book on the Severance written in the same hand that just said “I’m sorry.”

(Note: This is what I have about Fiona’s research in Pelsoreen, copied from my notes for session 11.

Back at the library, Fiona was looking for information on the Severance and on pre-Severance history. Working together she and Orryk learned the following:

The first tidal wave in Pelsoreen was heralded by the sky going black. People heard a banging or a roaring out over the ocean and then the tsunami hit. This was the first notice anyone had of the Severance -- clerics couldn’t get spells to heal people and deal with the disaster by praying to their gods. Just before the sky went black and the tidal wave hit, prayers for spells had been answered as normal.
There have been three tsunamis since the Severance which have also been heralded by the sky going black and the banging over the ocean, but there was no additional supernatural effect like the Severance.
Inside one of the history books, Fiona finds a small piece of very old vellum that has written on it, in Celestial, “I’m sorry”. This is the same handwriting as a letter (or document) that Fiona found when she was adventuring with a dragonborn friend in a temple in an abandoned village. The document describes a group of people from another plane finding a stone table with names of the gods carved on the table. )
Fiona hasn’t had an opportunity to do more research than that -- though Mo and Joybell are both keenly interested in this and want to help Fiona pursue it.

We then went back to thinking about questions for Nicolana.

Did Alighieri win a deal with the Tundra Queen?
What does Nicolana know about the disappearance of the Umbral Circle? Could that connect with the Shadowpool outbreak and the warlocks of Orcus?
Have the Fey ever gone to war with the Fire Elementals?
That last question had in mind the idea that we need to kill a fire elemental to activate Orryk’s Ring of Fire Elemental Command and perhaps we could use the fire elementals and the fey against each other.

With our questions for Nicolana sorted out and agreed on, we talked about where to meet her. WIthout much discussion we all agreed that we weren’t comfortable inviting a Fey Noble into our home, so we decided to meet her at the docks in town, the only other reasonably nice place in Kalmarn right now.

With that settled, Fiona cast a sending spell to Nicolana.

Fiona: We have the information and some questions. Please meet us at the docks at Kalmarn.
Nicolana: I can be there in 2 days.

So we had two days to occupy ourselves until we could talk to her.

Joybell took her Manual of Gainful Exercise and started practicing with the exercises in it. Squats, lunges, walking lunges, curls...she worked very diligently.

Mo used a couple of the dragon pages to send a letter to his former teacher telling her that there will be a tavern open in Kalmarn in two months that will need entertainment.

Mo: Chulty, what’s the name of the person doing the dragon head? I want to talk to them about what’s on the plaque.
Chulty: Yeah, his name is…
Mo: Did you warn him that it’s really poisonous?
Chulty: Yeah. His name is…

(The name was duly given.)

Thneed spent the time working on a pavilion at the dock for us to meet Nicolana in. And for the comfort of people using the docks. She also fixed up the dock some to make it easier for boats to tie up there.

Taman slipped away and went into the woods. When she noticed he’d gone (some hours later), Joybell sent Scooby out to keep an eye on him, but Scooby didn’t intrude on Taman’s ruminations. (Note: Scooby may not have actually found Taman, that was never settled.)


20 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 110)

Mo, Fiona, and Orryk went to Embernook, teleporting (with permission) to the circle in Tulmor and Barnett’s library. Thneed, still working on developing her carpentry skills, asked Mo to pick up some holy symbols from the various temples in Embernook, to help her decide which order she wanted to join.

Joybell, Thneed, and Taman stayed at Stately Kang Manor continuing their activities of the previous day.

In Embernook, Fiona stayed in Tulmor and Barnett’s to learn Scrying from their library. Mo was going shopping, so Fiona gave him some money to buy her a crystal ball to use for the spell.

Orryk took the Ring of Channeling we got from Ildna’s treasure to the Lightbringers’ Temple and got, in exchange, a Basalt Amulet, an irregular chunk of basalt on a stout copper chain. It gives advantage on stealth checks and allows the wearer to cast Greater Invisibility once a day. While Orryk was making that exchange, Mo went around Soul’s Rest buying some holy symbols for Thneed.

Mo asked around about whether the various orders know the names of the gods -- they know they can’t call on them for power by name, but do they remember the names of the gods. The Lightbringers had more knowledge of the names of the gods than the other orders.

Orryk left Mo to continue his explorations in Soul’s Rest and went to talk to the magic merchant, Trannell, who he’s been paying to watch for elemental items on Orryk’s behalf. That turned out to be money well spent, because Trannell had come across a Censer of Air Elemental Command and had kept it aside, knowing it was just exactly the sort of thing Orryk was looking for.

It cost 12,000 gp and Orryk bought it on the spot.

Orryk: I will go broke to get that.

Orryk also collected the spell scrolls -- 2 Longstrider and 4 Protection from Evil and Good -- that we’d commissioned young wizards to scribe for us.

Mo, after he’d finished up in Soul’s Rest, went to the docks to see about buying a boat to make it easier for Chulty and folks to get to and from Kalmarn. The boat he found even had a small windsail. The seller was asking 10,000gp. Mo put on a large performance of inspecting the boat, commenting on flaws and pointing out issue. It was a good performance and he got the price of the boat down to 8,000.

Having bought the boat, Mo tied the Broom of Flying to the bow and told the broom to fly to Kalmarn, letting it guide the boat upriver and getting by with a great deal of beginner’s luck to figure out the steering. The boat will hold about 10 people, more if they’re small.

By the end of the day, Joybell had done 24 (of 48) hours of work with the Manual of Gainful Exercise.

Orryk and Fiona teleported back from Embernook and said that Mo was making his own way back. Mo arrived in the boat in the middle of the night. We all chipped in to help pay for it the next morning.


21 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 111)

Around mid morning, we all gathered at the docks and waited for Nicolana. Joybell expected her to arrive from the river, either by boat or just sort of manifesting, but she came up from the path to town to join us in the pavilion Thneed made.

We showed her Turnik’s books and records. She was especially impressed with his business records -- who had hired him for what sorts of jobs.

Nicolana: Oh, that IS interesting.
Joybell: I thought you’d like that.

We told her that we’d destroyed the information about the high ritual he’d used to kill young children to take the years of their life for his own.

Nicolana: So he was casting Your Life For Mine.
Joybell: I think that’s what it was called. We destroyed that because no one needs to know how to do that.

Nicolana, after looking through the papers for a while: He was an unpleasant soul.
Mo: We had to kill him. Twice.
Joybell: It is painful to think about the things he did and the harm he caused.
Nicolana: It is.

After she’d looked at the papers for a bit we agreed that we’d start asking her our questions and when she felt we’d reached a fair exchange she’d let us know.

Question 1: Taman’s parents’ deal with the Tundra queen.

Nicolana did not know the specifics of Taman’s parents’ particular deal - however she told us for free that most people who are not from Auriqua who seek out the Tundra Queen go to her when they’re in some sort of trouble. The Tundra Queen can hide people in her realms temporarily. Generally her price for doing this is to fulfill some obligation of hers to someone else.

Taman: Ildna seemed to know, but he was speaking gibberish at us.

We sequed from that to an extra question about the Machine and if there’s a delay before it reappears. Also if there’s any way to predict where it would appear. She said no -- also it can travel backwards and forwards in time. So even if there is a delay there’s no way to know.

Question 2: What is the tiny print of Auriqua’s deal with the Tundra Queen? We know the broad outline of it and that she is obliged not to directly harm them.

Nicolana clarified that she has an obligation not to directly harm the dilyarli. The agreement doesn’t say she can’t harm the children. She had that obligation to Ildna.

Mo: Does the Tundra Queen pose as much danger to Auriqua as protection?
Nicolana: Knowing the Tundra Queen it is plausible she has told her servants how juicy Auriqua is so that when her protection is lifted they are especially interested…
Mo: So it’s still a protection racket.

Question 3: We’d like to know more about the Tundra Queen. Anything that might give us an edge in dealing with her.

Nicolana: Making deals is part of who she is. If presented with an opportunity to do so, she almost certainly will. She likes winning deals.
Mo: What does she consider winning? What does she want?
Nicolana: She is deeply political. What she wants is influence.
Taman: Is this why she’s been trying to horn in on Embernook?
Nicolana: And that hasn’t gone well for her.

Question 4 was skipped because we already had that information.

Question 5:

Orryk: Has she ever made a deal with Alighieri?

That question was followed by 2 seconds of hysterical, shocked laughter, then an inscrutable stone face.

Nicolana: “No.”

Question 6:

Joybell: Do you know anything about what happened to the Umbral circle of planar druids?
Nicolana: The Umbral Circle was a group of druids mostly dedicated to reducing the influence of the Shadowfell on Erkonin. My impression, based on incomplete knowledge, is that someone or something that would or was getting power from the Shadowfell broke the Umbral Circle.
Mo: Was it an organized group or individuals?
Nicolana: I don’t know.
Orryk: Could this tie to the Shadowfell incursions in Embernook a few months ago?
Joybell: Do you know when they might have been broken?
Nicolana: I haven’t heard about them for six months.
Mo: That lines up.
Joybell and Orryk: Yeah.

(Note: The Shadowfell incursions in Embernook were three and a half months ago.)

Mo: We’ve run into warlocks of Orcus. We’re sure they were connected to making Shadowpools in Embernook. Do you know of followers of Orcus that might be lurking around somewhere?
Nicolana: There are often people who think they can get power by bending fiends to their will. They are often wrong.
Joybell: Is there an organization or cult?
Orryk: If you were to go to a city to look for these people, where would you go?
Nicolana: New Arvai.

Question 5.5:

Mo: Back to the Tundra Queen and Auriqua -- how can we get her to break her deal? We don’t want her turning kids to dilyarli.
Nicolana: I’ve been a dilyarli. It wasn’t fun.
EVERYONE: You were? And you’re not now? It can be undone?
Nicolana: She can undo it.

Question 7:

Thneed: Is there a history of war between Fey and Fire elementals?
Nicolana: There isn’t a source of conflict there. Elemental planes are more interested in the prime material than they are in the Feywild.

Question 5.5 (again):

Joybell: Going back to Mo’s question. What would it take to get her to break a deal? Ildna said that people completing their deals with the Tundra Queen were making her more powerful and that is maybe not a good thing. Do you know what he meant?
Nicolana: That’s the closest to the truth that the Epiphany Machine’s revelations ever get. Whenever she makes a deal her plan is to increase her own power and to anyone NOT HER that is not a good thing.
Joybell: Is it not nice being a dilyarli?
Nicolana: Remembering being one, while not being one now…remembering not being yourself is painful. While you are a dilyarli, it is not painful or traumatic. It becomes so when you are not again and can remember.

With that, Nicolana declared that we were even now.

Orryk: Is there anything we can bring you from New Arvai?
Nicolana: You know me well. If you find something, let me know…

Joybell walked out of the pavilion with her and through the empty town.

Joybell: I had a question for you, but I can’t remember what it was right now.
Nicolana: <<just looked at her in a bemused way>>
Joybell: If I remember, I can send it to you on dragon paper. Will that find you?
Nicolana: Yes.

Then she patted Joybell on the shoulder and walked off through the town.

After she left, we talked about what to do next.

We decided that our next step was to take a boat down the river to Erlin (about a week down the Hochor River) -- Irlua at the Primal Atoll told Orryk that there was some sort of fire incursion or instability there and we’re hoping to find a fire elemental for him to kill.

After that we can see what day it is -- we want to be in Auriqua at the Feast of Stars in two and a half months -- we can either teleport back to Kalmarn and go to Auriqua or proceed on downriver to New Arvai to see what we can learn about the Umbral Circle and whoever’s doing these Shadowfell incursions. Also to break into the library of the School of the World to retrieve Adnorga’s Staff.

We checked in with Chulty -- asking if he needed to go to Embernook (he could teleport along with us, or we could all go down in the boat). He did not. We told him we were leaving Clyde. He said they were already building a pen and kennel for him in the yard.

We named our boat the Weirdness Magnet and left it for Chulty and his friends to use as they need it.

Then we checked with Tulmor and Barnett to make sure it was okay, then teleported to Embernook. We asked them if there was anything we could do for them in Erlin and they said no. Mo asked about crime in New Arvai (since we’ll be going there eventually to break into the School of the World’s library).

Mo also talked to Taman about thieves’ guilds and asked if he’d have any insight.

Mo: When we get there we can leave Joybell behind and find people to help us.
Taman: If they help us, they’ll want to be paid.
Thneed: Or maybe they’ll turn us in for the reward.

When we were still at Tulmor and Barnett’s place Taman sensed for Fey in town. He detected one. In Centerkeep. In the Administrative Offices Building.

Taman: Oh, naughty word!
Mo: Well isn’t that interesting information?
Taman: Much is explained.

Joybell, thinking that maybe the Administrator needed to know that we thought he was Fey, or that someone in the city administration was and we strongly figured it’s him, went to talk to Thalith while the others arranged for our trip to Erlin on a boat. She signed in on the sheet as always and tried to figure out how to say that without saying it -- because folks in the waiting room can sort of hear what’s being said in Thalith’s office sometimes.

Joybell, when Thalith called her into his office: We have solid information that there is a Fey in town.
Thalith: I’m sure the Administrator knows.
Joybell: He knows everything that goes on in town. I just wanted to make sure.

She and Thalith got into a talk about how Chulty and his friends were doing in Kalmarn. He was disconcerted that Chulty’s old adventuring party friends had joined him there -- not that they were untrustworthy people, just that he wanted Chulty leaving that life behind.

After that, Joybell left, unsure that Thalith had received her actual message.

At the docks, she found that we had taken passage on the Glistenspray, a small vessel captained by Zellora, a female water genasi. The Glistenspray is a more cushy ride than the Gellyan -- better food and better cabins. Zellora will take us to Erlin and drop us off -- her ultimate destination is New Arvai.

By the time all this was arranged, it was late afternoon. So we went to our various lodgings in town. Joybell did a bit more work with the book -- exercising in her room and in the yard at Queena’s.

The night passed without incident.


22 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 112)

We met at the docks and head out on the Glistenspray toward Erlin for what we hoped, but didn’t expect, would be an uneventful trip.


----------



## prabe (May 16, 2021)

Session 43: Traveling By Boat Again

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Cleric (War)

Note: Mo's player was unable to attend because of bad road conditions.

GM - Everyone Else


22 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 112)

We met at the docks in the morning to board the Glistenspray for our trip to Erlin.

Mo, having gotten into some really good pipe-stuff he obtained somewhere in our travels, tied his broom to the back of the boat, strapped himself into the battle hammock and spent a few days completely blissed out. Once in a while he’d come down to the boat to eat and take care of necessities, but mostly there was a lot of bliss and just letting himself be pulled along.

Joybell found a place on deck where she could read her Manual of Gainful Exercise and do the workouts in it.

Taman found himself a place up in the crow’s nest where he could be out of the way and keep to himself. Thneed found a place on deck where she could examine the holy symbols Mo picked up for her and see which one felt holiest to her.

Orryk went to the captain to ask about whether an air elemental could help make the ship go faster.

Captain Zelora: Well, if the windsails catch too much wind they can tear. So probably not.

Orryk was slightly disappointed, but probably still summoned an air elemental to put it through its paces.

The day started out as a lovely fall day, in the 70s and sunny.

We passed some ancient ruins -- fortifications along the river -- around sundown, but the boat didn’t stop and we didn’t see anything peculiar about them except that they were ancient ruins.

The night passed quietly and without incident.


23 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 113)

Around midday the next day, the Glistenspray passed a river-side village, more or less like Kalmarn and the other villages we passed on the way to Auriqua. Joybell was intent on her workouts and reading, but Taman and Thneed were less focused and paying more attention.

Captain Zelora: That’s weird.
Taman: What?
Captain Zelora: There doesn’t seem to be anyone in Treskill. There were people in the village last time I sailed by.

Taman looked toward shore and saw a person running down the street. A moment later a horse-sized thing sprung out from between two buildings, grabbed the person, and ran off between two more buildings. At about that time, he heard a high-pitched screaming howl. He gave a shout and got the attention of the whole party.

Thneed, who saw all of that, immediately jumped off the boat and began swimming for shore in her Mariner’s Armor. Fiona hurried up on deck from where she was reading below, activated the Wings of Flying and flew up in the air, heading in that direction.

Orryk came up on deck, saw Thneed swimming by herself, and ran down the side of the boatand across the water to shore so she wouldn’t be there by herself.

Joybell: Wow! That’s so cool!

Joybell mounted Scooby and waited at the railing of the ship impatiently, Scooby pacing back and forth and stamping in place, until the boat got close enough to the dock for him to jump over. Taman also waited for the boat to get to shore rather than using his Cape of the Mountebank to get there.

Thneed’s haste to get ashore wasn’t completely headlong -- she stopped outside of town to observe the tactical situation. We all joined her as we got on shore (except Fiona, who stayed up in the air, though near where the rest of the party had gathered).

We saw a couple more people running around with packs of the horse-sized things ripping apart anyone they could catch.

Taman: How can Mo sleep at a time like this?

Thneed recognized these things, she thought. She said that they were Howlers, fiends from Pandemonium (not the Abyss or the Nine Hells, where most fiends are from). They operate in packs. Their howl frightens people and renders them more vulnerable to their attacks. She reminded us that a lot of fiends are resistant to elemental damage and don’t get badly hurt by attacks from normal, non-magical weapons.

We were reassured to see some people still alive and hoped that more were hiding in the buildings.

We initially saw three of the Howlers in the middle of the main street of the village. Thneed moved into a good position and fired off a couple of arrows. Orryk kept pace with her and fired some arrows as well, but his shortbow’s range isn’t nearly as long as her longbow, so he only got one hit to her two.

Fiona flew up and took a position in the air at the end of the main street. She cast a Storm Sphere that caught all three of them -- they were all bludgeoned by the sudden downpour then a lightning bolt shot out and hit one of them.

Joybell ran up at Scooby’s top speed then fired off two charges from the Wand of Magic Missile at the one that had been struck by the lightning. Taman took two shots at a different one, hitting, but we could see that his non-magical arrows didn’t make much of an impact.

All three of them moved quickly out of the difficult terrain of Fiona’s Storm Sphere -- two of them went between buildings (one on each side of the street) and the other went back down the street, then ducked between some buildings further back. It looked like each of them was mostly focused on the shortest route out of the pummeling rain. But it wound out with them separating to the point that they weren’t amenable to area attacks, and we couldn’t see what two of them were doing.

Taman: Are they being controlled? That seemed really intelligent.

Thneed put her Hunter’s Mark on the one that had been most hurt, dropping it with an arrow to the heart.

Thneed: Pax vobiscum, bitch!

Orryk moved to the edge of the town and held his attack until he saw an opponent to fight. Since they’d all left the Storm Sphere, Fiona let that drop and cast a magic missile on the one Taman had shot.

Joybell moved into the town and waited to attack something that came in her range. Taman moved up next to her, staying close because her presence holds off fear for those near her. Then he hid behind a building next to her.

It was good that he did that, because at that moment one of the Howlers came around the side of a building and saw Joybell standing in the road. It howled a terrible screaming yowl that would have terrified most people, but Joybell and Taman were not frightened.

Thneed had to take a few seconds to get into a good position, but Orryk was able to get off a couple of shots with his shortbow, hitting twice. Then he put the bow away and prepared to get into melee. Fiona stayed in the air and cast Magic Missile again, spreading the darts between the two Howlers.

Joybell ran up to the closest one and attacked the closest with the Awesome Dwarven Warhammer (which isn’t really hers, but she can use for a while), hitting with two big swings.

Joybell: Taman! Keep up!

Taman did so and attacked, dropping the one she’d hit twice with a sneak attack, then moving to the other one, just a step or two further up the street and hitting it with his longsword.

Around this time, Omnath saw three more of them coming in from the other side of the main street and relayed that information to Orryk, who relayed it to the rest of us. Fiona, from her vantage point above the buildings could also see them. They were still far enough away that they weren’t going to be able to get to us for a few seconds anyway.

The one we were already dealing with attacked Taman -- getting a hit despite Joybell protecting him with her shield and despite Taman taking a lucky dodge. Taman’s luck kept it from being a critical hit and he was able to do an uncanny dodge to reduce the damage.

Thneed got in two really good shots, moving closer to get a good angle on the one that had just attacked Taman.

Orryk moved into the main street and looked into the alley where Taman and Joybell were facing the last one standing of the first pack.

Orryk: Joybell, three more incoming. Leave that for the others.

Fiona slowed down the new ones coming in with a storm sphere, the pummeling rain and lightning doing damage to two of them and creating a difficult area to pass. In that moment, Joybell rode over to Orryk and waited to attack anything that came in range.

Joybell: Sorry, Taman! You all have got this!
Taman: I know.

Then he attacked and got a good hit with his longsword.

One of the new ones, not caught in Fiona’s storm, came between two buildings on the other side of the main street from Taman and Thneed and made its horrible screeching howl. Taman was far enough away not to be affected, but Thneed and Omnath were frightened. Joybell was standing close enough to Orryk that he was in her protective, emboldening aura.

Another one came up the same alley and stopped behind the one that had just howled. The third one of the new pack came around the building from a different direction and howled. Only Orryk and Joybell were in its range and were unaffected.

Thneed, frightened, ran away from the one that had frightened her, which interfered with her ability to do anything else. Orryk stayed near to Joybell but moved around so he could swing his short sword at one of the newcomers, using his ki to turn that into a stunning strike. The Howler stopped moving and stood stunned. Nice!

Fiona split her efforts -- hitting one of the newcomers with a lightning bolt from the storm and shooting magic missiles at that one and the one on Taman. Joybell attacked the same one Orryk had attacked, calling down divine energy to smite the fiend (and finding that it was extra effective because of the fiendish nature of these Howlers).

The three new Howlers moved to surround Orryk and Joybell. Well, two of them did. One was stunned and did nothing. None of their attacks were effective though -- one missed Joybell and the other missed Orryk because of Joybell’s shield and his own Shield spell.

Thneed shook off her fear and, pissed, moved her Hunter’s Mark to the one that Orryk had stunned, shooting it twice and then using her horde breaker ability to also shoot another of the new ones. Unfortunately this didn’t drop any of them. Orryk got in there with his sword and attacked the one he had stunned and dropped it with his sword and a punch. Then he took another punch at one of the one that wasn’t stunned.

We all sort of focussed on the two that were remaining -- Fiona with her lightning bolts and guiding bolt, Joybell with her warhammer and divine smites, Taman with his longsword.

One got dropped by Taman before it got to attack again. The other one attacked Joybell but missed.

Orryk stunned the one remaining, giving us all an advantage against it, and it finally fell to Joybell’s divinely empowered blows with her warhammer.

We only enjoyed the thought that they were all gone for a second before Taman heard some distant howls. He also heard some whimpering noises from inside one of the buildings.

While the party gathered together, so we’d all either be out of range or in Joybell’s protective aura, Joybell went a shuttered window where Taman had heard the sounds of whimpering and crying.

Joybell: Hi. We’re here to help. Where are these things coming from?
Person inside: Don’t know. They just appeared and started tearing things up.
Joybell: How long ago did they show up?
Person: About an hour maybe…
Joybell: That’s a long time. Stay put.

Then she moved back to the group.

The new pack of Howlers came from the other side of town. Thneed backed down to one side, trying to keep out of howl range, and held an arrow nocked, ready to let it fly at anything she could. Orryk moved forward, toward where they were coming from. Fiona, in the air, was able to see them first, so she fired a Guiding Bolt at one, but missed. Joybell moved up next to Orryk and Taman next to her, so we were blocking the 15’ wide alley they were coming down, all of us with attacks at the ready.

One of them came around the corner into the alley. As soon as it opened its mouth to howl, Thneed put an arrow into its palate. That didn’t stop the horrible screeching scream -- but the only three of us in range were Joybell, Taman, and Orryk, and none of us were going to be affected by the fear. The other two in this pack moved up behind it, but didn’t get close enough to attack us, or let those of us who were waiting with melee weapons ready do anything.

Thneed took her shots, including a horde breaker shot at a second one. Orryk moved up and stunned one. Joybell moved up, away from Taman, and attacked, but saved her divine smiting power for a more opportune time.

Joybell: Come on, Taman! Keep up!

Taman kept up, putting his Hunter’s Mark on one and attacking one for a LOT of damage because the beast was distracted by other combatants around it.

One of them howled, again only getting the group within Joybell’s aura of protection. Another attacked Joybell but missed. The third one, the one Orryk had stunned, did nothing but drool a little.

Thneed missed with a whole round of shots, but fortunately Orryk dropped one with his Shortsword of the Medic.

(Orryk's player: Just because Joybell never did, Orryk uses the sword to cast healing word on Taman.)

Then he attacked and stunned both of the two remaining ones with a flurry of powerful blows. Joybell jumped scooby over Taman to get between the two howlers and attacked. She dropped one with a divinely powered blow.

Joybell: Come on, Taman! Stay close!

The last one, stunned by Orryk’s fists, fell quickly to Thneed’s arrows and Orryk’s sword.

Joybell took a second to sense for fiends in the immediate area and detected none. Taman took a bit longer to listen and then sense for his favored enemies. Thneed, seeing that, sensed for her favored enemies (fiends included) and detected none within five miles.

Thneed and Taman set about doing ranger stuff to see if they could figure out where the Howlers had come from, but aside from a general sense that they’d come from the west (in other words they didn’t cross the river to get to the village) they had no idea. Taman tried to detect portals in the area and found none within a mile.

While that was going on, Joybell talked to the person in the building again.

Joybell: You’re okay now. The Wonderful Knights of Luminosity have taken care of things. There are no more fiends in the area.

Then we went back to the boat, which was waiting for us at the docks.

Orryk, to Captain Zelora: We didn’t find authorities in town, but we should let folks know what happened. The people in town may need help.
Captain Zelora: We can stop at the next town and let them know to send assistance.

We continued on down river.

Taman, to Fiona: Aren’t we supposed to have less fiend activity since the Fiend Wars?

Fiona explained to him that since the wars the baseline level of fiend activity is higher than it was before the Severance, but much much lower than it was during the wars.

The next town, several hours later, had a flag out on the pier indicating that it had urgent business. So we stopped to take on a pallet of cargo from a merchant who wanted it taken a few towns downstream.

While the cargo was being loaded, the party went to talk to the town guards to let them know that Treskill was attacked and people there were in need of assistance. They said they’d send aid.

Between the time she spent in the morning, the time between the two villages, and some time working out after dinner, Joybell finished her work with her book and felt very much stronger!! She put the book into her bag, with the intent of donating it to the Basalt Henge. Every hundred years some young novice who they thought needed the assistance could make use of it.

The Glistenspray spent the night docked at the town and all was quiet.


24 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 114)

The next morning, the Glistenspray cast off bright and early and we continued on our way. It was a grey and rainy day.

Joybell did her morning exercises on deck, then bundled up in her cloak out on the bow to watch with Scooby. Thneed spent the morning entertaining herself by sneaking around the deck startling sailors. Taman stayed up in the crow’s nest watching. Fiona and Orryk read and studied down below.

Fiona took some time to use her new Scrying spell (and the crystal ball Mo had picked up for her) to take a look at Stately Kang Manor. Everything looked to be doing well -- there were some newly painted walls and some activity.

The day passed in quiet sailing. And the night.


25 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 115)

Pretty early the next morning, we were woken by yells from the lookouts on the crew.

Lookout: Slicks on the water! Slicks on the water! Don’t look! DON’T LOOK!

Taman asked one of the crew what that meant.

Crew: Ignore what you see in the water.

As he was speaking, the boat went into Hell -- we could see people screaming, fiends, fire, torture and horrible things. A literal Hellscape.

Then we were out of it and it was a quiet morning on the Hochor River again.

The sailor pointed out to us a patch of oily slick on the river surface. It was standing still relative to the shore, not moving with the current of the river. Thneed shot at one, but it didn’t disperse.

We went through several of them over the next hour or so. Joybell watched for landmarks in the hellish vistas we passed through, to see if the boat was moving through that landscape as well, but it wasn’t always the same landscape. It didn’t even appear to always be the same lower plane.

Taman, to some of the crew: Those are randomly in the river?
Sailor: They’re here sometimes. Not sometimes.
Captain Zelora: They’ve been showing up on the rivers since the Severance. They aren’t portals, but I don’t know what they are. The last time I asked I was just told that the world remembers.

After we got through the cluster of slicks on the water, the rest of the day passed without incident, Which was good, because that had been horrible.

The night was quiet.


26 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 116)

The weather was even worse this day than the day before -- both colder and wetter. Joybell bundled up well in her cloak and let Scooby curl around her as she sat in the bow.

In the mid-morning, we stopped at a river village to drop off the special cargo we’d picked up a few days ago and to let a ferry cross the river in front of us.

And that was the excitement of both the day and the night.


27 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 117)

Just at dawn, Joybell (who was sleeping curled up with Scooby in the bow) and Taman (sleeping somewhere else on deck) heard Captain Zellora shout. Mo might have but he was still deep in the good pipe-stuff and stayed in his battle hammock.

Zellora: What the naughty word is that?!

Followed by a loud thunk and shuddering that shook the whole ship. The others came up out of their cabins at the noise.

We saw that someone had knocked a huge log into the river -- it was broken off just above the roots and braced so that it would not float downstream. It didn’t block the entire river, but if anyone failed to see it (like at night) and didn’t sail around it, it would stop the boat cold and make it difficult to get around.

Joybell and a few of the crew took some ropes and tried to shift the log from on the deck of the Glistenspray, but the angle was bad for shifting the log that way.

Taman looked to the bank, expecting someone to come out at the noise. He was not disappointed -- he saw a 13 year old girl coming down the river bank, followed by a very large (16’ tall) grey, vaguely humanoid figure. It was not human-looking enough to be a giant. The girl was a fey of some sort, Taman told us, so Joybell did her divine sensing (which detects celestials, fiends, and undead) and detected none of those (within 60’, which didn’t include the river bank and mostly covered the boat).

Joybell, to a crewmember: Has this been here before?
Sailor: No. This is new.
Joybell: So you haven’t seen this girl before?
Sailor: Never in my life.

Taman shouted to the girl on the bank: State your intentions.

While he waited for a response, Orryk created a bonfire on the top of the log near the shore to see if we could burn at least some of it and make it easier to shift. The girl got a pouty look at that.

Taman: Again. State your intentions.
Fey Girl: You have things. I may want them.
Taman: Well, then.

Then he drew his bow and took a shot at the girl, hitting her in the shoulder.

Joybell: Oh, no no no, you can’t stop legit boat travel to rob people like that.

Then she mounted Scooby right at the prow of the ship.

Someone recognized the giant grey thing as a Grey Render -- they adopt people (or in this case a fey) as their master and work as sort of a defender and bruiser for them.

Fiona: We don’t have stuff you want.

Then Fiona cast a firebolt and hit the girl with it.

Scooby leapt off the boat onto the log and ran along the log as fast as he could. When they were about 20 feet from the shore, Joybell cast Misty Step and they both appeared on the river bank a short distance in front of the girl, holding her attack for something to come to her.

Joybell: This is not okay. You can’t interfere with travel and rob people like this. Don’t do this. We know you’re fey.

The girl didn’t respond to Joybell in words -- she just made a gesture with her hands and a bolt of sparkling light shot out and exploded in the air over where the party was gathered on the deck of the ship. Thneed and Taman both were entranced by her pretty sparkling lights.

Then she walked to the shore, ignoring Joybell entirely, and dove into the water.

Orryk and Omnath woke up Taman and Thneed from the hypnotic pattern.

Thneed: Where’d she go?
Orryk: Under the water.

The Grey Render attacked Joybell from 10 feet away, thus never letting her get in her own attack. Fortunately it missed with both of its long, clawed arms. After one of Fiona’s firebolts whizzed past without hitting the monster, Joybell rode right up to it and attacked, hitting once normally and once smiting with divine power. After her first hit, it lashed out at her with a retaliatory attack of its own, but missed.

The girl swam out deeper into the river and, while near the top of the water, did some gesturing. Those on the boat recognized what she was doing as something they saw Fiona do almost every day -- casting mage armor on herself. Fiona saw this and remembered that she hadn’t had a chance to do that yet -- so she cast her own mage armor.

Thneed moved a bit away from the party, to break up area effects, and put her hunter’s mark on the Render, then shot it. Taman followed Joybell’s lead and jumped from the prow of the boat down the 15 feet to the log, keeping his footing on the slick wood. He could see her under the water. He put his hunter’s mark on her then used the Rope of Entanglement to try and tie her up, but she managed to slip away from the entangling rope and stay free.

Orryk, to Thneed and Fiona: You help Taman. I’ve got Joybell.

Then he jumped off the boat and ran across the water, using a ki point for some extra speed, then attacked the Render.

The Render, faced by two gnomes and a celestial-wolf attacked Orryk and Joybell with his two claws and his bite. Joybell protected Orryk with her shield, stopping the bite, but then she got hit by a claw for 16 points of damage.

Joybell toyed with the idea of casting Plant Growth out in the water to tangle up and slow down the fey girl, but there was this big monster right there. And if she didn’t attack it she’d be letting Orryk down -- so she attacked twice.

After her first hit, as a retaliation, it swung one of its clawed arms at Orryk, hitting him hard.

Joybell: I’m sorry! Maybe I should have cast Plant Growth.

The girl in the water did something that caused Taman’s mind to flip slightly and suddenly he looked at her with new eyes -- she was his Lady Love and he was going to do everything in his power to protect her. Then she swam further up the river away from the boat and the party.

Thneed summoned the divine power she had newly discovered and fired three arrows at the Grey Render, hitting with only one of them.

Taman, seeing his lady love so close, not even thirty feet away, jumped into the water and swam toward her.

Fiona: What?? Something weird is going on.

Back on shore, Orryk switched to attacking with the Death-touch Gloves, so he could heal up a bit from the Render’s powerful attack, but he missed with his attacks and went from that into some defensive maneuvering. The Grey Render attacked Joybell - it missed with its bite, but hit with one of its claws, getting through the displacement effect from her cloak and her plate armor.

Fiona, armored up, moved into the prow of the boat and cast a cone of cold that shaped itself around Taman but caught the girl squarely. The girl managed to dodge out of the way of the brunt of the effect, but was still affected by it. We hoped that she might, perhaps, lose her concentration on the charm on Taman in the process of avoiding the cone of cold, but she didn’t seem to have to concentrate on that at all. It just was.

Joybell, on shore and only barely paying attention to what was going on in the vicinity of the boat, attacked the Grey Render twice, hitting both times and managing to dodge out of the way of its reflexive claw swipe.

The girl, in the water, cast a fog cloud on the prow of the boat -- Joybell and Orryk, both on shore) and Taman (in the water a few feet ahead of the ship) were all outside the range. Taman was able to see that his lady love swam further away from him after creating the fog cloud.

Thneed, outside the fog cloud, took three shots at the Gray Render (channeling divine power one more time).

Taman, torn between his lady love and his good friend who were clearly fighting one another, swam back toward the log, the fey girl having gone out of his reach in the water.

On shore, Orryk attacked the Render and then went on defense again, since that had worked well for him before. The Render attacked Joybell, missing with its bite, but hitting with both of its huge claws, leaving her at about half her normal strength.

Fiona flew up out of the fog cloud with the Wings of Flying so that she could see the fey girl. She couldn’t, however, see Taman, who had gone into the fog cloud when he swam toward the log.

Fiona: She’s got Taman!!

Joybell hit the render twice with her warhammer, dropping it. Then, having heard Fiona’s yell, rode Scooby over to the river bank nearest where she could see the girl, looking for any sign of Taman.

The fey girl continued swimming away downstream.

Thneed couldn’t see anything through the fog, so she took a leap into the unknown, jumping off the prow of the ship onto the log. Or mostly so. She ended up there, anyway.

Taman climbed out of the water onto the log and then managed to clamber up onto the boat, despite the fog cloud. He couldn’t see anything much but he’d heard Fiona.

Taman: Fiona, don’t shoot her!! She’s the only girl I’ve ever had a chance with!

Then he cast ensnaring strike and attacked the cloud near him. Fortunately he didn’t hit any of the sailors or cut any important ropes on the ship.

Orryk ran past Joybell to a point on the shore even closer to the girl and shot at her a couple of times with his shortbow. Fiona got in the final blow with a magic missile spell that killed her. Immediately, Taman was his normal self again, no longer torn between his “lady love” and his friends. The fog cloud also immediately dissipated.

Somehow we recovered the fey girl’s body, because we determined that she had no treasure on her. Neither did the render.

We managed to break the supports holding the log in place with a combination of strategically placed fire (and firebolts) and brute force (Joybell with the warhammer bashing on things).

The log floated away downstream and the Glistenspray, with all of her passengers back aboard, continued to sail toward Erlin.


----------



## prabe (May 23, 2021)

Session 44: In Which Orryk Is Happy

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Cleric (War)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)

GM - Everyone Else


27 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 117) (immediately after)

Mo, having finished the good pipe stuff about the time the Glistenspray continued on the way downriver, floated gently down to the deck of the ship in his battle hammock.

Mo: I’ve figured it out! The funniest punchline to any joke is hitting a watermelon with a hammer.
Fiona: That’s what you were working on? We were fighting a fey.
Mo: You could have called me.
Orryk: We tried.
Joybell: I thought you were having a good time, so I wanted to leave you alone.

We rested on the boat and Mo sang a song so that we could rest better. Along toward evening we passed a village with a flag on the docks, but it wasn’t an urgent flag, so the Captain didn’t stop. We continued on our way and the rest of the day and the night passed.


28 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 118)

The next day started quiet, though there was a bit more activity on the ship as the day wore on with the sailors getting ready to make port in Erlin, at least for a bit.

Before we arrived, we asked about Erlin -- is it run by criminals or slavers? Is it okay or awful? We learned that it’s not run by criminals and it’s not full of people keeping slaves.

Orryk: It’s run by the stealthiest of criminals. That’s why no one knows.

It sounded to Joybell like a kind of okay town.

We arrived there around dinner time.

Orryk immediately jumped off the boat and started asking people about where we could go to find fire elementals. He was moving quickly around the docks asking questions, hardly standing still at all.

Orryk, to a random longshoreman on the docks: Have you seen things like this?

He summoned Omnath as a magma mephit.

Longshoreman: Umm, no?

While Orryk was having basically that same conversation with several different stevedores and longshoremen and sailors, Joybell asked someone if there was a druidic circle in town. She was told there was a small one in Sunlit and got directions.

Joybell, to Orryk: There’s a druid circle…
Orryk: Let’s go!

He headed off in the direction he happened to be facing. Joybell grabbed his arm and steered him in the right direction and we all trooped off.

When we got to the druid circle, Orryk immediately jumped in with asking about fire elementals and where we could find one. When Joybell started filling in information about fire portals, he told them about what Irlua at the Primal Atoll had told us about fire becoming too dominant and there being something of an incursion near Erlin.

Druid: There’s a known portal to the south of town. It’s about half a day down the river then a mile or so to the east. It occasionally spits out fire elementals. It’s been there for about six years.
Orryk: Anything else? (He summoned Omnath again.)
Druid: No, not mephits. But bigger than normal elementals. There was one report from a really, really drunk guy about a big burning bird coming out.
Joybell: That sounds beautiful.
Druid: No. Not really.
Mo: Assuming he was both drunk and right, what would that be?
Druid: A phoenix. They are forces of pure destruction and they cannot be killed.
Joybell: So how do you deal with them?
Druid: The only way we know of is to throw the egg through a portal, then close the portal.
Joybell: So it becomes the problem of whoever’s on the other side of the portal?
Druid: ::
Joybell, to Taman and Orryk: How do we close the portal?
Taman: We won’t know until we see the portal.

We got the information we needed about where to turn off the road to find the portal then thanked the druids and left. Since it was already dinner time and well on toward dark, Orryk reluctantly agreed to stay in Erlin overnight.

Mo went off to find us a place to stay. Taman and Joybell went shopping for holy water. Thneed stayed in the temple district going from temple to temple just observing -- she wanted to see what people do in them.

As she walked with Taman, Joybell noticed that the people seemed okay and happy in Erlin. And happy to see the party. Joybell got a few odd looks - Erlin has a reputation as a pretty hick-ish town with a heavily human population. Non-humans are unusual and tend to draw some attention.

Mo arranged rooms for us at an inn. He also arranged to perform for the night.

Mo, to Taman through the sending stones: Found an inn. The Golden Gallant. Playing in the tavern. Be drunk soon.

Taman and Joybell started heading toward The Golden Gallant, which was a pretty spiffy establishment run by a gentleman named Zuli.

While he was making the arrangements for the room, Mo talked to Zuli, who told him that most of the trade in town comes from the ranches up the Tulnod River, which heads into the Dunimar Mountains.

Joybell: I’d go visit the cows in the feedlots, but I think Scooby would just upset them.

Before his performance, Mo went to a fruit and vegetable vendor in the market and bought 6 big melons. Then just before he went on stage he borrowed Joybell’s warhammer.

Joybell: Remember, this isn’t my warhammer. I’m just using it until we can return it to the dwarves. Be careful with it.
Taman: It’s a magical hammer. He can’t hurt it.

Mo’s performance was awesome. After some songs and some jokes and juggling the melons, he took a swing at one with the warhammer and was unable to break it. Fiona and Thneed, seeing what was about to happen, moved to the very back of the room. Joybell, enthralled, stayed up front. Mo, from the stage, called on her.

Mo, to Joybell in the audience: Little housewife, would you like to give it a try?

Joybell, happily playing the role of housewife (in full plate armor), jumped up and with the hammer she smashed the watermelon and the stool it was standing on, leaving a small dent in the planking of the stage.

The audience was delighted.

This gag was repeated for the after-dinner crowd and again for the late-night-drinking crowd. To great delight every time.

After the performances, Joybell gave Zuli a gold for the stool while Mo used prestidigitation to clean up the stage of watermelon debris.

Orryk: Next time you should turn into an ape to crush it.
Mo: Outdoor performance…

After that, we retired to our rooms and the night passed.


29 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 119)

The next morning, we headed out on foot on the road that paralleled the Hochor River. Orryk kept getting way ahead of the party then having to stop and wait, circling around and pacing because he couldn’t stand still, until we caught up.

We found our landmark for turning off the road -- there wasn’t really a track or a path, except maybe something like a game trail, going off toward the mountains. When we got to the landmark, Taman took a minute to check for portals and detected one about a mile away. He was able to get a bearing on it and then led us directly towards it.

We were travelling through a rocky area with some hillocks and rock outcrops and rock piles. After about half a mile of traveling, we saw a large ogre-sized chunk of fire streaking toward us faster than Orryk can move. It was well across the rocky gorge by the time we could even think of reacting to it, though still far away.

Fiona activated the Wings of Flying and took to the air. Orryk moved up and waited for it to come within range so he could use the Dominate Monster spell from the Ring. Mo jumped into the battle hammock and flew into the air, inspiring Joybell as he went.

Joybell rode forward as far as Scooby could go and fired off a couple of shots from the wand of magic missiles. Thneed moved forward and took two shots at it, then found herself a place in a bit of cover by one of the rock faces. Taman moved forward some then dumped a bottle of holy water on himself, casting protection from evil and good.

Joybell: That’s a good idea.

The elemental moved into range of Orryk’s held spell, and saved against his domination, but was too far away to attack.

(Mo's player: He made the save? You can do that?)

Fiona cast a guiding bolt on it -- doing damage and putting a glow on it so that the next attack would be at an advantage. Orryk made use of that, moving into a position where he could use his fists of unbroken air (rather than punching the living fire itself), hitting with both of his regular attacks and getting a crit with his extra punch.

Mo, from a position in the air in the battle hammock, cast a spell we hadn’t seen from him before.

Mo: Glass his ass, sea bass!

Then a giant spectral beer bottle appeared floating behind the elemental and the spiritual weapon swung at its head. When it hit the glass shattered, leaving the neck and part of the bottle behind. Mo then took a shot with his crossbow, but missed.

Joybell then charged the elemental and hit it twice with her wonderful loaner warhammer, dropping it.

Joybell: Sorry, Orryk!

Orryk’s smile told her that his ring of fiery awesomeness (the Ring of Fire Elemental Command) was now fully powered up -- among the many benefits of this is that he is immune to fire damage. He created a bonfire right on his feet and stood there in the flames, just because he COULD.

Mo: How do you feel?
Orryk: Fantastic.
Joybell: Our work here is done. Should we head back….
Taman: I’d like to see the portal.
Orryk: So would I.

We continued on our way to the portal, but hadn’t walked for more than a minute when we saw two more of the ogre-sized fire elementals zooming our way.

Thneed moved into a position with some cover again and took two shots, hitting with both and getting a critical hit with one of them.

Thneed: Yeah!!

Mo moved forward and coughed up some smoke, winked at it, and lightning bolt shot out and hit the same elemental Thneed had shot.

Taman moved forward as far as he could and held his attack for one to get in range.

Orryk: Stay back and shoot at them.

Then he moved up ahead of Taman and waited to attack one that came to him. Both of them did, attacking him and hitting him with great arms of fire that could do him absolutely no damage at all. When the fiery barrage against him was over, he was standing there completely unhurt and un-singed.

Fiona cast a synaptic static spell on both of them -- doing them a lot of psychic damage and leaving them scrambled so that they were less effective in battle. Joybell thought about casting protection from energy (fire) on herself, but instead she rode up to one and attacked twice.

Joybell: I can’t do anything from range.

Joybell dropped one with her first attack, then went to the other one and hit it as well. In the process of attacking them, she was set on fire and took some damage from that.

Mo cast vicious mockery on the one remaining.

Mo: Hey! Your face is on fire!

Taman moved and dashed to get into combat with the elemental -- he dropped it with his rapier, catching fire and taking damage just as Joybell had.

Orryk, looking smug and cocky: You all could just go sit down and have some tea.
Joybell, indignant and irritated: What? I’m just going to sit back and pick daisies while you’re fighting these things?
Taman: I prefer to be up front. It’s vastly more entertaining.

While Joybell and Taman were putting out the fires on themselves, Thneed spotted two even bigger elementals coming up the gorge. It was maybe a minute after the first combat that we saw these two approaching.

Taman: The problem isn’t that more are coming or even that they’re getting bigger. It’s that we’re not getting any closer.

When he said that, though, we looked at the far wall of the gorge and were pretty sure we could see the mountain with the hole in it where the portal was.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on one of them and used her war cleric ability to take three shots, hitting with all three and getting a critical hit with one. Then she moved to a sheltered place again. Taman ran up to the one Thneed had shot and attacked, hitting twice with his rapier. Because of the fire elemental being fire, he took some damage and he was once again aflame. Fiona shot the same one with magic missiles.

Joybell, having learned from the previous fight with fire elementals, cast protection from energy (fire) on herself and Scooby and moved to stand next to Orryk, despite being irritated with him.

Mo cast another Spiritual Weapon and attacked the same one, hitting it.

Mo: Glass his ass!

One of the fire elementals moved to engulf, or enflame, Orryk and Joybell -- they were both completely inside of the flames. The other attacked Taman, but missed because of his protection from good and evil.

Orryk had Omnath put out the flames on Scooby, which Joybell appreciated very much, then he himself attacked the elemental from within with the Medic’s Blade, hitting it twice with the sword and then once again with his unarmed strike.

Thneed used her war cleric ability to shoot at the one on Taman three times, hitting three times and doing a huge amount of damage to it. Taman, on fire, absorbed the fire damage with Absorb Elements, then used his planar warrior ability to do force damage with his rapier -- he hit twice. Unfortunately he then took some damage from the elemental’s retaliation.

Joybell cast Misty Step to get herself and Scooby out of the middle of the fire elemental then she pulled out the Javelin of Lightning. The elemental on Taman, which had been the focus of most of the party’s efforts, was flickering and looked to be in very bad shape. The one on Orryk had been hit a few times by Orryk but was mostly unhurt. Irritated by Orryk fussing at her and being all cocky about the party sitting this out so he could fight the elementals himself, Joybell very pointedly looked at Orryk, then threw the javelin at Taman’s badly wounded elemental. It died immediately. She then turned with a regular javelin and threw it at the one on Orryk, but missed.

Mo cast a vicious mockery on the one on Orryk.

Mo: Your mother was a match and your father was a fart.

We were all very focused on the combat and the bright flaming things we were fighting. And on intermittently being on fire ourselves.

(Note: Everyone in the party failed a perception check.)

The fire elemental attacked Orryk, its arms of fire pummeling him to absolutely no effect.

Omnath flew out of the range of the elemental, it not being immune to fire the way Orryk was. Orryk attacked and hit twice with the Medic’s Blade and once with this fist. Thneed moved her hunter’s mark and took two shots, hitting with both.

(Note: Thneed failed a perception check.)

Taman moved toward the one on Orryk, which looked to be about halfway dead, and put out the flames on himself.

(Note: Taman also didn’t see the Thing we weren’t seeing.)

Fiona cast acid splash on the elemental.

(Note: Fiona didn’t see the Thing.)

Joybell, really ticked at Orryk for woofing at her, put out the fire on herself.

(Note: Joybell didn’t see the Thing.)

Mo’s floating bottle spiritual weapon shanked into the elemental’s face, then Mo cast vicious mockery.

Mo: I’ve seen bonfires more threatening than you are.

(Note: Mo failed to see the Thing.)

The fire elemental moved around Orryk and attacked Thneed. Fortunately it missed, so she wasn’t hit or put on fire.

Orryk attacked with the Medic’s Blade twice and hit twice, then he also hit with his unarmed strike. Omnath, a dust mephit, moved closer to the elemental and breathed a cone of dust into its face, blinding the elemental. It was apparent to all, even Joybell, that Orryk was actually happier than we’d ever seen him and having a lot of fun.

(Note: Orryk and Omnath both failed to see the Thing.)

Thneed, with a huge elemental right on top of her, used the Basalt Amulet to go invisible, then she froze in place, hoping to go unnoticed. As she did so, she saw something huge, larger than Tallyxtillon, flying overhead, heading north toward Erlin. She gestured wildly, waving her arms and pointing at the sky. Unfortunately for the rest of the party, she was invisible while doing so.

Taman, blissfully unaware of the colossal thing flying overhead, attacked the elemental on Orryk.

(Taman's player: Don’t we have advantage? Why?
Orryk's player: Because it’s blind.
GM: Like the party.)

Taman hit the elemental twice with his rapier -- then he also saw the colossal fiery bird heading away to the north.

Taman: Oh, naughty word! Hey, Orryk!

Joybell pulled out the wand of magic missile, but the phoenix was flying too high and far away for her to shoot it, so she fired off a shot at the elemental. Mo shanked it with the spiritual weapon and that finally dropped the elemental.

We spent a second discussing the possibility of getting a portion of the party to the phoenix with dimension door spells, but by the time we even started contemplating the possibility, it was out of range.

We decided to continue to the portal. Orryk’s research had told him that there can be instructions encoded in how these portals are created that give the creatures that come through it a direction or instructions. The fire elementals were very laser-focused on the party as they came down the ravine. The phoenix seemed very laser focused as it flew north, probably on Erlin.

We charged the final quarter mile to the portal, moving as fast as we could. The part of the rock face that appeared to be where the elementals were emerging was the entrance to a natural cave. Inside that cave, there was a circle on the floor, inscribed with many painted and carved runes and words in Ignan, which Orryk can speak and read. He told us that the circle is made so that when something comes within ½ mile of the portal, without a special item in their possession, the portal sends out fire elementals to attack them. If the intruders persist through the fire elementals, then the phoenix emerges after a time to go attack Erlin.

We figured out that if this portal gets turned off, the phoenix will return to the plane of fire.

Joybell: Why would someone set this up targeting Erlin?
Mo: First we close it.

But we needed to figure out how to do that.

Orryk was examining the portal, gathering what knowledge he could from it about how to teleport to the plane of fire. Taman was also examining the portal, because of his interest in planar travel and so on. Taman and Mo, who was also looking at it, noticed that something seemed kind of weird or off about the portal.

Taman: Something’s weird.
Mo: What’s the weird?
(Taman's player: I speak through the GM.)

Taman: Even given what it’s doing, it seems like there’s some complication we’re missing. Something else is happening.

Thneed put her foot into the circle. Nothing happened.

Taman showed Fiona all the things that seemed off to him.

Thneed went all the way into the circle. Nothing happened.

Joybell and Taman went to search the rest of the cave. Taman found a camouflaged niche that had some vials and gems, some arrows, and some art pieces. We collected all of it and dropped it in a bag of holding to look over later.

Orryk: Joybell, do you want to pummel this circle and see if you can disrupt it?
Joybell: Sure. But maybe there’s a better way. Or can someone guide me so it’s carefully placed smashing.
Fiona: Or I could cast dispel magic.

We decided on that course of action first. Thneed suggested dispelling the Erlin part of the programming first, to maybe see if that would get the phoenix less focused on destroying the city.

Orryk and Mo helped Fiona choose the best approach to dispelling the magic, including Mo inspiring her, and she did an amazing job. As she worked with the dispel magic there was a flicker and then the gate to the Elemental Plane of Fire was gone. Underneath it there was a gate, scribed with words and symbols in Infernal. It was a gate to Stygia, the fifth plane of Hell.

Orryk wrote down all the runes and markings. As he did so he talked with Fiona and Mo and got the impression that if Fiona had been less deft with the dispel magic, she would have opened the gate to Stygia in the process of closing the gate to the Plane of Fire, allowing at least one devil to come through. The fire portal was hiding the gate to Stygia.

Taman and Thneed looked at the cave, and at the entrance, to see if they could get a sense of how long it had been since anyone other than us had been here. (Note: Thneed failed miserably at doing Ranger naughty word. As she does.) Taman told us that it appeared that the cave got used monthly. Ish.

While Fiona sat down and began casting detect magic, Joybell took a look at the art objects we’d found. They were all dark themed -- turquoise figurines of devils, two gold birdcages with little stylized villages inside the cages, a necklace with a claw pendant. There were no documents or items that in any way identified their owners.

When Fiona’s spell went off she told us that there were 7 magical arrows and 3 magical vials.

Joybell: Can you scry on whoever set these portals up?
Fiona: Not today.

After Fiona thought about it for a bit, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to even if she had the spell prepared.

Taman borrowed the Broom of Flying and flew up into the sky, looking toward Erlin to see if the phoenix was attacking. There was no sign of any of that. He took some time flying around and having fun before he returned to the cave.

While he was out exploring, the rest of us talked about Stygia and its ruler, Levistus, who is trapped in the ice of his plane. Because he is trapped himself, Levistus offers his services to those who are trapped or who feel they are, in exchange for their souls.

Joybell: We’ve dealt with Orcus worshippers. And cultists of the Outer Hunger. This is our first devil worshipper.

We figured that there was every good chance that the devil worshipper who set this up lives in Erlin, though Joybell pointed out that having the phoenix destroy the city argued against that.

Orryk, Mo, and Taman all helped Fiona close the gate -- which she did very successfully, dispelling and breaking it.

Joybell wanted to leave a message saying that we did this. Mo left a message in Dwarven using the Flute of Scribing claiming the territory in the name of the Tundra Queen. Joybell, unable to read that, wrote with the tip of a javelin:

Wonderful
The ^ Knights of Luminosity

Based on how quickly we got the gate closed, and the fact that Taman didn’t see any smoke or damage when he flew up to look at Erlin, we didn’t think that the phoenix had made it all the way to the city. We also figured that the person who built these portals -- the obvious one to the plane of fire and the hidden one to Stygia -- would know that the phoenix had been summoned and that it had either peeled off or disappeared and not attacked the city. Having one appearing over the horizon then not destroying anything would be the kind of news that would spread through the city.

Thneed did a check to sense for her greater favored enemy, fiends, and detected none within five miles. Though honestly we didn’t expect that there would be any.

We headed back to town and arrived there with no problems.

While we were going we took a look at the treasure we’d gotten from the cave. We had found:

9 1000-gp gems

5 250-gp art objects, to wit:
2 gold birdcages with stylized/generic towns inside them
a set of turquoise figurines which had representations of all the different types of devils
a silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of a claw
a gold bracelet sized for a large creature

7 magical arrows (later identified as +2 Arrows) (Taman)
1 bottle of magical oil (later identified as Oil of Etherealness)
2 magical potions (later identified as Superior Healing and Supreme Healing)

As we poked through what we’d found, that potion of Supreme Healing is _nice_, we realized that whoever had cached that in the cave was going to be looking for us.

We took a short rest just before we got to town, mostly so Thneed could do her ranger thing again and detect for fiends. Her 5 mile radius on that ability covered the entire city. She detected no fiends.

Cool.

Treasure:
The gems break down to a 1000-gp gem for each of us and 500 extra gold when we cash three of them in for money. We also get 208 gp each for the art objects (with 2 left over for the party kitty).

Joybell will keep the turquoise devils as part of her share of the treasure. That seems like it could be a useful learning tool, since it appears we’re going to be dealing with fiends.

Total for each person: 1708 gp worth of gem and gold (once we sell the freely exchangeable items). (Joybell will get a 1000 gp gem, 458 gp, and the 250 gp art object.)


----------



## prabe (May 30, 2021)

Session 45: Devils!

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Cleric (War)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)

GM - Everyone Else


29 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 119) (immediately after)

We resumed immediately after Thneed’s ranger sense told us that there were no fiends in town. Almost certainly. Why wouldn’t we trust Thneed’s ranger senses, after all?

It was late in the afternoon, shortly before dinnertime.

We talked a little bit about Levistus as we entered the town (and we had as we’d walked back to town). He’s the ruler of one of the Hells (Stygia) -- trapped in ice. He offers to help people who are restrained, imprisoned, feeling desperate or trapped, etc. (In exchange for their souls.) He also gets hooks into people who are looking for long-term revenge.

We realized as we walked through the town that we hadn’t been subtle about looking for fire elementals or a fire portal, largely due to Orryk asking everything that moved whether they’d seen one. So we probably weren’t going to be entirely subtle asking around about devil worshippers. The question of the day was: How do we become a disciple of a devil in a town where we know that someone is a follower of that devil.

Joybell: We could go talk to the temples -- religious people might know about religious people, even if they’re of a bad religion. Or the guard. The guard might know about people in prison who could be making deals or know about simmering resentments or feuds in town.
Taman: What if one of the priests is the guys?
Joybell: That’s a terrible thought!! How could you think that?

We broke into two groups for pursuing information in town -- Team Guards (or Team Order), Joybell, Orryk, and Fiona, were going to go to the temples and the guards. Team Terraces (or Team Chaos), Mo, Taman, and Thneed, were going to go to the Terraces pretending to be out of town gem traders looking for someone to make a quick deal with.

Before the two teams parted, Mo gave his sending stone to Joybell, so she could send a message to Taman if she needed to.

Team Order went to the Guardhouse (which happened to be right next to the gate through which we entered the city). Joybell put on her Embernook Guard armband and we quickly made our way through a couple of intermediaries before talking to Captain Althorn, Captain of the Erlin Guard. We asked Captain Althorn if he knew anyone in town who might have made a gate to the Plane of Fire, or been able to do so. Joybell, in relaying this, was very careful not to give anything away about there being a gate to Stygia or anything _bad_ about the gate to the Plane of Fire. We just wanted to talk to someone who could make one for reasons never specified. We also asked if he knew of anything or anyone weird -- if there were any simmering resentments around.

Orryk: Can you think of anyone angry in a burn down the city sort of way.
Captain Althorn: I’d be surprised about a resident burning up the city. They live here. Last spring, though, there was an uproar up in Promontory. We had to escort a family out -- they were running a sort of pyramid scheme, or trying to. Their family had been in Promontory for generations.
Orryk: Are they still in town?
Captain: Yeah -- they’re in Sunlit. The T’multin family.
Joybell: A pyramid scheme?
Captain: They were defrauding families, using the money from new investors to pay old ones and keep them investing more and more. The thing is most of those families up there know each other.
Orryk: Not too bright.
Captain: Not as bright as they think they are.
Joybell: Can you think of anyone else?
Captain: No.
Joybell: Are there any libraries in town?
Captain: Yeah -- there are some in Sunlit and Het’s Ell.
Joybell: Thanks so much for that information. We’ll be checking those out.
Captain: Knowing that we have good and interested adventurers in town makes me feel safer.

Joybell detected no sarcasm and told him he could reach us at the Golden Gallant if he wanted to get in touch.

We left and headed toward Sunlit to talk to the people in the temples.

Joybell, to Orryk: Should we use the sending stone to let the others know what we learned?
Orryk: The stones are one use per day. They’re reserved for when they get in trouble.

Meanwhile, Team Chaos (Mo, Taman, Thneed) went to the Terraces to talk to people. Before they entered, Mo used prestidigitation to clean all of them up, so that everyone looked as spiffy as possible, then he looked for a really good bar. Taman kept a watch out for anything going on in the streets.

On their way to the Terraces, and walking around while there, Mo spent 10 minutes walking and drinking and singing songs to himself -- getting a really good buzz going (or to the “charismatic” stage of drunkenness) and ritually casting Comprehend Languages.

Mo found a fancy house (a bar/whorehouse) called Janya’s and they all entered. The place had a proper bar, so Mo talked to the bartender. He ordered excellent whiskey for himself. Thneed ordered a glass of wine. Taman set himself up at the bar so he could listen and observe.

The bartender was a muscular looking human woman who looked highly competent and was not dressed in any way as one of the prostitutes. The place had a half-orc doorman/bouncer -- Mo’s height but much much bigger.

Mo: You look like you know what’s going on. We’re traveling merchants looking to make coin. Do you know anyone who’s come into money recently who might be looking to make a trade?
Bartender: New money on the Terraces? No there’s nothing like that here. There’s a lot of money on Promontory, some of it newer than others.
Mo: Are there any problems in town? We don’t want to stay here if there are. That’s not our line.
Bartender: Erlin’s not that kind of town.
Mo: How does someone get vouched into Promontory?
Bartender: I could try to arrange for you to meet with someone who comes in. But they’re often not here to drink.
Mo: And they might prefer discretion.
Bartender: Yes.
Mo: Thanks. You’ve been a big help. We need to get up into Promontory, I think.

Mo then let the bartender go and started looking around to see if anyone in the bar looked out of place or like they’d be worth talking to.

While Mo was talking, Taman noticed that the bouncer was having a quiet but forceful conversation with a human woman in her forties. Taman listened in -- the woman was getting more and more strident while the half-orc bouncer was staying calm.

Woman: I owned this place! I hired you!
Bouncer: Yes. And the new owners had to pay to cure your clients.

The bouncer denied the woman entrance and she eventually left, though it took a long time to convince her to go.

Mo, having observed this as well (having been clued into it by Taman) went to talk to the bouncer.

Mo: Hey, Mr. T! I’m Mo W. Kang. What was her problem?
Bouncer: She thinks she still owns the place.
Mo: She doesn’t now?
Bouncer: She was foreclosed on. Yorla is her name.
Mo: Foreclosed implies a debt.
Bouncer: She couldn’t pay debts of various sorts...

Mo slipped him a platinum piece.

Mo: What do you mean “of various sorts”?
Bouncer: Generally when one comes here, one expects to lose money in exchange for an experience. Under her time, people were losing money and other possessions in exchange for various unspeakable diseases.
Mo: How long was she the owner?
Bouncer: Her father owned it before she did. Between the two of them, something like 30 years. The caliber of the place slipped over that time. The new owner is Janya. She’s been here two years. My name is Tosk, by the way.

Thneed, to the bartender: Have you had any rougher customers? Anyone dangerous?
Bartender: Not since the T’multin family got kicked out. They were a bunch of sociopaths.
Taman: What did they do that was so sociopathic?
Bartender: Defrauding people -- they were doing a pyramid scheme.

They then left the bar. Outside, they talked about what we should investigate next.

Taman: I think we should check out this T’multin family. But the bad things happening to the previous owners -- she was certainly aggrieved. Maybe the new owner put her out of business.

Meanwhile, Team Order went to the temple of the Lightbringers. Joybell introduced herself first, then realized that she didn’t know what to ask about so she looked to Orryk.

Orryk talked about the portal to Stygia and asked if the priestess knew anyone who would do something like that. At that the priestess took us into a back room. Once there, Fiona told her about the portal to the Plane of Fire hiding a portal to Stygia. She also mentioned the fire portal having some sort of proximity triggered magic that produced elementals when people got close to it.

Priestess: I’m admiring the irony of the Hell that is a plane of Ice being protected by a gate to the plane of fire.
Joybell: Can you think of anyone in town capable of setting something like that up?
Priestess: In town?
Orryk: Well, no one came this far to put it outside of Erlin. It could be someone who came to town five or six years ago. Or someone who had a major life change five or six years ago.
Priestess: There was a guy I ran into in a library about that time. He had just come here from New Arvai. He was interested in books about the planes -- but he seemed new to magic and like he was looking for information outside of his experience.
Orryk: Maybe he had a new friend giving him advice. Was he human?
Priestess: Yeah. He seemed like a decent guy at the time.
Joybell: Did you get a name?
Priestess: No.
Joybell: Which library was this in?
Priestess: Donni’s Library.
Joybell: What do they have in their collection?
Priestess: They’re the best library in town for information about magic and the planes.
Fiona: What did he look like? Maybe we can look for him.
Priestess: He was one of the most non-descript people I’ve ever seen. Almost as though he was cultivating it -- average haircut, average clothing.
Joybell: At what point does that become a fieldmark? Do you know anything about the T’multin family?
Priestess: They are schemesters and sociopaths.
Joybell: When did they start their pyramid scheme?
Priestess: I don’t know when they started. I do know that when the people of Promontory, with the help of the Guard, when to throw them out, they searched their house. They didn’t find nearly as much money as they should have.
Joybell: How many zeroes were missing?
Priestess: Four or five of them. All in gold.
Joybell: One thousand to ninety thousand. I actually would have expected more…
Fiona: Ten thousand to nine-hundred thousand
Joybell: They don’t teach math in paladin school.
Fiona, to the priestess: Both of the portals are now closed.
Priestess: How?
Fiona: Dispel magic.
Priestess: I might have been tempted to use her [pointing to Joybell] hammer.
Joybell: That option was on the table.

We thanked the priestess and left, heading back to the Golden Gallant.

Meanwhile, Team Chaos was talking about what to do. Thneed wanted to talk to some of the families who’d gotten ripped off by the T’multins -- maybe sticking with the out of town gem merchants ruse. They could approach people with the line that they wanted to help them get their money back. They headed toward the gates of Promontory, which were not all that far from Janya’s Fancy House -- they just had to go up the last couple of switchbacks.

The neighborhood of Promontory looked like a very old fort on top of the hill with a large stone and metal portcullis-style gate. The guards appeared to know the people who lived in Promontory -- many people were going in without showing a voucher. Others were stopped. Around the gate, indeed along the switchbacks the whole way up, were various shops and restaurants and bars (Janya’s among them). There were four guards on the ground in front of the gate. The group could also see some number in a crenellated walk above the portcullis.

They headed back to the Golden Gallant where they met up with Team Order and we all got dinner and shared information about the T’multins and the angry former fancy house owner and the sketchy guy in the library.

Taman: I find your priest very sketchy because she complimented the devil worshipper’s method of hiding the portal. Also she ushered you all into a private room.

Mo pointed out that if we could find the T’multin’s house, he could put a clairvoyance in it. With that thought in mind, as soon as we finished dinner we decided to go out for a walk in Sunlit. Mo, in an effort to make the party less conspicuous, cast invisibility on Scooby -- Joybell walked along with the rest of the party.

Mo then wandered a bit away from the party, disheveling himself up and putting some dust on his robes and found someone on the street to talk to.

Mo: Hi! I just got into town and am looking for my business partner, one of the T’multins. I invested everything I have. I need to talk to him about my money.

(GM: Mo just ran into the most helpful idiot in town -- Nat 20 on the local knowledge check, Nat 1 on seeing through Mo’s subterfuge.)

Person: If you invested all of your money, you need a lot of help. I’ll take you there.
Mo: Why?
Person: They’re frauds.
Mo: What do you mean, they’re frauds? I’ve invested thousands…
Person: They’re frauds. I’ll take you there.

Mo used a message spell to tell Taman to follow him. Taman caught his eye and clapped silently. We all followed, quite a bit back so as not to be an obvious wad of strange people tagging along.

Mo was taken to a two story house (at least two stories above the ground). It looked reasonably prosperous, with a coach house and everything. There was a six-foot high stone fence around the property with an iron-barred gate at the front. The fence looked quite climbable and more for privacy than security. The gate was the only place where we could see the house. The yard was unkempt and the house didn’t look particularly well cared for, though it wasn’t in any sort of disrepair either.

We could see some lights in windows on the ground floor.

Mo, to the helpful idiot: Look, friend. I think I need to deal with this on my own. We’ve known each other a long time.
Person: Good luck.

Mo then tried the gate and found it locked.

Mo: The gate is locked. I’ll have to try again in the morning.

He and the helpful idiot then left, in different directions. Mo joined the rest of the party a few moments later and we returned to the Golden Gallant, which was not far from the T’multin house. We hoped that we’d worked quickly enough that we were ahead of news getting around that we were making inquiries. If the T’multins were responsible for the Stygia gate, we had some hope that they didn’t realize it yet.

Once in our room, Mo cast Clairvoyance -- he played a song on his pipe that started to sound like 1990’s dialup internet, then made his birdman goggles with his hands. He didn’t see anything. The sensor simply didn’t show up inside the house. He recognized that they were blocking being scryed upon -- Fiona was aware of a spell called Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum that can make a whole building impossible to scry. The private sanctum can be made permanent -- either with high ritual magic or by casting the spell on the same location every day for a year. So it was possible that the house had the private sanctum on it before the T’multins moved in.

Thneed suggested continuing the gem merchant facade -- offering a business deal and playing ourselves as obvious marks. Mo suggested using polymorph to turn into something.

We decided to go with Mo’s idea, on the grounds that Thneed’s would still be available if it didn’t would. So Mo blew out a cloud of smoke that pooled around his feet then swirled up to his head. As the smoke dissipated a raccoon, Bandit, stepped out. Taman helped Bandit over the fence.

Mo proceeded through the yard to the house and scrambled up to the windowsills - but he couldn’t see anything through the windows. Even with his raccoon intelligence, he realized that the windows had been obscured. He could see light, but only blurry shapes. He couldn’t hear anything.

He went through the breezeway between the house and the carriage house to the back yard. He found a back door to the house.

He scampered across the forty feet or so of yard between the back of the house and the back wall. Once over the wall and in an alley (not where the rest of the party was), he dropped the polymorph and tried to cast a dimension door spell to get inside the back door. The spell simply didn’t work -- he didn’t move at all. Mo started heading toward the rest of the party

Mo, to Taman with a message spell as he approached: I can’t see or hear anything. Meet up. I tried dimension door. It didn’t work.
Taman, to Mo through the spell: I’ll go.

Before the rest of the party knew what was going on (because we weren’t privy to the conversation through the spell), Taman vaulted over the wall. Mo cast invisibility on him as he went.

Taman crossed the yard to the house and found a window that didn’t have light shining through it. That window was locked. He went around to the back door and picked that lock -- successfully opening the lock.

Before he opened the door he ran back to the wall where the party was gathered and popped his head over it.

Taman, invisible: Door’s open. Who’s going in?
Mo, with a message spell in order to be quieter: Don’t go in.
Joybell, whispering: We have a gallon of oil of etherealness. Slather up.

We went back to the Golden Gallant where Taman, still invisible, slathered up with one of the vials of oil of etherealness -- so he was then both ethereal and invisible. He went back to the house on his own, walking through the city streets like a ghost. He was able to get in the house with no problems and walked around inside scouting the place. The layout was a pretty normal layout for a house of that size.

He made his way into a room where he saw a handful of people, five of them. One was a very non-descript male human, who appeared to have deliberately dressed in the most common or average clothing styles that everyone in town seemed to be wearing. One was a woman who appeared to be trying to act like and look like a noble. One was the woman Taman had seen arguing with the half-orc bouncer at the fancy house, Yorla. There were also two other male humans.

They were doing some sort of funky ritual to do with a large circle carved into the wooden floor.

He’d just earlier that day seen one just like it at the cave south of town.

Taman immediately left the house and used the stone of sending to talk to Joybell.

Taman: Holy naughty word! There’s a devil circle inside. Let's go! Am still ethereal, dammit!

Joybell relayed this to the others.

Joybell: I don’t know if he means let's go in or let’s leave.
Mo told her what to say in response. (Note: My notes do not record what Mo told her to say.)

Taman returned to the Golden Gallant about the time that the oil of etherealness wore off.

Taman: Five people. The chick from the bar, Yarla, who was arguing with Mr. T. And a perfectly average guy. They were in the middle of doing something with a circle on the floor.
Thneed: If they’re opening a gate...not just summoning a devil but opening a door…

Thneed detected for fiends and found that there were approximately three. Or maybe four. (DM error/waffling)

Thneed: Approximately three and a half.

They were between the Golden Gallant and the T’multin house.

Orryk summoned an air elemental with the censer. Mo pulled a baboon, Rafiki, from the bag of tricks.

Mo: If he survives, he can be a buddy for Clyde.

Taman poured a bottle of holy water over his head and cast protection from evil and good on himself. Joybell laid hands on Taman, herself, and Scooby. (We were all still somewhat injured from fighting the fire elementals at the gate early in the day.)

Taman: This means they know we’re doing stuff -- whether because we were asking after them or because we destroyed the circle.
Orryk: Joybell spilled the beans.
Joybell: I did not! I did not mention the devil circle at all. I was very careful. You did!

All of these things, and the conversation, happened while we were rushing out of the inn and heading toward the T’multin house. Joybell and Orryk were in the front of the party.

As we proceeded, we made a turn and at the end of the street we saw four devils -- one large one and three smaller ones. There were also a smattering of innocent civilians in the street. The smaller ones were pretty humanoid looking, but with thorns. The larger one had a long stinger like a skeletal scorpion.

Thneed was able to identify these as three barbed devils and one bone devil. She told us that the barbed devils grapple people and throw fireballs. Both kinds are immune to fire, resistant to cold, and resistant to spells they had to make a save for.

Thneed, on seeing the devils, moved into position and started shouting for the civilians to get out of the way. Then she shot an arrow at the closest bone devil.

Mo looked to see if he could use a plant growth spell, but there weren’t any plants for the spell to work on. So instead he moved up 30 feet and cast hypnotic pattern on the bone devil and two of the barbed devils. Unfortunately all of them saved. Then he inspired Thneed.

Orryk sent the air elemental, which moves incredibly fast, right up into the face of the bone devil, but it was unable to attack after flying so fast. Joybell, who saw that she was not going to be able to attack either, rode Scooby until she was next to one of the civilians (so she could protect them if they were attacked) and dodged.

Joybell, as she rode, shouting: Go! Go!! Get out of here!

Taman moved up next to her. Fiona moved up, trying to get into spell range, and dodged.

The bone devil attacked the air elemental that was right in front of its face. The elemental was hit by a claw but missed by the huge stinger.

Three of the civilians, seeing the devil attacking and the air elemental and hearing Thneed and Joybell shouting for them to get clear, froze in place and whimpered piteously. Three of them ran away screaming, including the one that had been next to Joybell.

One of the barbed devils backed away from the air elemental, which was able to take an opportunity attack against it and hit solidly. It attacked the air elemental with a thrown fireball, but that missed. Another barbed devil threw fire at the air elemental and hit solidly.

The third threw its fireball at Orryk, hitting him squarely, but doing no damage at all, because Orryk. Orryk grinned.

Thneed moved up to where she could cast her hunters mark on the barbed devil that attacked Orryk -- then she took a shot at it. Mo moved up and shot the same one with his crossbow, then he inspired Joybell.

Mo: Keep these civilians safe.

Orryk ran forward and took two shots with his bow on the devil that had fireballed him. Then he spent a ki point for Patient Defense. The air elemental did two slams on one of the barbed devils, hitting it.

Joybell rode up next to one of the civilians who was frozen in fear and yelled at him to snap out of it. Then she threw her javelin of lightning at the bone devil, hitting solidly. Taman ran over to the one that had attacked Orryk and attacked, but there was no one else fighting it so he wasn’t able to sneak up on it. Fiona moved up as far as she could and cast magic missile on the barb devil that Taman was fighting with.

The bone devil moved up to attack Joybell, but missed with all of its attacks. One of the barbed devils did as well - or maybe it was attacking the civilian she was standing next to -- it was really impossible to tell.

None of the three civilians were able to snap out of their terror and run away. All just cried and whimpered, staring in horror and terror at the devils.

The barbed devil that was fighting with Taman attacked but missed. And the one that was fighting the air elemental backed away a bit and shot a fireball out it.

Thneed shot the barbed devil Taman was fighting and hit it incredibly solidly (note: she did 43 points of damage, which was not even the maximum she can do). That dropped the barbed devil, which dissolved into a puddle of slime.

Mo told Rafiki the baboon to grab one of the civilians. Rafiki ran off to do that, though it would take him several seconds to get to the civilian.

The air elemental moved to fight the barbed devil that was attacking Joybell, then Orryk shot it in the back with his shortbow.

Joybell attacked the bone devil and just missed and missed. Even Mo’s inspiration couldn’t help her. Taman moved, swiping along the blade of his rapier as he walked to activate his planar warrior ability, then attacked the bone devil for a lot of damage. Fiona fired a guiding bolt at the bone devil, but missed with the shot.

The bone devil turned away from Joybell and attacked Taman -- he got lucky and was missed by a claw. Mo spoke some cutting words and prevented the stinger from hitting.

The civilian near Joybell, and the bone devil, and a barbed devil, finally snapped out of his terror and ran away. The other two were unable to get their muscles working, except to cry and scream feebly.

One of the barbed devils attacked Joybell and hit her. One of them threw fire at Tamana, but missed. However, we noticed that there was a bit of fire on some of the buildings. Rafiki started guiding one of the civilians out of the street and down a side alley. Mo himself, frustrated, unrolled the battle hammock and pushed the final civilian into it, then told the broom to fly around a corner into an alley.

The air elemental made two slam attacks on the barbed devil. Orryk moved to ten feet away from the same barbed devil and hit it with his fists of unbroken air--hitting three times, one of which hit into a critical spot on the devil.

Joybell attacked the bone devil and smote it, strongly, twice. (Note: She did a third level smite and a second level smite -- totalling 70 or so damage.) Taman then attacked and dropped the bone devil. His second attack hit the nearby barbed devil. Fiona cast a guiding bolt on the barbed devil on Joybell and Taman and the air elemental. Doing some nice damage and the next attack against it would be at advantage.

The civilian with Rafiki apparently found that an agitated baboon was just another thing to be terrified by and stayed in place. Thneed moved up a bit closer and moved her hunter’s mark to the barbed devil on Joybell, Taman and the air elemental -- she hit it because of Fiona’s guiding bolt. Her second shot was better -- that dropped it.

The devils attacked, to remarkably little effect.

Rafiki pushed the civilian he was interacting with out of the street and into an alley. Then Mo tried to shoot the last barbed devil in the face with his crossbow, but he missed. The air elemental hit it. Orryk hit it with a critical blow with the medic’s blade, but it didn’t drop. Joybell rode over to it and hit it with two smiting blows, finally dropping it.

Mo: I go to collect my broom and my monkey.

We headed to the house -- which was about a 10 minute walk from where we were. The house looked pretty much the same as we’d seen earlier, except that there was a smoldering crater in the street outside the house. Fiona and Orryk knew that sometimes the portals appear at a location near, but not exactly on, the site of the circle. Apparently, the devils appeared here.

And there we ended -- in the street outside the T’multin house.


----------



## prabe (Jun 13, 2021)

Session 46: Making Deals With Devils Is Stupid As Well As Bad

Dramatis Personae:
Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard
Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)
Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)
Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Cleric (War)
Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)

GM - Everyone Else


29 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 119) (immediately after)

We began where we left off, right outside the T’multin house, with a still warm crater in the street outside and five people doing some sort of spell or ritual to summon them inside the house.

Orryk: Taman, didn’t you leave the back door open?
Taman: Yes! I did.

We sorted out our plan of attack.

Taman: Kick in the back door. Kill anyone who resists.

We decided that was good.

Mo pulled a giant weasel out of his bag of tricks. He named it Jamie Dimon and had it come with us. Orryk summoned an air elemental with the censer. Thneed cast pass without trace and we went over the wall on the back side of the house, near the carriage gate.

Due to Thneed’s spell, we were all really sneaky, even Joybell didn’t clank or clatter on the way in.

We could see that the windows were lit, but we couldn’t see any details, or even any movement, as we walked toward the back door. Orryk convinced Joybell to leave Scooby outside, which she did.

Taman opened the door, then ran across the mudroom and opened the door straight across from it.

We entered at a double door on the lower right. Taman’s straight across run led him to the door that ultimately went to the ritual room with the pentagram on the floor. Peeking inside, he saw the non-descript man he’d seen before and caught glimpses of some of the people he’d seen in the room earlier. He closed the door quietly, then let us know that the people were in there.

Once we were all ready, Taman kicked open the door and ran directly to the non-descript man and held his sword to his throat.

Taman: Surrender, Knaves!

Orryk entered the room, recommending to all of us that we not kill them. The air elemental hit the nondescript guy just before Orryk got to him. Orryk then hit him and stunned him with a punch. He then turned and used his fists of unbroken air to hit the woman from the fancy house (Yorla). She got blown back into the wall and knocked unconscious, dropped like the noncombatant she was.

In addition to the nondescript man and Yorla, there was a noble looking lady and two guys with shortswords. The guys with swords didn’t look like combatants either -- just like townies walking around with swords on their hips because people wear swords as a matter of course.

Jamie Dimon, the giant weasel, ran past the noble lady and attacked one of the regular dudes, climbing up his leg and clinging to him and scrambling over him.

Mo viciously mocked the noble looking lady.

Mo: Are you the help?

She stood there looking slack-jawed and stunned, like she’d never been so insulted in all her life.

Fiona moved into the doorway of the room and cast a mind-spike on the non-descript man -- so she’d know where he was for the next hour as long as she maintained concentration on it.

Thneed entered the room and aimed an arrow at the chest of the noble-looking lady.

Thneed: I suggest you get on the floor.

The noble lady kneeled.

The dude with Jamie Dimon scrambling over him and biting him flailed at the weasel. The other regular dude held his hands up, looking pretty freaked out.

Mo: Fantastic! This is going swimmingly!

Joybell walked into the room radiating paladinly disapproval and maternal disappointment, in a three-foot-tall package.

Joybell: What is going on in here? Why are you summoning devils?

The noble lady and the guy with his hands up looked over at the stunned non-descript guy, without saying a word.

Joybell: Well, why are you following him? Don’t be horrible people.

Taman used the Rope of Entanglement on the stunned nondescript guy and Orryk put the Dimensional Shackles we’ve had since forever on him.

When the stunned guy shook it off a few seconds later he was tied up and shackled and prevented from teleporting or plane shifting. Mo shoved his Embernook armband into the guy’s mouth.

Then he called off Jamie Dimon.

Mo: Hold off. That guy may have money.

Fiona, looking around the room: Huh. Restrained, shackled, peeing on the floor, unconscious.

The runes in the circle glowed slightly red and Fiona couldn’t tell if the circle was powering up or powering down. So she cast a dispel magic on it and the whole circle powered down -- some of the runes went completely dark.

Thneed opened one of the other doors to the room and started quickly peeking around. She’d entered the room between the ritual room and the door and she saw nothing of particular interest in the room.

Thneed: i’m going to go get the police.
Mo: Don’t split the party.

So instead we perp-walked the whole crew out to the front wall and lined them up against the wall, searching all of them as we did so. (Before taking the noble-looking lady outside, Thneed found some clothing in one of the bedrooms and let her change her urine stained garments.)

We found 18,000 gold and 1600 platinum -- probably the money that the people of Promontory and the Guard hadn’t found when trying to get restitution for the victims of the T’multin’s pyramid scheme. The nondescript man also had a staff and a cloak. There was some Elven Chain in another room.

We also found some papers on the nondescript man -- a letter with his name on it: Orman.

The guard was apparently on the way to the house (the crater forming and devils roaming the city will get their attention). By the time we had everyone lined up against the wall, Thneed saw guards, including Captain Althorn, looking at the smoldering crater in the road and waved them over.

Thneed, pointing to our prisoners: The problem’s over there.

Captain Althorn gestured for a guard to manacle Orman, the nondescript guy, but Orryk left the dimensional shackles on nonetheless.

Joybell: HI, Captain!! I mentioned the fire portal earlier. I didn’t mention there was also a portal to one of the Hells, Stygia. To summon devils. So we tracked them down to here. They summoned devils earlier [pointing to the crater]. We killed those.

With the guard present, we talked to the townsmen, one of whom was Lord T’multin (the one Jamie Dimon had attacked) and the noble-looking lady, Lady T’multin, about why they were summoning devils. They felt that they had been wronged when they were kicked out of Promontory. Orman had convinced them that he could help.

We knew Yorla, the former fancy house owner, felt wronged because she’d lost her business. We didn’t know what the townsman who’d surrendered before we attacked him was upset about.

Mo, to that townsman: You! What’s your story?

The townsman told us that he’d been an innkeeper in Sunlit. He’d lost his inn and now had a dumpier place in the Feedlots. He ranted about conspiracies against him and the government favoring the people who’d displaced him and general unfairness.

Joybell: If you were truly wronged, I’m sure there are better ways to deal with it than summoning devils.

Joybell showed Captain Althorn the circle in the ritual room. She also showed him the gold we’d found on Orman.

Joybell: We think this is the money y’all didn’t find that belongs to the people they defrauded.
Captain: We’ll take the money to return it to the families. But you can keep any interesting items or stuff you found.

He said that while looking at the pile with the staff, the cloak, a book written in infernal, and the elven chain. We also found a pair of boots, a scroll and a thing that looked like a gigantic brass eyeball in the house.

Joybell: How the hell did they get elven chain?
Orryk: Same way Mo did.
Joybell: Well, fair enough.

Orryk pulled out the Orrery - it just spun without picking a direction.

Joybell, to Lady T’multin: Was the circle there when you bought the house?
Lady T’multin: It was part of the revenge.
Joybell, incensed: Revenge for what??! You don’t get to take revenge on your victims! You defrauded them! What is wrong with you?!

Before we left for the guardhouse, we helped the Captain interrogate Orman. We learned that he was with a gang (To Be Named Later) in New Arvai. He attempted to sell information that someone high up in New Arvai’s power structure wanted kept quiet. The person had very specific tastes, considered depraved and nasty, even by the standards of a city that is well known for consorting with demons and devils. He found himself imprisoned and looking at an inevitable, unpleasant death. He reached out for help, and Levistus answered. He woke up here in Erlin, without having any memory of traveling the distance between the cities.

Mo: What did you hope to accomplish?
Orman: Eventually, I wanted revenge on the people who imprisoned me.
Orryk: How did you create the portals?
Orman: I have a book that I got from Levistus.

We figured from all we’d learned that Orman was a warlock of Levistus - but he also apparently had some skills and training as a thief.

As we helped the guard take the prisoners to the guard house, we warned Captain Althorn about Orman’s connection with Levistus, and about his magical abilities. We wanted to make sure they were able to handle magical prisoners.

On the way Joybell, who was furious at all of these devil worshippers, fussed at Orman. All the way to the guardhouse and into his cell.

Then she warned Captain Althorn that he had a prisoner who’d made a deal with a devil who specializes in getting people out of prisons and other confinement.

Joybell: Good luck holding him.

We left the guard with their prisoners, with the blessing of Captain Althorn, and returned to the Golden Gallant with the things we found.

We went to one of our rooms, finally resting, and Fiona identified the items we’d found.

Spell Scroll of Glibness - (Note: Mo chortled when this was identified). This is an 8th level bard spell. (Mo)
Cloak of Protection +1 to AC, +1 to all saves.
Staff of Swarming Insects (Mo) - produces insect swarms and giant insects. (Another contributor to Mo’s Magnificent Magical Menagerie)
Boots of the Path - does something like find the path
Eye of the Beholder - it does an anti-magic field
The Warlock’s Pact of the Tome book
After identifying the items, we went to bed after a very long day. The night passed without incident.


30 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 120)

The next morning we were woken by a very very loud and insistent knock on one of the hotel room doors. It turned out to be Captain Althorn, looking frazzled. We asked if his prisoner had gone missing. He told us his whole prison was missing, at least the small building in the Feedlots they were using to house Orman separate from the rest of the prison population. All there was in its place was a crater with Orman’s body at the bottom of it.

Althorn was a little wound up.

The separate building that they’d put Orman in, under guard, was now a crater. One of the guards who’d been watching him reported that there was a crater that spread out under the building and the building collapsed into it. The guard saw an icy hand come out of the burning crater. It reached out and took a small clay-like worm out of the body of the warlock and dragged it away, down into the portal at the bottom of the crater.

Joybell: You need to have that guard make drawings of this and post it all over town. This is why you don’t make deals with devils, people!
Orryk: None of the people who did are here. Are you just lecturing?
Joybell: Apparently! Yes!

Captain Althorn had two requests for us -- the first was to break the summoning circle that ate the prison. The second was to deal with the devils that were roaming the city, after having emerged from the summoning circle.

We decided to go deal with the circle first -- turning off the tap, so to speak. Thneed did her check for fiends while we were on the way, so we’d know if we were approaching a fiend fortress. . She detected three groups -- one in Promontory, one between Sunlit and Het’s Ell, and one in the Harbor.

Joybell: Someone’s gonna have to vouch us into Promontory.

Fiona, as we walked there: If this circle was created by Levistus himself, it might be beyond me.

The prison, a single room, single cell affair for special prisoners, was near the Feedlots and Gate Bridge. We went to the crater, much bigger than the one outside the T’multin house. It looked a little like a sinkhole, but with rubble down in the bottom. It looked like an underground nuclear test site.

But the ground was blackened and there were large runes in infernal around the circle.

Taman: This is the lesson we learned; Don’t take prisoners.
Thneed: There might have been a spell cast so that whenever he died this would happen. He might have found a way to kill himself. If we’d killed him, we might have been there when this happened.
Mo: You never know until you try.
Thneed: Technically, yes….but…

Fiona activated the wings of flying, preparing to fly to the edge of the dispel magic spell’s range over the circle. The rest of us backed away, but before we did so Mo inspired her.

Mo: You’ve got this! We have faith in you.

From 115 feet in the air, Fiona cast the most powerful dispel magic spell she could manage. Joybell stood by, closer than the others, with the warhammer at the ready, in case something happened.

Fortunately, what happened, was that some (but not all) of the runes went dark and the circle became inert. When Fiona landed and the others gathered up, Joybell asked if it could be recreated or if it was really permanently dead. Fiona thought that it could be recreated, but only by someone who could make five foot high letters with lava.

Well, alrighty then.

Captain Althorn gave us each a voucher to get into Promontory, though we went first to Het’s Ell (toward Sunlit) because it was closer. As we went we discussed the order we wanted to tackle the groups of devils in -- over Mo’s objections, we decided to take them in the order we could get to them most efficiently, which unfortunately left the working folks in the Harbor for last, after the rich people in Promontory.

When we started getting close to the area Thneed thought they were in, we listened for screaming and watched for people running away. Orryk had Omnath flying up above the houses looking for them. We didn’t have to go too far into Sunlit before Omnath spotted some barbed devils and a bone devil. He guided Orryk in the right direction.

We came around a corner and found one bone devil and three barbed devils.

Joybell gave one of the civilians on the street, one who hadn’t yet seen the devils, a silver piece and asked him to run off and find Captain Althorn and ask him to tell people to stay inside and not be in danger. She gave the person her name and told him she’d last seen Captain Althorn down in the Feedlots.

Thneed put her hunter’s mark on the bone devil and shot him twice, getting a critical hit with one of them. Orryk moved closer and shot it with his short bow.

At that point, the bone devil flew up over the building and into an alley. From her position, Thneed could see it pick up a civilian and hold it up like a shield.

Fiona cast magic missile on the bone devil, taking advantage of the fact that the missiles wouldn’t hit the civilian. Taman took a shot at it with one of his magic arrows - he didn’t hit the devil, but he didn’t hit the civilian either.

The barbed devils moved toward us, passing some civilians in the street. And conveniently bunching up so that Mo could try and cast hypnotic pattern on them. That worked beautifully -- despite them having a special, innate resistance to magic, all three of them were hypnotized by the pretty lights. Then he sent Jamie Dimon to attack the bone devil.

Joybell rode hard on Scooby toward the bone devil, yelling for the civilians to run away as she passed, then scooted around the devil to attack it from the back, drawing down the energy of a divine smite when she hit it.

Most of the civilians listened to Joybell and ran away.

Thneed cast a new spell, setting some arrows down on the ground in a circle so that if any of the barbed devils woke up and stepped into the circle, they’d get shot by one of the arrows.

Orryk attacked the bone devil with the sword of the medic and then with a punch. The punch was the blow that got through and let him stun the devil.

Fiona cast a guiding bolt -- doing a lot of damage, which was worthwhile even though we already had advantage on our attacks against it. Taman ran up to the devil and attacked with his rapier, dropping it.

The civilian the devil had been holding as a shield or hostage fell to the ground mostly uninjured. He limped away down the alley.

With the bone devil dead, and the civilian no longer in danger, we focused fire on the barbed devils one at a time and took them out without much trouble.

We started heading toward the Switchback Terraces on the way to Promontory -- we figured out that between Fiona with her wings and the broom of flying ferrying people (and Orryk running straight up, cutting across the switchbacks) we were able to get up there pretty quickly. The guards at the gate to Promontory appeared to be studiously ignoring anything crazy that might be going on beyond their gates. They gave a quick glance to the chits that Captain Althorn had given us and let us in, pointing us in the direction of the screaming they were doing nothing about.

(Taman's player: These guards deserve names.
Joybell's player: Helmut and Kurt.)

We made our way into the old and spiffy part of the city.

Before long we saw three flying devils with big pitchforks, big muscles, and leathery wings. Thneed did ranger naughty word to try and pull up whatever knowledge she had about them.

Thneed: They’re big devils. I don’t like them.

Orryk told us that they were horn devils and that they often act as enforcers for various high ranking devils in the hierarchy of the hells. All of them were flying over the roofs of the buildings holding civilians as hostages -- the civilians were held casually, by the ankles or the wrists, about 40 feet off the ground.

Thneed took a couple of shots at the nearest one, after she put her hunter’s mark on it. She took extra care to aim to miss the hostage. Fiona cast a guiding bolt on one of them and got a critical crit on it and did a frightening lot of damage. And left the devil glowing.

Orryk ran up on top of the building with the devil Thneed and Fiona had been shooting hovering over it and dodged. Taman put his hunter’s mark on the same one and shot with the magic arrows, hitting twice and doing a lot of damage.

One of the other horn devils dropped its civilian, from 40 feet up, so it probably died, and landed behind a building. Another one dropped its civilian, who we could see landed very very badly and died instantly, and attacked Taman -- it missed with two attacks with its pitchfork. It would have hit with a whip of it’s sharp tail, but Taman’s luck and Mo’s cutting words kept it from hitting.

The one we’d been damaging flew down and landed near Taman, hitting him with its pitchfork.

Joybell cheered silently that they’d come down to where she could fight them. She dropped the one that we’d been focusing fire on with her first blow then rode over to the one on the other side of Taman, but missed with that attack.

None of us could see what was up with the one that had landed behind the building, so Mo cast shatter on the one on Joybell and Taman. Then he sent Jamie Dimon in to attack it.

Mo: Get him, Jamie! He might have some money!

The weasel ran up to the feet of the devil, but was unable to attack immediately.

Some of the remaining civilians broke out of their terrified paralysis and ran away, but some stayed stunned with horror.

Thneed moved her hunters mark to the one on Joybell and Taman and shot it twice. Fiona, still with the wings of flying, flew up over the tops of the buildings and saw the one lurking behind the building. She tried to cast mind spike on it, but it saved, so while she did some damage she did not get a lock on it to know where it was.

Orryk ran back down the building he’d just run up and threw two daggers at the one Joybell and Taman were fighting then punched at it with his fists of unbroken air. Taman moved his hunters mark to it and stabbed with the rapier, doing an awful lot of damage.

The devil on Taman and Joybell attacked Taman twice with his pitchfork. Taman avoided a critical hit from the pitchfork with a lucky dodge. Unfortunately ,the tail hit, doing some sort of damage that left him with a bleeding wound.

The one behind the building flew up into the air and attacked Fiona. Mo used his cutting words to cause one blow with the pitchfork into a miss, but the second hit her. They were about 40 feet up in the air fighting with one another.

Joybell missed twice with the warhammer, having gotten off step by dropping the one with her first blow a moment earlier. She moved slightly to be close enough to Taman to protect him with her shield.

Mo: I need a bottle of the hard stuff.

A giant, glowing whiskey bottle appeared over the head of the one flying with Fiona, but missed. Then Mo shot the devil with his crossbow, hitting but only barely. Jamie Dimon did more damage with its attack on the one on the ground with Taman and Joybell.

Thneed moved across the road, shooting the one on Joybell and Taman on the way and hitting twice. She used her war cleric ability to take another shot, but unfortunately that one missed.

Orryk moved up on the one on the ground -- he missed with the medic’s blade, unfortunately, but again he got a hit with his punch.

Taman’s bleeding wound practically gushed blood -- we wondered if the devil’s sharp tail had perhaps hit an artery. Then he attacked the devil and hit it well before he used his rogue training to disengage from the enemy and run away to where Thneed was.

The devil that was now on Orryk and Joybell attacked Joybell. Fortunately, it wasn’t able to hit her. The one that was in the air on Fiona sensed weakness in Taman, perhaps smelling all the blood, so it landed and attacked him. Taman’s luck prevented a critical hit. Then a pitchfork hit him --Taman’s own innate luck kept it from hitting him in a critical spot. Mo was able to use his cutting words to reduce the damage.

Joybell took two swings with the warhammer, missing with both of her blows. Again. Then she moved away, leaving Orryk with that one and going to protect Taman. Immediately after that, Mo used healing words on him.

Mo: Hey, buddy. You’ve got a lot of blood there.

The spell sealed up the bleeding wound and restored some of Taman’s strength. Then Mo crossbowed the one on Orryk for a few points and Jamie Dimon gnawed on it for a few more.

Thneed, who suddenly found herself with a devil right in front of her, ran away (risking an opportunity attack, which fortunately missed), then she took a shot at the one on Orryk, since her hunter’s mark was already on that one. She hit it once, then used her war cleric ability to shoot it again.

Fiona hit the one that had attacked her, which was now right up with Joybell and Taman, with a shadowbolt. It saved from the damage, but still took a lot of damage.

Orryk had Omnath breathe a cone of dust on the one on Joybell and Taman, but it saved. Then he attacked the one he was fighting with his medic’s blade, dropping it. He used the blade’s ability to heal Taman, then he ran over and attacked the one on Joybell and Taman but missed it.

Taman attacked the one that was on him, the last one, after moving his hunter’s mark over, and did a terrifying amount of damage with his sneak attack, but the devil was still standing.

It attacked Taman. Joybell held her shield ready to protect him from the tail, ignoring the two attacks with the pitchfork, which both missed. Between her shield and Mo’s cutting words, the tail missed as well.

Joybell then got her attack. She missed with her first one then _finally_ got a hit with her second one. Full with the pleasure and satisfaction of having finally hit something, Joybell summoned down the biggest divine smite she could manage and with that she was able to just barely drop the devil.

We ran to check out the three civilians that the devils had dropped. Two of them were dead, as we suspected, but the third was barely alive and bleeding out. Joybell gave him a little bit of healing by laying on hands -- just enough to stabilize him and keep him safe until he could get more assistance than we had time to provide.

We ended there, before heading off to the Harbor to fight the last group.


----------

