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[Spoilers Episode 16]
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Episode 16: Politics and Poker Faces
You began in Mab. The Docent of Grace having spoken words you heard in the orbs at the peak of Mt Atria. After whispering into Kelnys' ear, the dragonborn asked to know more, whereupon the Docent recounted everything you had heard from the orbs at the top of the mountain. Exhausted by the effort, the Docent needed support from Dolly, not knowing where this new knowledge had come from.
She did, however, recognize the party, having seen Barabask's message in the sky after the battle for Mouse. The Docent reassured the newly dead that she did not believe Barabask. Five mortals surely couldn't slay nine gods and four antiqua.
Reassured, Kelnys offered a gift. A staggeringly beautiful cherrywood spoon. Moved by the craftsmanship, the Docent offered Kelnys a truth, telling him that "Yilder seeks the son of the Tree Speaker".
You bade farewell to the Docent and headed into Mab, finding a tree under which you could make a camp. As the rest of you slept that night, Dolly was left to watch, though she failed to hear footsteps stumbling through the wood. Fortunately, Kelnys (tossing and turning in a sleepless night) was roused and headed towards the noise, finding a gnome stumbling through the woods.
The gnome's name was Quincy and she was Savant of the nearby gnomish temple which had hosted a gathering of the local gnomish folk after Barabask's revelation. During their discussion, a gang of tieflings had entered the workshop, demanding that the gnomes turn over any gold that they had hidden. When Quincy protested, she had been knocked unconscious, only waking in the night and sneaking away. You offered to help her on the condition that you receive some form of reward, with Quincy agreeing to your terms and guiding you through the woods.
At the workshop, you approached to the sound of voices within. Two tieflings arguing over Quincy's escape mentioning a highborn elf who owes a debt to Iago (their leader). Raidion led as you gained access pretending to be a party of refugees from Mouse looking for shelter. Dolly cast Charm Person to sweeten the deal with the two tieflings while Kelnys took the remaining bandit (a human wizard) into a side room where he tried to subdue him. The dragonborn was unable to do so and the Wizards summoned an earth elemental. Dolly convincing one tiefling to drink wine outside with her as the rest of you scrambled to dievert attention away from Kelnys' fight.
As I (tCntM) and Ellowen joined forces with Kelnys to kill the caster and consequently the elemental he had summoned Raidion battled with the remaining tiefling. Another clutch use of Hypnotic Gaze turning the tide of battle in his favor. Together you downed the hypnotized tiefling and searched the temple (finding no wealth, nor bodies, but) revealing a spectral hologram of Ristrin (the gnome deity).
That done, you headed outside, where the remaining tiefling happily drank wine with Dolly, revealing that Iago (their leader) sometimes had rooms at the Black Cat Tavern in the attic.
You left Petra, still under the thrall of the Suggestion spell and rejoined Quincy, resolving to head into Yanick with the gnome, though not before she made repairs to I's Grēnweard crossbow.
It is still nighttime. The smallest of the small hours; 2-3 o'clock in the morning. You're on the edge of the tree line. Quincy with you having just agreed to fix I's crossbow. You can hear the occasional satisfied slurping of wine from Petra away at the front of the workshop on the grass.
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Previous Episode: Blood, Wine, and Moonlight
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[Spoilers Episode 6]
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Episode 6: Hot Heads and Fast Words
Last time you began in the forest. Kelnys, Dolly and Endellion disguising themselves in the cloaks and masks of your fallen foes. Raidion and I (the character, not the me) hiding among the branches of nearby trees. After hours of waiting, and Raidion and I sharing a hammock nap, someone finally arrived. It was an exhausted, hungry, masked dwarf who refused to give her name. She passed on a message that you were to "return to the caves", but as Dolly questioned her further on those caves and probed for more information, she became wary. She suggested that you should make your own way without her; that she needed to rest and recover her strength. High in the trees, I made a gesture to rell Raidion to say silent, though after a poor insight check, Raidion let fly with a Mind Spike which both harmed and terrified the dwarf. As Kelnys and Dolly attempted to intimidate her, she fled towards the tree line. Raidion casting Web before an arrow to the back from Endellion's longbow snuffed out the dwarf's escape. Chalk one up to experience.
You headed towards Baruun and stashed the cloaks and masks beneath the grate in one of the sprawling shanty towns that spreads out from the city walls. Kelnys spotted Raidion replacing his cloak and mask in his pack, and though making his disapproval clear, the dragonborn did not prevent his companion from doing so.
At the gates of Baruun, your bags were summarily searched. One of the guards moaning that someone called Grenwyrd (a member of the Council of Equals) was throwing his weight around unnecessarily by insisting on checking the packs of travelers who entered the city.
You gained entry to The Depths, the lowest level of Baruun, and hive of industry and activity. At its center you found a great staircase with a mural of The Virtuous scarred by the words "The Shadow Will Flood" in black paint. Raidion spoke to a guard called Marcus about the group you had encountered in the forest and demanded a reward for this information, swiftly being shot down in that request. Marcus took the party's names (though Dolly referred to herself as Pamela) before you made your way up into The Deal (the second level of the city).
After filling your bellies with meat skewers, you approached a tavern called The Wise Walker. Endellion, Kelnys and I headed inside, but Raidion spotted a hooded orc beneath a half-finished web symbol scratched into the tavern's exterior wall. He revealed himself to be a member of The Web. Telling Raidion and Dolly that The Spinner sends his regards.
The others were retrieved from the tavern and you all followed the orc, Casper, to his hideout beneath an abandoned apothecary. There you met Juno (Casper's lieutenant) and Goff (a silent soldier who stared unblinking into the middle distance). Casper informed you of your new mission: to break out a member of their chapter, a halfling called Madea from Baruun jail. You headed out to case the joint before midnight when a guard change would give you a chance to spring and escape.
Down in The Depths again, Kelnys Wildshaped (it was a big moment for everybody really) into a cat and searched the walled jail complex (making friends with a guard and discovering a sickening act of violence that had been perpetrated by a female inmate that day). He also spotted a halfling matching the description of the one you were meant to rescue locked in a basement by looking through a grate in the jail floor. This done, he returned and explained the layout. "I" took up a vantage point overlooking the area and resolved to make his entrance via the roof planning to shimmy down on a rope secure to the outer walls of the city.
The plan for the others involved a Disguise Self-ed Radian and Endellion posing as guards while Dolly played the part of a prisoner, though Endellion wisely decided that her skills lay elsewhere, so she would keep a watch from outside. Kelnys turned back into a cat and slipped again into the jail complex. Raidion and Dolly put on quite a show at the gate, gaining access on the condition they were accompanied by another guard. As they made their way towards the jail, "I" misjudged his distances, crashed into the ground (alerting the guards to his presence) but a swift clamber back up the rope afforded him a chance to stay unseen on the outer walls of the city.
Kelnys entered the jail before dropping his cat form and trying to open a large door that gave access to the basement. Here he was spotted by a prisoner who begged to be released, though Kelnys snuck away as Raidion, Dolly and the other guard entered. Raidion convinced his guard companion to go home for the night, though not before lending Radion his keys. As you passed his cell, the prisoner made another plea, this one to Dolly. She recognized him as Indie, an old acquaintance and agreed to release him. He was too scared to help with the escape of the halfling however and instead snuck away towards the gate house.
By now "I" had made his way down to the ground behind the jail house (taking some falling damage in the process) before he scaled the building and shimmied down the chimney, joining his companions as they relieved the guard on duty in the basement.
There you met Madea. Bloodied, bound, and unafraid. Chained in a cell between grates in the ceiling above and the floor below. As you heard the sounds of Indie being recaptured in the courtyard, you quickly removed the grate in the floor allowing access to the fast flowing sewer water beneath. Radian unchained the halfling but triggered a glyph which left him briefly paralyzed. Madea insisted on having a weapon and having been lent Kelnys' scimitar, thrust it through the throat of another inmate who "had been looking at her in a way she didn't appreciate." Heaving Raidion's paralyzed body with you, you all jumped into the sewer. As Raidion regained the use of his limbs, you negotiated protruding pipes, sudden drops, and a near-death experience for "I". As Madea managed to swing herself clear of the water, the rest of you were catapulted out of the sewers into a lake beyond the city walls.
Stinking but alive.
Endellion, you have watched your companions (as cats, disguised as guards, and as rope-toting Kobold rogues) disappear towards a prison complex. Then you have started to hear shouting. You can't hear names, but you hear that someone is being recaptured in the courtyard. You are at a distance. There was a kind of collection of buildings that you were near. “I” had gone up and got a vantage point and looked into the compound. You, for now, have stayed on the ground floor.
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