Ivy Hill Council

Gathering / Conference

The Ivy Crew and The Nightshade meet together to discuss the future of Ivy Hill now that key members of the organization are dead. Caia knows there are traitors and spies among the group and plans to expose them.

As the party converses with the members of the Ivy Crew. There’s this excitement over the return of Gilly. Zips approaches Thuniel and asks if she wants to see Meera. Zips brings Thuniel to the stables and reviews what she did for Meera. Thuniel darts in to give her a big hug. Zips asks what’s going on in the city. Thuniel gives her the party line about getting a central monarch and city council in Rockshire, then edges her toward considering Gilly for that role. Zips asks what about Mistselle Grimhelm, (Grildor’s elder sister, badass MFer)? Thuniel says she won’t have a choice if the city throws in behind someone else.   Meanwhile, Gilly is being greeted and asked about her treatment at the hands of Helms Ferry. The two remaining members of the Ivy Crew the party has not met Jackie the Nose and Face come out to greet her (they are the ones who deal with the other factions, diplomacy and financier, respectively).   A emergency meeting of the Ivy Crew is called and they go inside to the war room, then Alcath and Caia are summoned. It’s key that every surviving member of Ivy Hill crew are together, because this is rare. In the war room, the chairs are labeled are all designed for each crew member, so they can sit at eye-level.   Fake Trigger seems very comfortable and normal. He knows where the war room is, his chair is, etc. His precision and confidence is the only noteworthy thing as the party keeps a keen eye on him. They all authenticate themselves with particular phrases. The proceedings are in Halfling at first. Big Tuna leads out, introducing everyone to The Path of Nightshade.   Jackie the Nose was undercover when Gilly came back. Face says he’s been hearing lots of crazy stuff, how do we know this is Gilandre? “Trigger” steps forward to vouch for her, saying they had an encounter at the top of the stairs. Caia does the “Ear, Nose, Jaw” sign to Trigger they established back at The Golden Touch but “Trigger” doesn’t respond.   Bobushio has reticence about outing “Trigger” right now, because he could be useful. So the party decides to see where this meeting goes.   Jackie the Nose next asks where is Reginard. Big Tuna announces that Reginard is dead, then tells everyone that Reginard was responsible for the city being taken. The act killed him, but we all knew he was going crazy.   So, who is going to be the leader of Ivy Hill now? Bobushio addresses the council, telling them to get a leader, then they need to unify the city so they survive against the wider world. Zips nominates Big Tuna and Jackie nominates Trigger. Jackie and Zips don’t wanna lead. Trigger gets a little smirk for half a second, but then says he doesn’t want to do it, but he might be the best one because he’s most respected. Bobushio tries to plug Big Tuna, saying that he has a stronger backing amongst the city than Trigger.   Gilly stands up and points out the vacancy, and Big Tuna says, you’re right. Gilly takes Louis Haha’s chair. Trigger says Gilly has his vote. Face has concerns about Gilly’s ability to step in because she hasn’t been here for four years. Gilly says she will vote for Big Tuna, but Jackie thinks she shouldn’t get a vote.   Big Tuna stands up for Gilly, and relates how she saved him and the city. He relates how she fought the titan. He says the only thing she is missing is local knowledge. Gilly starts name-dropping all the people she’s met and places she’s been throughout the Albion Alliance and Val Xora. Zips says she should be a member. It seems like the other members might be in favor of her having a vote.   Caia speaks out that Gilly did a lot of work to figure out how to save the city.   Alcath pipes up and standing up proclaims, “That’s not Trigger.” “Trigger” challenges the acusaion. On cue, Moz casts Moonbeam on “Trigger” and everyone else besides Big Tuna and Gilly. Caia holds the door.   Trigger and Face look at each other and say, “We’ve been had!” and people outside the room start trying to bang down the door.   Gilly runs to grapple “Trigger” while Bobushio strikes at him and Face. Face tries to get out the door, but Caia manages to hold out. Alcath gets several of them to grovel. Moz uses Moonbeam to check Big Tuna, who is still himself. Then Moz uses her Tarot deck.   Someone knocks back at the door, “says clear the door!” then the door explodes. Caia, Thuniel and Face are knocked prone. The door is gone and three gardeners stand on the other side. Two run in and attack. Bobushio puts most of the room to sleep with Hypnotic Pattern and the gardeners start falling one at a time. Bobushio finishes off the first one who ran, and they revert to a changeling. Face runs and Caia pursues, and casts windwall to stop him. Alcath kills Face.   Gilly ties up one of the other gardeners as well as Trigger.   Zips turns to Gilly and asks what the hell. Big Tuna calms her down. Alcath offers to explain everything, but not in front of the prisoners. They put them in a special containment cell called “The Fridge” and Thuniel hangs out to guard the prisoners while the rest secure and debrief Big Tuna, Jackie the Nose, and Zips. Thuniel strips the prisoners down and sits and sorts through their gear. Moz hangs out in case they start anything.   Thuniel finds one Changeling coin on each of them. A folded piece of blank parchment but not freshly blank, 20 GP, light repeating crossbow, two silver daggers, and a blank notebook.   The rest go to Gilly’s room with Big Tuna, Zips, and Jackie the Nose. They tell them that Trigger is alive and being held by Wildcard. Wildcard has checked all of her ranks for changelings using Moonbeam. Caia confirms that the pre-hell Trigger was genuine because of the secret signal, and tells them how a changeling Poppet kidnapped Trigger when he went to get Louie HaHa’s body. Wildcard is now holding Poppet and will let us interrogate her. Bobushio offers to do the interrogation if Gilly will approve it.   Caia and Alcath will owe Wildcard a favor at some point. Alcath points out that this is the time to unify Rockshire, because we have a common enemy. Jackie likes it, but he’s not sure how to get the kitties to comply.   They need to interrogate the people downstairs, get Trigger back, and root out all the changelings. Caia suggests another code word for the people in the room. Gilly pitches “Reginard’s toenails,” and Alcath shortens it to “Reggie’s toenails.”   We need to try to find the changeling’s motivations and goals. We need to find out how long they’ve been here. Caia shares that Moonbeam and death causes them to revert. Changlings can only recreate things that can have the same arrangement of limbs, so if they lose a limb, they can’t regenerate it to show someone.   Bobushio says Ivy Hill might have someone better for interrogating the prisoners. They inform us that Trigger and Face were their best interrogators, but now Face is missing. So the goals are: how many are there in Rockshire? Who is in charge? Why are they here? What do they want?   They take one prisoner for interrogation. Thuniel goes back to the room near the war room to where the bodies were put under guard.   The blank parchment and notebook are both magical and need a password in order to reveal the contents.   They take the gardener for interrogation first. Caia tells Bobushio that she thinks the organization is called “The Mirror”. Bobushio is detecting thoughts and gets that the changeling’s name is Wum. “Wum will not betray the Giver.”   Bobushio names “The Mirror” and Wum falters. He doesn’t reply, but Gilly catches that he’s freaked out and definitely trained. Bobushio just hears the thoughts, “How do you know that name?’ Gilly tries to get him to confirm that his name is Wum. Gilly next tries to get him to confirm that Trigger is okay.   Bobushio and Gilly talk about leaving Wum in the fridge to cool for a while. Gilly can tell that Wum is the underling in this case and Trigger is a more important person. Bobushio thinks the real Trigger would be more capable of getting information out of both of these guys.   They put them both back in The Fridge and they need to put new guards on them. They tell the guards they need to pass a moonbeam check, and one of the guards declines, respectfully. They turn and run. Gilly insta-kills one of them and it reverts into a changeling. The other guards standing around are horrified that the guard changed upon death.   Gilly orders everyone to submit to moonbeam, and the rest of the guards do. Big Tuna tells the guards that the code is “Tuna fish sandwich is my favorite lunch.” Big Tuna is staying behind and sends Jackie with The Nightshade.   Meanwhile, Alcath and Thuniel go back to look for the bodies and they are gone. Alcath proposes that we could ally with the changelings, and break them out in exchange for information. Thuniel is very not sure about that idea.     Caia tries the passcode, “A Mirror will never reveal its secrets” The parchment responds and does have a coded writing on it. It’s not thieves’ cant. Caia does recognize a pattern in the parchment. She is able to decode a few characters and gets a date, “22 Julair”, today is the 13th. The 22nd is the new moon.     Bobushio tells Caia about Wum’s thoughts about “the Giver.” Caia is reminded that during the trial, they heard “Beware of the gifts of the Giver, The Traveler, that is they have strings attached or unexpected results.”