Rockshire Accends

Religious event

The party enlists the help of Trigger to uncover more secrets and ongoings of Ivy Hill. Trigger is called on a emergency task and the party tries to follow him. Gilly is confronted by the possiblity of failure as the City of Rockshire accends and becomes a Battleground.

The Path of Nightshade find themselves at a crossroad. They discuss how to get back into the house and what to do and decide to get Big Tuna and Trigger to come to the Golden Touch. Caia takes halfling form and takes a letter from Bobushio to the Ivy Keep.   After sometime word comes that someone is waiting for Bobushio downstairs. Trigger arrives without Big Tuna. Trigger explains that Big Tuna didn’t come because there’s to much happening right now, and they couldn’t both get away at the same time without drawing suspicion.   Trigger meets with all of the path except Caia, who sits with Poppet while Ebony stays invisible is in the room. Trigger asks Gilly why she came here. She says the bounties got annoying. Trigger pleads to run right now and Gilly can hide, and no one can see her because the protection is back. Trigger calls her a little girl and Bob stands up for her. Exclaiming "She is no longer the girl you once knew. She has been a Captain of a Ship called the Ellinore and defeated Demi Gods and mighty foes. She is a woman." Tigger impressed backs down then asks what is the end goal. Is she going to kill her dad? How does she think she’ll resolve what’s going on here?   Trigger continues that for the last six years, all that Ivy Hill has been doing is looking for Reginards’s bastard children and Gilly. They’ve found four, and are looking for one more. Trigger doesn’t know what happened to the children once there were found but has not seen or heard from them after they are found. They haven’t found anyone for almost four years. Reginard has become more deranged and angry and obsessed during that time, so my reaction when I saw you was “NO!” Trigger thought he’d just live with this until Regninard died.   Bobushio asks who rules after Reginard dies. Either a competent, popular heir who can do the job or the Five of the Ivy Crew vote for a new leader. Trigger says that neither he nor Gilly has as many allies as we might hope. Reginard has made a lot of enemies and lost a lot of reputation in the past couple years, and Gilly might be tainted by association.   Bobushio asks how long Ivy Hill has been consorting with demons, and Trigger doesn’t know about it. Bobushio tries to convince Trigger that Reginard is associating with demons and is mad and might be living in Hell right now. He shows him the ledger as proof.   Trigger acknowledges the problem, but says he doesn’t know how to fix this. Staging a coup would be a problem because we don’t have the backing or manpower for that.   Alcath asks if anyone has gone to Gilly’s room since she left, and he says no one is allowed to go there. Alcath reveals the secret passage and says we need to get in there, and we might be able to find him.   Then Trigger says, “Hold on” and starts talking to himself, getting a Message that something is going down and it’s all hands on deck. Gilly asks what’s going on, and Trigger says he doesn’t want her there. He says he’s not going far, and the party should stay away.   Thuniel asks if the Ivy Keep will be empty, including Louie HaHa, and he says probably. The party then asks questions about Poppet and he’s uncomfortable and coy.   Trigger doesn’t want Gilly to go with him, even though it’s very much where we will want to be. Trigger asks if we want to meet up again, and we suggest we’ll visit the house instead. Trigger maybe believes us an leaves, and Caia follows him as a nondescript halfling and loses him after a block.   Thuniel uses her Finder’s Goggles and heads out to follow Trigger. Trigger seems to get the sense that he knows we’re following him, and he’s taking a longer route. Thuniel runs out of spell, Bobushio works out that he’s avoiding the Keep and that area. Caia changes her shape, Ebony follows, Gilly sneaks, Moz turns into a beagle. The rest decide to loiter by the Ivy Keep.   Caia can tell that Trigger still suspects someone is following him. After a while, he goes into a building, and Ebony follows him in. Her invisibility vanishes and Trigger shoots her. Moz can see it happen as she has been tailing him as well.   The safe house is a tough nut to crack and following Trigger is a problem.   At the Icy Keep, Alcath, Thuniel, and Bobushio see lots of activity, increased “security.” the Gardners are clearing streets around the Keep. The halflings keep trying to clear out Thuniel, Alcath and Bobushio tries to be a problem. Eventually the party “leaves” and and hides on a rooftop across from the Keep, they see the local stores, even the stables are all getting locked down.   Gilly does see Trigger emerge from the building. She manages to follow him, and he comes to from brothel next to a blacksmith shop, “The Bullette’s Chain.” Gilly watches Trigger get there late and Louie HaSa comes out the building, screaming at him for being late. She yells at him because she doesn’t like getting her hands dirty, but it needed to happen right now. So, now we need to get the body there immediately. They load a body bag into a cart, but there are three carts. Trigger asks what we’re going to do with it and she says we cannot talk about it in the street. Louie HaHa keys into Gilly’s presence and says “We’re not alone. We’ve gotta go now.”   Each cart that leaves is accompanied by one person: Trigger, Louie HaHa, and a small dark figure in a bowler hat. Gilly says she’ll tail Louie HaHa (3), Caia will trail Trigger (1) and Moz will follow the dark figure (2). Gilly stealths really well, Moz not at all, Caia does okay. Caia asks Trigger in Gilly’s voice if his is the real deal, and he says it’s just a bunch of weapons, but he doesn’t know if it’s the shipment or not. He asks what’s going on. Caia tells him that she is coming to join him and will explain it all. Trigger asks why Gilly is still here, and she’s the key.   Trigger says he knows where his drop off is, but he doesn’t know where the other drop offs are. Moz follows the bowler hat guy and it seems to be a fairly innocuous drop-off.   Gilly follows Louie HaHa to the other side of the city. It’s a part of town Gilly has never seen. Louie HaHa and the cart enter a nondescript warehouse like building and unload and carry multiple bags into the safehouse.   Gilly shoots one of the three bags to try to make the bottom split open. She shoots bag one, and a bunch of potatoes drop out. Louiw HaHa and the other guy run into the building. Potato guy is now on High alert and on guard.   Gilly hears someone screaming in pain and fear. The building erupts in flames and a huge beam of energy shoots up into the sky. Other locations around the city, similar beams erupt. A huge fissure opens up in the sky above the city and the whole city begins quaking and screaming and is getting sucked up into the open maw of the sky. The sky is a red hazy smoke. The city ascends into the sky, then falls abruptly, destroying buildings and injuring thousands.   The City has been transported to another plane. There are no stars, the new plane smells like battle. People start taking to the streets and then soon escape into the buildings as, other creatures starting to horde into the city. Demons and devils swarm the city and start attacking and eating each other. But demons are fighting devils, angelic beings are fighting infernal creatures, and the whole population of the city becomes combatants in this battleground.   Alcath recognizes this plane because angels, demons, and devils are fighting. The plane is called “Shavarath - The Battleground”, it’s a perpetual war that persists forever. Gilly feels distinctly that whatever was inside the place that went on fire was the Trigger. Gilly is feeling an abject failure.   Each member of The Path of Nightshade leaps into action to regroup at The Ivy Keep. Any attempt to move through the city will require us moving through The Battlground. Moz manages to make it through the city flying as a bird. Gilly jumps rooftops and then tries to stealth and she is hurting by the time she arrives.   Thuniel and Caia rush to the stables to get Meera calmed down, blindfold her, then Caia casts spiderclimb to get Meera back on the rooftops, and Caia charts the route back with her investigation. Meera gets shot at on the way and takes a little damage and stumbles.   Bobushio and Alcath discuss entering Gilly’s room and the secret room under it and trying to figure something out from there.   There’s a giant ooze melting demon with eyes blinking is random directions, a giant black humonoid demon (Vozgan, but much bigger) flies with batwings over to attack the ooze for fun. It’s joined by a gluttonous demon winged demon also attacking the ooze. They are Demon Lords fighting each other. The city is now a battleground for godlike creatures.   The party heads into the keep and start inside.