Chapter 4, Session 5: A question of Masks

General Summary

You know what I think of rules? I eat rules for breakfast!

• Amrys enters an epic war of words with Thordak

The party started session in the home of Magus Erolith Undergaige as Fen moved to his old bedroom. The party pretty quickly began to overshare with Erolith and he was led into a panic upon being notified that they had bounties on their heads. He asked the party to go for a walk in town and give him some peace whilst he worked some things out, the party agreed, with Olympia continuing to flirt with Fen's dad as they left. As a parting gift, Erolith used the seeming spell to disguise Thordak as Fen to give him a little bit of anonymity when moving through the city.
The party took LITERALLY ONE STEP INTO THE STREET, and Amrys decided that, in order to disguise himself, he used minor illusion to conjure a mask over his face, forgetting that the action would lead to mass panic and hysteria in the local area. This very quickly drew the appearance of The Inquisitors and, though Kodo had already moved on and Amrys hid as well as he could, the rest of the party were taken in for questioning as the Inquisitor reporting on them could smell Aist magic being used. Despite Olympia doing her best to be as hostile a suspect as possible, the party soon agreed and were escorted to the MAGUS quadrant of A'mlon for questioning. 
As the party were escorted away, Kodo made his way to the leisure quadrant of A'mlon where he decided to check out local shops and areas for his food supplies. This brought him to a market area with row upon row of stalls selling wares and goods called Izmark's Emporium. Kodo found an interesting stall with an enthusiastic seller of exotic creature pieces. He sold various monster parts for culinary purposes and Kodo eventually settled for Displacer Beast ribs and some seasonings before parting from the seller and continuing to explore the area in search of fancy rocks or Olympia to eat.  This led to Kodo finding a store called Moonmeadow Crystals where he walked in to find a pale purple and pink Firbolg who seemed on the younger side and insisted Kodo call her 'The One That Sells Crystals' in respect to Firbolg naming conventions. They had a pleasant and cordial conversation in which Kodo explained the predicament of needing to cook rocks for Olympia and Moonmeadow offered him a free selection of different rocks and crystals to make use of. She refused to charge him in return for him visiting again to tell her how the meal went. 
During this time Amrys also moved towards the entertainment quadrant of the city and checked out the A'mlon stadium and it's events before he decided to sign up for the A'mlon Battle Royale taking place that evening after finding out about the challenge and the available prize money. 
As they both completed these actions, the pair received a message from Magus Erolith Undergaige stating that he had 'resolved some problems' and the party could return.
Returning to the rest of Persicorum, the party had been escorted to the questioning bay and cells of the Inquisitors and were, one by one, interviewed by Inquisitor Benicio who stressed that they were being as fair as possible but made a point of putting more pressure on Thordak when she discovered he was lying and using illusion magic. 
Thordak... like a real fucking narc... told her all about Temptation and the party's adventures before Benicio revealed that Temptation made the bounty in an attempt to find and save Thordak as he'd been missing for a year... she also gave her condolences to Thordak and revealed that Nirya Moonbrook has been missing for over 6 months. She agreed that if Thordak told her what happened in the residency she would give him a sending stone to use to get in touch with Temptation. Thordak told her that he did not see what happened but that he knew members of the party were able to make illusions... specifically Olympia. 
In response to this, Benicio had Olympia escorted to another cell where she was tested for Aist Magic by a group of Inquisitors who proved that she was still a legal magic user as she had not yet cast any illegal magic. Benicio then allowed Thordak to have his call with Temptation and told him she may be sending individuals to observe him and the party as they were not yet cleared of all wrongdoing.
After that point Mimsi was brought in to be interviewed but proved to not know anything of note as she was too drunk to realise what was going on and was effectively useless to Benicio who allowed her to leave. 
Lastly Olympia was brought in and came very, VERY close to being discovered to know who the Aist mage in the party is but luckily managed to retain her composure and take the fall for a 'silly joke' in summoning a mask onto someone's face. Benicio warned her against future behaviour in A'mlon and expressed that she should be more careful in how she acts around inquisitors. Prompting Olympia to reply that she expected to be treated with more decency and respect in the future. Though she was allowed to leave. 
Thordak then had his call with Temptation where he checked in and said that he was okay, moments later Temptation replied to his message saying that she hoped he was safe and that she would like to see him soon to see how he is doing for herself.  With their interrogations over, the party members received their messages from Erolith but decided to head into the entertainment district and find the nearest inn or tavern instead. 
Kodo and Amrys spent THREE FUCKING HOURS waiting in Erolith's lounge for the rest of the party to return. Which they eventually did, at which point Erolith revealed that he knew about the bounties on the party and their link to Freyfrost, he revealed that he has put things in place to help the party and himself remain anonymous. The party then asked him for a few different favours. The main favour was Thordak asking Erolith to set up a scrying spell to check in on his grandmother and find out what was wrong, Erolith asked Olympia to fetch his mirror from his study which allowed her to check snoop around where she found a strange painting with a bunch of people living inside, a sketch of a woman and a partially animated painting of Fen, Baralas and Erolith at the boy's Magus graduations.  
In his study, Olympia found a beautiful ornate handmirror that she grabbed for Erolith as well as a deck of cards that she picked up though she did not look too closely at anything else that he had on display. When she returned, Olympia offered to play cards whilst Erolith set up the scrying ritual. Ignoring the fact that each playing cards back was an unopened iris that opened as drawn, the party began playing a card game as they waited for Erolith to finish the ritual. 
The High Elf showed uncharacteristic frustration with the result of his spell as the party only partially got to view Nirya Moonbrook, merely being greeted by the smell of sweat, blood and cordite which Erolith advised Thordak to view as a sign that she was alive at the very least. Amrys revealed he had entered the battle royale at this point which Erolith took as an excuse to watch the fight and treat it like a date with Olympia and the others. As the party had a meal from Kodo in preparation, they found that his exquisite displacer ribs imparted a magical benefit to them and Olympia had some nice-ass rocks. Kodo also requested that one of Erolith's unseen servants deliver the meal to Moonmeadow which they gladly did with permission from Erolith. They returned soon after with a note from Moonmeadow thanking Kodo for the delicious meal and looking forward to seeing him again which led Kodo to blush (LIKE AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING CUTIE-PIE!)
During this time Thordak snuck away from the party to sign up for the battle royale as well, which prompted a VERY volatile response from Amrys. Before they left, Erolith brought Amrys to his room and gave him a gift on one simple condition... Amrys had to use it and never tell anyone how he got it. Once Amrys hesitantly agreed Erolith summoned a mask onto his face, pulled out a marble and filled it with a dark black magic, filling the marble with a fragment of possibility and the haste spell for Amrys to use. He then assured Amrys that using the skill in the item would not reflect badly on him but the method of creating the item was not legal and they rejoined the party for the battle royale. 
As they walked, Kodo notably had a spring in his step and Erolith revealed he once took part in Battle Royales and is a charitable patron of the organisation... meaning he has free entry and a private box to watch from. Before they entered, the party took bets on who would win with Kodo putting 25gp on each of them. Winning him nothing but ensuring he was satisfied either way whilst Erolith put 500gp on each of them and giving Olympia one of the slips before escorting them to the stadium. 
Amrys, meanwhile, ran into Thordak downstairs and they proceeded to absolutely trash talk the shit out of eachother with Thordak accusing Amrys of not having the strength to complete whilst Amrys implied Thordak was nothing but muscle (revealing his pact with The Thin Man had manifested in his eye in AWESOME fashion). This, weirdly, ended with each of them declaring they would respect one another as competitors and rivals during the battle royale but that they looked forward to beating one another (yeah it was wild). 
As they waited in the stands, Erolith explained the rules of the game to the party in more depth and the details seemed to unsettle Olympia, doubly so when Erolith revealed that he didn't believe Thordak and Amrys were the type who usually  win these events as Erolith always benefitted from being a tricky mage. 
By this time, hunger games style, the competitors were led onto the field and it was revealed tey would not be fighting JUST eachother but also there was going to be displacer beasts, White dragon wyrmlings and a beholder thrown into the mix.

Missions/Quests Completed

• The party made it to A'mlon 
• The party set up their meeting with the Oneiromancer
• The party discovered the truth about Thordak's bounty

Character(s) interacted with

• Inquisitor Benicio- apprehended and interviewed half the party. 
• Archinquisitor Temptation- over sending stone with Thordak
• Moonmeadow
• Izmark the meat seller
• Erolith Undergaige.

Report Date

25 May 2021

Primary Location

A'mlon