Chapter 5, Session 5: Welp, guess we're leaving the city as criminals again...

General Summary

'I wish I could get stronger without them, but I can't be like any of you. I can only get stronger this way.' 'Then change that Fen, you don't need Grimoires, just be better in a different way!' 

• Olympia angrily confronting Fen's lack of self belief.

At the start of the session, Fen found himself face to face with Lancel Barbarios and a small group of wights at the necromancers command as the Grimoire mage was seemingly desperate to take Fen's spellbook for himself now that he had the advantage of Fen being through a fight already that night and not having his allies with him. 
Fen managed to act first and made use of Far Step to teleport a distance away from Lancel whilst blasting the necromancer and his wights with a high level fireball before the necromancer responded and followed Fen with his minions in hot pursuit and starting to deal damage to the elf. 
Meanwhile Anastasia, seeing what had happened to Fen due to using Blackey to follow him, screamed a wake up call to the rest of the party that only Kodo and Nash woke up to. She announced that Fen was in danger before sprinting out of the door in pursuit. At the same time, Kodo woke up Olympia and Thordak, deciding to allow Mimsi and Grendel to rest with Bazzle Strum-Strum, he announced that Fen had done something stupid before leaving the room with the barbarian and bard in hot pursuit.
The fight wore on and Fen quickly began to find himself being consistently hurt and damaged by the foes he faced as he teleported across the battlefield and traded destructive spells with Lancel, drawing panic across the lower level slum as locals watched the fight take place. 
Eventually, Persicorum were able to join Fen as he summoned his giant owl in an attempt to join them. Olympia summoned her Moon Lupin named Peppermint and got them to transform into a terrifying creature of illusions in order to serve as a kind of distraction. Meanwhile, Kodo and Anastasia joined Fen but were struck by a fireball from Lancel. At this time, the party also started to hear the sound of rushing heavy boots approaching as the magical fight had drawn attention with Eastbourne already on a VERY HIGH alert after the assault on The Hook and Knife Foundation a mere hour ago.
The fight continued and Olympia targeted Lancel (now riding a large skeletal hand towards the party and firing down spells upon them from there) with the remaining Magic Missile charges in her wand, or, more specifically, she targeted his grimoire that was open and floating in his palm. As the darts of magic struck the Grimoire of Madness, it seemed to impact negatively on both Fen and Lancel as each of them were left stunned by the impact, with Fen hearing a hiss of air and a scream before he was stunned in place with Kodo and Anastasia observing that he started to bleed slightly from his ears.
Taking advantage of Lancel being stuck in his stunned state, Kodo and Thordak closed the mage down, with Kodo launching him from his spectral platform and seemingly killing the mage as he impacted the ground whilst Thordak quickly moved to take the Grimoire from him and place it in his backpack. Meanwhile, Baralas moved toward Olympia as she began to heal Fen up. However, a moment later, Lancel's neck snapped back in place and he made a final attempt to get Fen's book, casting a Circle of Death spell that harmed many in the group and nearly knocked out Fen, Olympia and Anastasia whilst knocking Nash, Blackey and Baralas below 0hp and forcing the party to heal them as Anastasia landed the finishing blow on Lancel, with Thordak removing his head moments later. 
Fen took his chance in this moment and, to the dismay of the party, drained Lancel's grimoire of it's power and added it to his own Grimoire of Envy to give him a new set of skills rather than allowing them to keep the grimoire and investigate it as a group in the future. However, they had no time to reprimand him in the moment as The Crownsguard were fast approaching and so the party split with seperate plans:

• Kodo used disguise self to turn into a goliath and moved towards the city's gates to get away from the scene of the fight and to have some distance from the rest of the party and the frustrations they had seemingly caused the firbolg. 
• Fen and Olympia moved away from the party with Fen removing his Reaper hound mask and turning his cloak inside out whilst Olympia used Disguise Self so they could masquerade as a couple taking their dog Peppermint for a walk. During their walk, Olympia angrily rebuked Fen for his recklessness in meeting Lancel alone and his actions placing himself in danger in his hunt for Grimoires. At which point, Fen revealed that he felt he couldn't become stronger like Olympia or Kodo do, by training and improving as he only felt stronger when collecting Grimoire's and hunting other mages. This elicited an even angrier response from her due to his lack of belief and imagination before Fen asked Olympia if she could cast a spell that would stop him making poor choices... to which she claimed he had to take that step himself, with that, the two of them decided to regroup with Nash. 
• Anastasia decided to split off from Thordak when he was escorted away by a Crownsguard squad and inquisitor so that she could find Nash and regroup. She reached the house and played cards with him for a time when the Aist Mage  revealed that he knew secret routes out of the city and that they were likely to face a lockdown of the city after this night so leaving town fast was their safest bet. Nash asked some questions about the party which Anastasia struggled to answer as she admitted she preferred to be alone but was enjoying this new company, she then asked Nash how old he was, learning he was 16 years old and was training under an Aist mage to be a doctor without becoming a cleric, believing necromancy and enchantment held many keys to improving the medical field. However, whilst helping a patient they were reported and inquisitors took them both, Nash's master was 'fixed' and had his knowledge of magic erased forever, as well as his relationship with Nash... meanwhile, Nash was placed into the Masked Brigade to serve The Inquisitors. Anastasia then expressed her belief that evil is evil and should be purged in all forms, to which Nash seemed hesitant to agree but did state that he believed Inquisitor Jaxos, the one that controlled him before the party killed them, to be truly evil. They then agreed to wait to see which members of the party returned before formulating a plan.
• Thordak stayed in the town centre, holding the head of Lancel when the crownsguard entered. Thordak stated that Lancel had attacked him and scattered his party before the orc managed to remove their head. The Inquisitor escorted Thordak to Head Crownsguard Sharia Plath and they had a conversation as they walked with Thordak revealing his name and his intention to soon join Temptation in the ranks of Inquisitors, they also talked about their mind-sets with Thordak feeling he has gained a more open and empathetic view of the world through his adventures whilst the Inquisitor believed in their duty but bemoaned the unjust moments that he had experienced in his work. They amicably parted before Thordak was given his 500gp reward by a flustered and frustrated Plath who was already feeling the pressure of the attack on the Hook and Knife and the attack in the slums, she gave Thordak his reward before explaining that she was locking down the city so he would do well to be patient and keep his head down. This idea didn't seem to go well with Thordak who explained that he needed to get to King's Bay soon to report to Temptation... Sahria agreed to procure a sending stone for Thordak to see what they could organise. So, with that in mind, Thordak stayed in a tavern with a bath and more relaxing spaces so that he could work out some of his tension and worry.

Once he'd left the city, Kodo found a quiet lakeside glade to rest, holding The Moonblade in it's stave form as he did so. During this time, Kodo was joined by a stranger, a monk from the Monastery of Flowers who stated that they were sent by Daedric Marx to look out for Kodo and other monks from the monastery who were not sheltered there... Marx believed Kodo was at risk due to the group he worked with and so the monk was sent to give Kodo an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location so that he could be invisible to scrying sensors. With that, the monk left Kodo in peace and stole away into the night. In an attempt to calm himself from the noise, Kodo used the Moonblade to practise his sparring routines and found that wielding the staff was almost like moving through water; heavy and wide in motion. Completing his routines, Kodo found a quiet peace and took a long rest.  
The rest of the party met at Nash's house and, after receiving confirmation that both Kodo and Thordak were okay, they decided to take a long rest with one another before committing to leaving the city the next morning when there may still be an opportunity to do so.
The next morning, the Nash house party decided it was time to leave the city and resolved to move out by carrying a still-resting Bazzle in their bag of holding and going FULL STEALTH with Nash and Olympia turning the party members invisible and Anastasia utilising pass without a trace. The group were going to wait for Thordak but, after Fen sent him a message, Thordak responded by saying he was concerned he was being followed and would find his own way out of the city. With that, team spellcaster moved with an average stealth check of 30 and managed to move out of the city to find Kodo waiting for them and ready to move on. 
With almost the whole party out of the city, Thordak was in a predicament now as he did not have a sure fire way to escape the city in the same way the likes of the spellcasters could. He eventually decided to head to Sharia Plath who had organised a sending stone for him with 2 charges to speak to Temptation. 
The conversation was intense, with Temptation angrily shouting a message at Thordak after discovering he was in Eastbourne hunting necromancers, she also expressed that she could not extend the deadline for the offer from the Inquisitors as she already exerted all of her efforts into creating this deal for Thordak to not get hunted down immediately. She stated that she would handle Thordak leaving the city and so he handed the sending stone to Sharia Plath who, after a short conversation that left her shaken, agreed to allow Thordak to leave the city of Eastbourne with a troop of 6 Crownsguard, at Temptation's request, who were assigned to ensure Thordak took the most direct route to King's Bay with no detours. Thordak convinced Sharia to reduce that number to three and, within the hour, had retrieved his horses and carriage and was leaving the city with a group of Crownsguard accompanying him. 
The rest of Persicorum, awkwardly reunited with Kodo clearly not forgiving Fen's transgressions, saw Thordak leaving in this way and snuck up on the carriage... their first plan (courtesy of Anastasia) was vetoed as they saw the idea of murdering three crownsguard as unnecessary and so instead Fen instructed the party to begin to move 400ft into the woods before he used Dimension Door to teleport into Thordak's carriage and say hello to the orc before grabbing him and teleporting away with the Crownsguard only able to get a quick look at him before Thordak vanished, shouting about being a kidnapping victim.
In their moment of quiet, Thordak confessed to Fen that he feels he has thrown away his chance to unite with Temptation now and that, if they wish to face Dashilla the Dark Queen , Persicorum can no longer rely on The Elected Crown of Alturis. and so Thordak thought instead to now recruit Aist Mages if they could as he has made the choice to side with Persicorum over Temptation. 
Fen had a small breakdown in this moment and admitted he felt he kept letting down others around him and that he felt especially guilty for letting down Kodo, whom he deeply respects, but that he felt he had no choice but to hunt Grimoires from others... he didn't ask to become a Grimoire, instead it was thrust on him and he now felt he had no other direction to go in. 
As the two embraced and supported one another, the rest of Persicorum caught up and regathered before moving deeper into the forests outside of Eastbourne.

Rewards Granted

• Fen has empowered his grimoire by stealing the essence of Lancel Barbarios' Grimoire of Madness.
• Thordak claimed the 500gp reward for killing Lancel Barbarios. 
• Thordak has the now unpowered and empty former spellbook of Lancel Barbarios

Missions/Quests Completed

• Escaping Eastbourne
• Surviving the encounter with Lancel Barbarios.

Report Date

11 Dec 2021

Primary Location

Eastbourne

Related Characters

• Daedric Marx
• Inquisitor Jaxos
• Lancel Barbarios
• Nash
• Temptation
• Xan Prayerkeep