Chapter 7, Session 5: The Wakefield Project Part 2
General Summary
This feels more like a Brotaak plan than a Persicorum plan...Battle continued to rage on as the party faced off with The Crownsguard, The Talented and The Inquisitors underneath the Hook and Knife offices... their secret labs where they concocted the Talented. As the party fought, they found the Talented goblins were exceptional fighters and warriors but were reckless and unreliable in a fight, quickly going into a bloodlust that even led them to tear their allies apart. Using this and the dragon continually growing in power to their advantage, the party battled on and soon started to defeat the foes around them. Though they had some close calls, with Fen knocked unconscious by one of the Talented goblins and Anastasia falling into a pool of acid and badly burning herself, the party managed to eventually remove the main threats, with Thordak killing the Inquisitor in the room by brutally tearing his tongue out. With battle winding down, the party found themselves struggling to decide what to do with the goblins, Mimsi didn;t want to kill them but they were proving problematic for the party... especially after one drew an enraged response from Fen for knocking Kodo unconscious and died in the subsequent fireball that engulfed them. During this time, the dragon, seeing that they had seemingly done enough, used their psychic abilities to teleport out of the room and leave the fight, leaving Mimsi dejected at the dragon not desiring to stick around. However, Mimsi soon realised the goblins had humanity in them and were capable of communication, they just were stunted in their development and could not speak any languages beyond that of beasts. She used this to her advantage by appealing to one of the goblins to calm down, though they responded by leaving Mimsi and running out of the room to chase a fleeing crownsguard. However, Anastasia had more success after she realised she could communicate with the goblins by using the 'speak with animals' spell and found that the goblins were playful and desperate to be understood. Using the pretense of a game of 'Simon says' Anastasia convinced the goblin to help her recover one of the unconscious creatures from the incubators in the lab (more goblins due to be experimented on) and the party made their way out of the laboratory with loot taken and goblins freed. At the top floor of the laboratory, the party found the escaped Talented goblins all surrounding a woman, she was lithe and exceptionally tall with a severe and intense expression and no clothes. Though the party immediately noticed the kaleidoscope of colours in her eyes and deduced that she was the dragon in a shapechanged form. The dragon approached Mimsi and called her (in a language that Fen discovered to be Draconic) 'young' before wandering to Kodo and calling him 'kind'. However, when the party spoke to her she seemed to not fully understand any language barring draconic, though she did quirk her mouth into a quick indulgent smile when Mimsi claimed they were family. With the party introduced to The Crystal Dragon they decided to scavenge some clothes for her (with Thordak discovering she could not wear chain mail armour after trying to place it on her) and made her a toga out of cloaks to travel in. With that resolved and with the Talented Goblins seemingly committed to following the party, they made their way stealthily back to Ardeth's temple in the middle of the night and rejoined their allies for an update on what was going on and what they would do next. Instead of celebrating, the party came to an agreement on a number of issues as prompted by Ardeth who, after admitting she was far from the powerful adventuring hero she used to be, stated that she wanted to stay with the party's allies and help them, especially the goblins whom she stated deserved a chance to learn and be helped by a therapist and teacher. With that in mind, the party came to the conclusion that, if they could remove Batten-Willsh in such a manner that future rulers of the town would refuse the call to run it, they could state that the town is under the protection of The True Heroes and Persicorum and Ardeth could use it as a new home for the troubled souls she has found and the party could use it as a base of operations for both themselves and their myriad of allies who had begun to make travel difficult with their hard to manage numbers. Resolved, the party decided to split up, with Thordak and Bazzle Strum-Strum heading into the town to stake out the home of Batten-Willsh whilst the rest of the group rested with the understanding that Fen and Anastasia would be contacted in 4 hours to join Thordak so that he could also rest whilst they then observed. With that, Thordak and Bazzle went to spy on the home of Batten-Willsh. During this time, back at the temple, Mimsi encouraged two of the Talented to play a game of tag with her using their teleportation to help give them an advantage in the game. They played this way for a couple of hours before the two goblins fell unconscious; smiling and exhausted. Meanwhile, Thordak and Bazzle sound found themselves sitting on a roof that overlooked the home of Mayor Batten-Willsh. The doors were open despite the late hour, implying an event was taking place, but the pair soon learned more as they found Batten-Willsh angrily arguing with an inquisitor that Thordak immediately recognised, Xan Prayerkeep himself. Thordak and Bazzle listened as Batten-Willsh expressed his desire to be taken to King's Bay immediately only for Prayerkeep to rebuke him by stating that it would be perceived as weakness for him to leave town based on a couple of rabble rousers and so he should stay out of fear of Aist Mages believing Wakefield to be weak. Afterwards, Batten-Willsh expressed his true fear, that he had heard the correct descriptions of members of Persicorum in his town, Xan Prayerkeep instead assured Batten-Willsh that he had someone watching the group who had recently informed him Persicorum were enjoying the hospitality of Monastery of Flowers monks in the mountains. This seemed to assuage Batten-Willsh after Prayerkeep reassured him that he'd return in the morning to teleport him to King's Bay to be personally protected by Temptation, his trusted Arch-inquisitor. With that, Xan Prayerkeep teleported away and had Willsh organising his bags at the front of the house for the following evening and the teleportation spell to take him out of town. Upon seeing this interaction, Thordak soon asked Bazzle to get in touch with Anastasia and Fen and tell them where to meet the pair... thordak also told Bazzle to not mention Xan Prayerkeep's involvement to Fen out of fear of Fen not being fully focused on the mission and Bazzle agreed to despite his unease about not telling Fen. As they sent a message, Thordak also observed there were at least 3 crownsguard in the building and 1 Inquisitor Analyser. Thordak and Bazzle also noticed a small window leading into Batten-Willsh bedroom where he sat at his desk for a time before blowing the candle out and either leaving or going to sleep; Thordak fought a DEEP temptation to run in and grab Batten on his own as he realised he would likely not make it past the door on his own in his current condition... unrested after the battle in the factory. Soon enough, after another series of sendings where Mimsi had no idea how word limits work, Fen and Anastasia joined Thordak where they observed the building together and Thordak explained that he saw several guards (with that, Anastasia observed the building as well and noticed an additional Inquisitor Magus and even more crownsguard) however, he also explained that he had extra information but was not willing to reveal more until Kodo and Mimsi were also present for planning. With that, Thordak started his long rest whilst Fen, Anastasia and Bazzle kept watch on Batten-Willsh's mansion. Soon enough Kodo and Mimsi woke up from their long rests and asked Nash to cast sending to Anastasia, at which point, the party regathered at Ardeth's church and discussed what they had discovered. The party discussed what the different aspects of this stakeout could have meant... especially once Thordak revealed Xan Prayerkeep was seen with Batten-Willsh. This raised the party's sense of alertness and also led Anastasia and Kodo to infer that the 'spy' Prayerkeep had hired to watch the party was likely Temptation and that, if the party now publicly revealed themselves to be in Wakefield, that could lead Prayerkeep to knowing that Temptation had lied to him. However, the party also concurred that this whole situation could be a trap by Prayerkeep to draw out Persicorum as Ardeth stated that it sounded as though Prayerkeep was nervous to go after the party himself as it seemed that he was more interested in leaving them for the time being. At this point the group also learned that the Amulets of Proof Against Detection and Location possessed by Kodo and Mimsi had a radius effect, protecting the party from scrying when they stayed close to one another. The party continued to discuss and plan before, growing tired of a lack of progress in the plan, Kodo and Fen dimension doored into Batten-Willsh's bedroom; finding that the room was uninhabited entirely. The pair of them activated invisibility to then open a door and trigger it's alarm trap. With an emphasis on speed and the surprise they still possessed, Kodo and Fen ran into the main room and Kodo stunned Willsh with a strike to the base of his spine (breaking his invisibility and alerting the guards in the area as he did so) before throwing the halfling over his shoulder and dashing out of the main room followed by (a still invisible) Fen. In that moment, the party used Nash, Ardeth and Olympia to Dimension Door them outside of Batten-Willsh's house to find, only seconds later, Kodo smashing through it's front doors holding the halfling head of the town and dashing at speed to try and get away from the crownsguard and inquisitors in hot pursuit... and that is where the session ended.
- Kodo/Ryan reflects on the break-in plan by Persicorum.
Rewards Granted
- The party gained several books, journals and papers from the Hook and Knife foundation laboratory
- The party gained a shipping manifest from the hook and knife foundation ground floor.
- Several thousand gold pieces
- 200 hundred workers tokens for Wakefield's population.
- 2 spell scrolls containing the spells: Detect Poison and Disease and Cure Wounds
- An uncommon item: A +1 Pistol
- An uncommon item: A driftglobe
- A common item: A cloak of many fashions
- Several vials of acid, salvaged from the factory battle
- An alliance with the crystal dragon and 7 talented goblins.
Report Date
01 Oct 2022
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