Session 8
After spending the night in Byrocan, our heroes
Unanalore,
Jandar Aftroden,
Tealeaf and
Quinn Bee move on to continue widening the gap between themselves and their pursuit.
As they left Byrocan, they felt an earthquake take place.
Purchasing a cart and a couple horses, as well as some Actual Armor for Jandar, something he was very excited about, they pushed onward south. They briefly were stymied by a chasm that appeared to have appeared in the ground a few miles south of Byrocan, out of which popped three very surprising snake people.
The snake people, who were immediately hostile, attacked and got their asses handed to them.
Zared, being a chatty motherfucker, identified them as Yuan'ti, a particularly nasty race of people common in his time. They hadn't, however, been seen in hundreds of years, and the rest of the group only knew of them as distant legends and myths.
Around this point, it occurred to the group that there might be other escapees and/or pursuit might be getting close to them, so Tealeaf befriended a vulture who was extremely proud of his big wingspan. This vulture, now and forever known as Bigwings, scouted behind the group as they skirted the chasm and continued south.
When it was time to stop for the night, the group saw smoke from campfires in the distance. It turned out to be a group of
Familiars, a loose association of caravans of traveling performers. Interestingly, this group, led by a Tiefling named
Wynlee Naiad, seemed composed mostly of Tieflings who shared Quinn's red-toned skin. The Familiars, known to be friendly and forthright, welcomed the three into their caravan and shared food in exchange for some performances by Quinn and for participation in the night watch over the road. This might be an Imperial Road, but that doesn't mean there aren't dangers.
During the night,
Quinn Bee spoke with a Tiefling man who asked her how she got separated from her troupe. It became clear over the course of the conversation that he had identified her as a member of the Familiars. He explained that she had a tattoo visible by certain magical instruments that most Familiars are given when they're born. He showed her what she looked like through a magical monocle, and she was able to see for herself. He also recounted that he thought there was a group of Familiars who were all killed by bandits around Mithrana a long time ago, and speculated that she might be one of them.
Next, when Jandar stood watch, he managed to spot a figure slinking around the treeline. Standing and going to confront the figure, he found that it was
Janos, an elf he knew from being in Stormguard Prison. Janos had a reputation of being particularly stealthy and particularly good with a stiletto or a dagger. After a loaded conversation in front of one of the caravan guards, who came away from the whole thing just super suspicious of Jandar, Jandar let Janos go, and Janos slunk off into the night.
Session 9
Zared spoke to the heroes, after wakeup, about the fact that he had detected dreams of about a particular person in both
Quinn Bee and
Janos. He says he thinks that
Aspen , particularly, is probably in Mithrana.
After a short journey, the heroes arrive in MIthrana with
Familiars . They went into town, checked out a notice board, and took a bath at
Castle Hill Baths. There, they bribed a worker to find out if Aspen had been in the city.
Session 10
The heroes found an organization that would buy old artifacts, and subsequently contacted the
The Enigma Society , a group of academics determined to disprove the religious doctrine of the origins of the Empire. The academics were abuzz over the old coins taken and sold to them, but were ultimately pretty useless.
The heroes then decided to investigate one of the jobs on the notice board. This required eliminating vegetation that had spread from
The Tangle, and was sponsored by the Church of Bellanaat. Instead of actually doing the job, they decided to go and find out what things were like actually in the tangle. They met some druids there and spoke with their leader, before agreeing to actually do the opposite of the job: instead of burning out the vegetation, they would burn out the artifact keeping the vegetation back.
Session 11
Introducing Vissyra Vandree
Major battle: burning out the magical artifact holding back the Tangle
Ending with a note from the worker at the bath
Session 12
Introducing Calvin
Taking a job from a nasty rich guy named Exel Gorvenal who wanted to buy the Black Bear Theater from owner Lily Farlight, but the sale had been canceled for some reason.
Introducing Eighteen Bulls the dancer, Nelalwe the firbolg choreographer
Session 13
Concluding the theater plot: turns out that the cash came from Eighteen Bulls who presumably got the cash from someone else.
Introducing the Opera Glasses of Instant Replay: 10 charges, 1d10 replenished every morning, can rewind up to a minute and replay up to five seconds in slow motion. If all charges are done, the item disintegrates.
Session 14
Followed Eighteen Bulls to find the guy she got the cash from.
It's Aspen!
Fought a ghost in an abandoned house next door. Went in to investigate Aspen.
Found out why Aspen set up Quinn in the first place: he was acting under orders from the The Imperial Family, for whom he is some kind of high level fixer. He recruits Quinn, Karuk, Calvin, and Vissyra. Tealeaf refuses. Many nice magical items are given out. He wants them to find out what the Waxen Eye is and what this new drug Sunburn is too.
Session 15
While Jandar Aftroden is out, Bigwings drops in with a note from one of the Familiars with some surprising news: Wynlee Naiad is missing!
Calvin, plus Tealeaf, Vissyra Vandree, and Quinn Bee, go to the Familiars' caravan to follow up on the note. They find out that Wynlee has been gone for more than a day, and that when she left she was going to meet with a couple of merchants who might have a spot for the Familiars to set up next in a town down the road from Mithrana.
In investigating Wynlee's trailer, the team finds a note implying that Wynlee had some news for Quinn, potentially about her birth caravan. But Wynlee spilled wine on the note and abandoned it before her meeting.
A brief visit by the Diamond Standard and Dwonder Graveltoe and then the team stumbled on the spot where Wynlee apparently disappeared.
A vicious fight followed in a filthy greenhouse around an overgrown cesspit of a lotus pond. After destroying two hovering eye-creatures, the group spotted Wynlee unconscious. Session ended there.
Session 16
The team explored below, where they found the remnants of an abandoned lab. Rotting, dying giant lotuses, living in a huge pond in an underground cavern, and what smashed bits of lab equipment was left behind.
After poking one of the lotuses, the team got into a fight with a lotus and two red-skinned Tieflings -- the two that evidently earlier kidnapped Wynlee Naiad. The two Tieflings and the lotus caught the bad end of the fight, though it was the most difficult yet for the group.
A lovely stylish coat was gained, as well as some miscellaneous magical items.
Quinn Bee, after succeeding a check, thought... well, that's strange, I do kind of look like these tieflings, and their forehead tattoo is apparently of a similar style to mine. What could that mean?
Session 17
After a sniff by Tealeaf, a piece of paper was located in the sleeve of the stylish coat worn by one of the dead Tieflings. It contained the words: puppet, swamp, chisel, factory, riddle, reward, needle. They concluded this was a list of passwords.
And then shit really started to pop off.
After reaching the surface, a clockwork bird landed on Jandar Aftroden. It delivered the message: "Hi Jandar, sorry I lied to you, I owe you one, you can keep the bird, love Nathalie." A compartment in the bird opened up and spilled fifteen gold. Nathalie hadn't been heard from in a while, so it was quite interesting to see she was still kicking around.
Tealeaf in the form of a wolf lost the scent trail from the coat from the dead Tiefling, but Quinn Bee spotted another Tiefling in the crowd.
They followed the tiefling down to Castle Square, for lack of anything better to do, at which time an announcement caught everyone's attention at the gallows: that Unanalore of the Batur clan was sentenced to death for escape from prison and accessory to murder of a member of the Imperial family, but that the sentence was commuted to battle in the arena, starting in two days.
Holy shit.
Weirdly, at this point, Tealeaf lost the mystery Tiefling in the crowd like that Tiefling had never existed.
The team also spots the two Roadwardens who apparently arrested Unanalore: Tegrit and Sparrow . They attempt to follow Tegrit and he literally vanishes in plain sight against a brick wall without going invisible (wtf dude) and they do spot Sparrow going into The Overrated Discovery, a nearby inn.
They spot Unanalore going into the nearby jail.
Quinn does an incredible housekeeper performance, getting into Tegrit and Sparrow's room and getting their autographs. She spots the head of the dead warden of the prison from forever ago safe in its bag on the table in their room. So Unanalore didn't just lose that, it got taken away from him, by them.
A quick visit to Aspen yields the following information: that Nathalie is a Changeling who's involved in a group called the Sirens who are saboteurs and insurgents; that Aspen is not interested in going up against Sparrow for political reasons; and that issuing Unanalore a pardon isn't going to be feasible because of jurisdictional reasons. Also Sparrow is ultimately after Nathalie, not Unanalore, so him coming after Unanalore probably is in service to him coming after Nathalie, somehow. Maybe even through Jandar, since Jandar is the connection between them, since he's known to be a compatriot of each.
The team ends up bedding down in the inn for a long rest, trying to keep an eye on the two Roadwardens in the meantime.
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