Suggestions - Lion's Crest

General Summary

The session picked up in the Whitemane community center after the attack by the The Voiceless to capture the Necromancy Scroll. As Mama returns from the Harvest Festival the group assesses their wounds and next steps. 

'Oh Jimmy What Has Happened?' 

As Lady Adalphia  returns, flanked by an escort of royal guards,  she surveys the damage done to the Whitemane community center with more than twenty corpses littering the scorched foyer. James explains that that there was an attack by a group of assassins and that they somehow knew about the statue. Mama, approaching James, remarked 'What did you do?' and started hitting him with her spoon staff. James, being rebuffed by Mama, started explaining the situation further before being cut off by Myra suggesting that the remaining citizens should be helped and escorted out before such discussions began. Agreeing, Mama, Jimmy, and the rest of the group started leading people out, helping those injured, and moving the dead so that they weren't strewn about the room. While Gwen, and Hagen helped the survivors checking for injuries, Myra and Tintreach moved bodies, Adama and Raijun attempted to investigate the dead body of Oselor. 
In investigating the body Raijun noticed a patch on Oselor's  clothes that he recognized as a kind of failsafe. Adama, casting detect magic, detected a strong sense of evocation from the rune, as well as two other sources of magic on the mage, two sources on Dasatra , and a general sense of magical presence emanating from Lady Adalphia. Calling Gwen over to better investigate the rune, she identified it as an Immolationspell targeting the mage's own body if the rob was removed incorrectly. In further investigating the rune it seemed like it would be difficult to investigate a potential pattern to disarm it without setting of the trap itself destroying the other two object. Myra mentioned that she thought she had a way that might work but wasn't sure. Feeling that was too risky, Adama opted to move the body using Tenser's Floating Disk to move it to a more convenient location while we awaited Topp's return from escorting Head Archivist Klara home after the festival, thinking he would have a good shot as dispelling it. 

A 'Thought-full' Line of Questioning

Frustrated by the inconvenience Adama turned his attention back to the captured barbarian. Adama asked him where his compatriots went and responding to Raijun, he said "Their with yours, traitor". Raijiun, trying to smooth talk Dasatra  asked what they were onto next, which he replied "The mission's complete. Onto the next job." But wouldn't say more. A guard voiced that they wanted to take the man to Liberty Hold until he could be transferred to a more secure facility elsewhere. Myra indicated that they were not yet done with their line of question while Tintreach, having previously been successful at reading the man's mind, used detect thoughts to probe deeper. Myra redirected the line of questioning trying to allow Tintreach to discover if there was any plans of rescuing Dasatra or and escape plans specific to Liberty Hold. Tintreach got that he was motivated to escape but had not clear plan besides the obvious path of knocking out guards and running. While thinking about escaping he was focused on breaking free in the next 24 hours so that he didn't have to use a previously decided on rendezvous point in Stranglevine Cove. The last thought that Tintreach received before losing the spell was that the man didn't like being in cities and buildings of stone and that he longed for the woods and jungle. 
With Tintreach giving a nod to the group indicating that he had what we needed Adama returned the line of questioning to the sources of magic on the barbarian. Upon further investigation the group found two potions one a deep red with hints of gold and another that looked like liquid fog. Adama questioned what they were but Dasatra indicated that they were poison and we should give them to him to punish him. Clearly not taking him at his work, Myra briefly looked over them and determined one was most likely healing but wasn't sure about the strength and wasn't sure what the other one did off hand but could identify it if given a minute. Dasatra  continued on saying that we should poison him or kill him, taking out our frustration at the loss of life.  Myra, ignoring him, asked Mama if she thought the guards were capable of taking the barbarian in. Mama, sizing up the man indicated that she wasn't sure.       As we discussed how we would transport Dasatra, if we needed to escort him ourselves, knock him out physically, or if we had another alternative, he continued to become more upset. He yelled "I gave them a quick death but you would condemn me to years of pain," and started straining against the manacles that Hagren had previously secured. As the metal began to strain and the group began readying their weapons Lady Adalphia walked up and bopped him on the head with a spoon. As soon the the spoon connected he went limp in his restraints, unconscious. Mama's only comment was "You'll pay for what you've done." Inquiring about the duration of the effect Mama indicated that it should last more than enough time to have the Guards escort him to Liberty Hold. Trusting in Mama's judgement the group allowed the man to be taken into custody and leave the center. 

Huddle Up

With all of the people, and potential hazards gone, Mama suggested we move to another room to sit and talk. As we migrated rooms, she picked up the dragon statue that had been discarded in the foyer during the battle. As she touched the statue the eyes lit up faintly. Before discussing next steps the group focused on how they knew the scrolls were here in the first place. With Tintreach again recounting the vision (Full text in The Voiceless Scream - Lion's Crest - I know this currently links nowhere I'll try and go back to do those notes next), Myra mentioned that if they were tracking the scroll from Greenport it wouldn't have been difficult to find us. Mentioning that we weren't particularly stealthy about our alliances and about where we were going when we left, most of the town probably could have pointed someone to Lion's Crest and James Jasper Whitehall III.
Raijun wanted to know if Mama or Jimmy had seen any of them before and Jimmy mentioned that Dasatra  had been in several nights but other than him none of them looked familiar but it was difficult to tell with so many people in town for the festival. Myra noted that, as one of them was a shapeshifter, it would make sense that they hadn't seen the others before especially as at least one of them was able to turn invisible. Mentioning the shifter, Jimmy paled and turned to Myra to apologize for putting her family at risk. Jimmy looked upset by his actions and like he was having a hard time reconciling the events. Myra said she understood it wasn't his fault and redirected the conversation to ask Tintreach what he had learned. Tintreach, in recounting the events above, mentioned that the rendezvous point was Stranglevine Cove causing Mama to go off on a rant about what kind of place Stranglevine was. Jimmy, returning to himself slightly from being shaken earlier, smiled at Mama's tirade. Refocusing on how they obtained the information, Myra asked Mama who knew about the statue. Mama replied that only herself, Jimmy and the Queen knew thought she doubted the queen had fully grasped how the statue worked.
Mama having mentioned Queen Angelena caused Raijun to lament our failure to protect the scrolls and Adama to request we reach out to her to notify her of what had happened and stem the escape of The Voiceless. Mama replied that the queen had already been notified. But asked if there was anything additional the queen could do to aid our search. Myra suggested that if the rendezvous was in Stranglevine Cove they would probably need to head to the ports, but noted that it would be very hard to delay the ships and even harder to find the group if they didn't want to be found with a shapeshifter. Mama agreed that closing the port would be especially hard the day after the Harvest Festival. 
Myra changed the line of questioning, inquiring if Gwen had been able to successfully suggest that the scroll was returned. Gwen confirmed that Dartina would be compelled to try to return it to her for the next eight hours provided that she remained concentrated on the spell. Myra suggested that in that case perhaps their best bet was simply to wait for them to return here as they needed to ensure they were able to find them in time. Mama suggested that due to the power of the spell Gwen cast if we chose a different location the spell should be able to guide Dartina to Gwen through the compulsion. Mama suggested perhaps moving towards them so that everyone was on slightly more even ground and so Dartina wouldn't feel threatened by coming back to the community center. Following the line of investigation that suggested that The Voiceless had most likely moved towards the docks Mama suggested moving in that direction. Adama, inquired if there was a tavern in that area that might be a good location to rest if needed and Mama supplied the name The Melting Captain , a tavern James used to frequent. 
Deciding it was best that the group take a short rest before venturing out again they ate some more of Mama's soup and bandaged up. While resting Topp returned with a spring in his step. James inquired how it had gone and he pleasantly replied that he thought it had gone very well walking Head Archivist Klara home before noticing the more somber attitudes, scorch marks, and dead bodies. Explaining what happened Topp asked if any of the tools he had provided were useful. Adama, instead of answering the question, redirected him to the rune on Oselor's robes Topp looked at it and said he thought he could help. A few minutes later, after some tinkering, the sigil was removed and Adama was able to search the body more thoroughly. Through his investigation he found the two scrolls that had pinged earlier with his detect magic. Upon identification by Myra and Gwen we discovered that one was a scroll of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctumand the other wasLegend Lore. 
Tucking the scrolls away, feeling slightly more rejuvenated, the group headed out into the night towards the docks. 

The Voiceless Speak 

Walking into the night the Harvest Festival seems to be winding down. Some still walk, or stumble, through the streets but many of the tables have been cleared on removed as the hour grows later.
As we head toward the docks the group run's into Dartina walking, almost stumbling as if pulled toward Gwen. Dartina asks what Gwen did to her as Myra, Raijun, and Gwen feel that there may be more onlookers to the conversation. (Note: This is the first time Gwen has used suggestion that someone has realized something was being done to them and had any kind of negative reaction to it.) As Myra looks to the rooves she notices Desmond and waves gently as a voice from behind reiterates Datrina's question. Crypt, appearing from nowhere, says that now we can have the conversation that we didn't want to have earlier in the night, no need to fight.
Myra, noticing we were still missing a player, as what they could possibly have to give us after their sloppy performance earlier. She notes that they are down two men and asks what Mr. Assume  would think of their team divulging so much information. Irik, appearing next to Myra, asks how we got that name. Myra responds thanking Irik for joining the conversation by name. Irik swears and says that Dasatra  betrayed them, which Myra doesn't correct. 
Crypt, answering an earlier question directs his response to Raijun saying that they would give us two thing, one they would spare all of our lives, and two thy would make sure the people hunting Raijun believed that he was dead. In return he wants us to resolve the spell on Dartina and hand over both the Necromancy and Transmutation Scrolls. 
By this point Dartina has handed Gwen the Necromancy scroll but seems to be resisting the spell fiercely. Raijun, attempting to make a handoff of the scroll from Gwen causes Desmond to jump down to the roof to put a hand on Gwen's shoulder suggesting it should stay where it is. Adama, reiterating that they are down two, mentions that he doesn't want to fight but if Desmond doesn't remove his hand from Gwen shoulder he will cut it off. Desmond backs off taking a step back the entire group clearly trying to placate us. Adama suggests that instead of fighting The Voiceless should go after another scroll as James told them where another was. Crypt, intrigued by this idea starts to talk about going to torture James while Adama says they already have everything they need. 
Myra, feeling extremely uncomfortable at the idea of pointing the Voiceless towards her family, nodded knowingly to Raijun who cast Silence and cut off the discussion in favor of combat. 
The combination of silence and better understanding the enemy made the fight much more even than the fight earlier in the evening. Irik quickly deserted his team seeing it was going south with Desmond following a few rounds behind. Before parting Desmond said in thieves' cant to Raijun 'See you soon'. During the fight both Crypt and Dartina were both subdued though both stabilized by Myra and Gwen. 
After gagging and restraining both of them, we searched them for useful information before returning to the Whitemane community center. On Dartina we found:

• 2 Empty Vials 
• A Rapier
• 2 Small Daggers 

On inspecting Crypt we found:

• His skin was like he was left in the bath too long, stretched weirdly - upon casting detect magic he was emanating necromancy softly
• A rod that looks as though it is made of bone with a small doll on top
• A non-magical scroll 

We closed by reading the scroll which seemed to be notes written in bullets:

• Circus - Grown since last encounter
• Could be in the infernal plane - Working for part of the blood war? 
• Seemed to enter fey wild in the material plane
• Lap of Luxury - They have found him 

Report Date

30 Jan 2021

Location(s)
Lion's Crest
In Game Start Date
Evening of the Summer Harvest Festival  
In Game End Date
Night of the Summer Harvest Festival
Related Campfires