The one where they staged a heist
General Summary
Our story began with Araceli, Clay, and Nix navigating through the city streets of The Hive as they attempted to find the meetup location provided to them by Miriam, their contact at the agency. As they made their way to the location, they all considered how odd it was that the meetup spot seemed to change for every job. After arriving at the location, they made their way in and found that the room was filled with portals as adventurers returned from and left for a myriad of adventures. The trio made their way over to Miriam who was chatting with someone briefly on the phone as they arrived. Clay asked who she was chatting with and discovered that Miriam had been speaking with her wife. Miriam got straight to business (as per usual) describing their mission, client, and portal location. Promising two hundred gold each upon completion of the project, she sent them on their way.
Araceli began navigating the group towards the portal location, and upon arrival discovered that the location they had been provided led to a manhole cover in the middle of a street. Nix shouted the correct passcode as Clay shouted a phrase adjacent to the passcode and they all jumped through the portal. Upon passing through, they found themselves in the ruins of a once grand temple. Araceli quickly scanned the area for signs of who it would have been for and realized that it was once a temple to Aoskar, the former God of Portals. Looming in the corner, they saw a form ensconced in darkness. Clay approached the form, attempting to introduce himself and found that the creature was something they had never seen before: a dark weaver with many tentacles, a fuzzy white head, and spider-like eyes. The Darkweaver introduced themselves as Grievecreeper, and psychically relayed their story to the group. They showed themselves as a half-orc who dreamed of power and, in a moment of great hubris, attempted to steal a powerful scroll from Lolth the spider goddess. In her rage, Lolth cursed Grievecreeper to transform into a Darkweaver, causing them to lose access to who they once were. The group immediately felt immense empathy for their newfound companion, and briefly reminisced silently on everyone's personal experiences with curses.
Grievecreeper explained to them the research that they had done about the Evogene lab and the research the lab was conducting around shifting entities back and forth between a spider-like state and their regular form. They explained that there was a potion within the lab that had the potential to transform them back into their original self. The group briefly planned out how they would gain access to the schematics for the research lab. The decision was made that they would attempt to infiltrate the Hall of Records. After arriving at the Hall of Records, they made their way in and spoke with the front desk lady, a dwarf named Glenda. Unable to produce a Clearance Card proving that they had permission to view the schematics, Clay convinced Glenda to give the group a tour. As Araceli, Clay, and Grievecreeper joined Glenda for a tour of the Hall of Records, Nyx stayed behind and attempted to hack into the record system. On the tour, Glenda mentioned that the Hall of Records was owned by a faction called The Fated. As Nyx experimented with the computer, they quickly realized that there seemed to be a pattern to the codes that Glenda was typing into the computer to access the files. Araceli deftly guided the conversation towards the information that the group needed, and then fed that information back to Nix via a message spell.
After acquiring the correct information, Nix snatched the schematics and quickly pretended to be a lost little girl so that passing strangers wouldn't suspect her. Returning to the crew, they said their goodbyes with Glenda and made their way out.
Afterwards, the group chose to make their way to the Parted Veil to speak with Kesto. They were able to acquire books about the factions that ran Evogene and discovered that in the power void that followed the Faction War, the Fated saw an opportunity to seize power and took that opportunity by seizing up as many businesses as they could. With the power of the Harmonium and the Fraternity of Order behind them, the Fated, now operating as Evogene, were able to seize up a vast majority of the businesses in Sigil within a short period of time.
As the three wizards sat comparing spell books, Clay experienced a wave of envy, sadness, and embarrassment. Grievecreeper was able to immediately clock what was happening and Araceli, in a moment of deep empathy, recognized the pain that Clay was feeling as being very similar to the pain that she had felt watching the bard students in school. In an attempt to reach out and help Clay feel more included, she accidentally made him feel even more ashamed, causing him to turn invisible and flee the room. Sending a message out with her mind, Araceli expressed care and appreciation to Clay for their talents, but Clay, unable to receive that message in its full, responded with only a simple "Thank you."
The group continued copying spells from each others' books, and decided that they would spend 24 hours scouting out the location before staging the heist. As they watched the building they were able to learn that the sentinel drones were both mechanical and magical, and that they had the ability to see through spells of invisibility. The crew mapped out the timing of the shift changes as well as the location of the singular entry and exit point. They noticed that in the evening a Green Dragon Wyrmling seemed to be the only one working in the building.
Returning home to the apartment to rest, the crew prepared themselves for the heist. Grievecreeper went out and purchased everyone lab coats from a costume shop as a disguise.
When they arrived the next evening they donned their costumes and began the entrance plan. Araceli used disguise self to transform herself into one of the employees who had left for the evening, ensuring that no one would notice her and that she could vouch for the rest of the group if they were spotted. After that, Clay casted command on an unsuspecting employee leaving the building at the end of their shift and demanded that they hold the door open for them. The scientist looked confused at this exchange, but accepted it once he saw the familiar face of Araceli's disguise following behind them. Safely past the sentinel drones, the crew entered into the first room. There they found a keypad against a door that seemed to be cycling through numbers and pausing to allow people to input the next number in the sequence to be allowed entry. Scanning the numbers, Nix clearly realized that there was a pattern to the numbers displayed and typed in the next number in the sequence: 44. The door slid open revealing a maze of hallways leading further into the building. Grievecreeper and Clay, following their instincts, led the crew through the maze to a door hidden within the wall. As Clay ran his hands along the seam of the door, he pressed gently against the center of it, causing it to pop open and reveal the room beyond. The crew moved into the room, and found themselves in a lab filled with cages and a large operating table. In the cages they saw creatures that appeared to be a mutation between a dire wolf and a spider chittering and growling at them from behind the bars. Across the room, the Green Dragon Wyrmling scientist they had noticed earlier, questioned their presence. Clay moved forward in an attempt to use their fae influence on the scientist, but the scientist dragon couldn't be intimidated and spread their wings out preparing to fight.
Araceli quickly responded and levitated the dragon off the ground so that he couldn't access anything in the room. Clay swung at the dragon, missing by a hairs breadth. The wyrmling then used the floor to launch themselves at a button on the wall, allowing the cages to fly open. Nix quickly shot an attack out at the dragon, telikenetically shoving it backwards so that the dragon hit the button again, closing the doors to the cages. The spider wolves began throwing themselves at the bars of the cage attempting to free themselves. Two spider wolves escaped with one growling menacingly and one choosing to skitter up onto the ceiling, ready to pounce down onto Clay below. Grievecreeper then shot two bolts of energy at the wolves which had escaped, hitting each of them square in the chest. The dragon wyrmling bounced backwards against the wall, opening the cages again and allowing the rest of the spider wolves to escape. As the battle progressed, the crew dealt damage back and forth between the wolves and the dragon. As the group’s collective health was slowly whittled down, Araceli narrowly avoided dropping unconscious. As she faced death for the first time as well as the possibility of killing another sentient creature, Araceli sent a mental message to the group, asking whether or not they were actually going to kill a bystander. She received no response, and the fight continued.
With the group’s health once again dropping dangerously low, they began considering whether or not they should flee and briefly considered abandoning the mission to save themselves until Clay dealt a death blow to the scientist, turning the tide of the fight much to the horror of Araceli. The crew then picked off the last of the spider wolves, commanding the final one to flee. The crew quickly ran into the next room, where they found tall spires of liquid holding multiple animals in various chimeric mutation states somewhere in between a spider and their original form. Grievecreeper and Nix poured through the research searching for information on the potion, with Nix tossing papers back to Araceli after she had finished examining them. Nix and Grievecreeper then briefly explained to Clay what they had learned from scanning the research papers, which then allowed Clay to cast locate object and identify the correct vial. As they snagged the item, they heard an alarm begin to sound behind them in the building. The group briefly discussed their escape options, and then decided to flee the way they came. Nix navigated the crew back through the lab and transformed herself into the niece version of herself, with Clay transforming into his human disguise as well. As they exited the building, they ran into a Harmonium officer whom Nix then vortex warped back into the spider cages. Once outside, the crew agreed to meet back at the house in one hour, and they all walked off in separate directions so they could shake off anyone who might be following them.
After an hour, each of the party members returned to the apartment with Araceli arriving last, clearly shaken. Clay cast a healing spell on each of them with an added calming bonus, and asked Araceli what she had meant earlier when she had messaged him at the Parted Veil. Araceli explained that she had always wanted to be a bard, but had not been allowed to pursue that path because of the pressure she received from her parents, and so she understood what it felt like to wish that you could be something that you hadn't been allowed to be.
The two of them marvelled at the idea that the other would desire their own specific type of magic, and complimented each other on the skills that each of them brought to the table, before returning to the quest at hand.
Nix and Araceli poured over the documents and quickly realized that because of the early point in the research process they were in, the efficacy of the potion was unstable. Grievecreeper briefly tried a sip of the concoction and watched in terror as one of their arms transformed back into an orc hand.
The crew then decided to rest for another day before trying again, which allowed them to perform some more research on the chemical compounds. Grievecreeper then gave the vial one last go. Downing the concoction, their body began to ripple as they had a messy magical girl transformation back into their half orc self. The group quickly tossed a blanket over their naked form, and allowed them to rest. Grievecreeper took in that moment with gratitude, surrounded by their new friends as their true self.
Missions/Quests Completed
Evogene spider potion heist
Character(s) interacted with
Grievecreep
Miriam
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