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Kingdom on the Brink - Session 48

General Summary

The party leaves the research institute and continue further into Bralor, the group passes some billboards containing posters. One poster asks for anyone who sees the original party (Ashara, Oneiro, Hendred, Runsha, Stormsong, Del Varis, Gareth) to provide information to the Arbitors, the second poster is one encouraging the religion of the Order of the Dragon and encouraging for heresy to be reported to them. After two days the party arrives at a bustling village, it's hosting the Shawgate lake Festival and Tourney. Duromar splits from the party and looks for the Royal Bralorian Couriers, Uriel asks Duromar to send a package of gold and a letter to his compound. Merrigold performs some petty theft and looks around looking for any sort of criminal underground, She finds some thieves cant that refers to a meeting spot. Merrigold heads to the meeting spot and Del Varis follows behind (trying to be sneaky but Merrigold knows he's there). Uriel and Rosemary attempt to gather more information about the tourney, one of the villagers asks where they hail from since the tourney is fairly well known. Uriel says he's been in Eastbrook for the last 6 months, the villager exclaims some surprise, referencing the murders of several provincial council members in Eastbrook and lord Bridgeford just barely escaping the insurrection. Uriel says that Bridgeford was most possibly responsible for the death to the heir of House Valeros, Runsha (saying how Runsha helped defend the province). This surprises the villager, leaving them somewhat flabbergasted, they continue saying that Highsummit has failed in properly managing the food production. They also pull out a coin and reference how it looks gold but clearly it has been diluted with other metals (Electrum), Uriel trades a couple of gold pieces for it, which the villager gladly takes. The villager thanks them and Uriel asks if they go towards the village center, they would find out more about the different Tourney's, which the villager says is correct. Uriel and Rosemary head further into the village. Duromar finds a courier post and gets his correspondence rerouted to the tourney village and sends off his correspondence and heads into the market district.

Merrigold finds the building that was to be the meetup area and sees there's guards around the perimeter, she starts to using some thieves cant hand gestures, but no one seems to acknowledge it. Merrigold approaches the guard and asks if she can help him, the guard seems somewhat confused and greets her, Merrigold presses on. The guard is perplexed and asks if this is some sort of parallelogram scheme and if they were peddling hydra oil, Merrigold decides she can't make much more progress and decides to leave. She calls to Del Varis and thanks him for backing her up and they decide to head to the market. Uriel and Rosemary go to the village center and find more information on the different competitions, there's three: an elemental summoning pit fight, a fort defense against waves of enemies, and a sloop barrel race. Uriel thinks they all sound exhilarating and sign the party up for all three over the next two days, after doing that Uriel and Rosemary head to the market district to meet Duromar. Duromar leaves the courier post and heads to the market and looks to trade his skills to get better weapons, armor, or spells. Duromar spends about an hour trying to find someone, running into issues because people don't believe he's as powerful as he says but also doesn't have the coin. Duromar gets approached by an individual who wishes to employ him in exchange for a +3 Rapier, they represent someone who wants a house cleaned up (the things being unsaid being that they want Duromar to clean up a bunch of dead bodies). Duromar goes outside the market and they discuss the details and Duromar asks for a down payment to protect his interests. The individual agrees and they arrange a meeting place (the Wayward Goose inn) and the individual leaves just as the rest of the party approaches Duromar. Uriel tells the group that he signed the party up for several competitions, Merrigold asks what the payout is, Uriel says that the lowest payout is 2,000 Bralorian pieces. The phrasing perplexes the party and Uriel pulls out the electrum coin and Duromar examines it, noting it meets all the criteria for being official currency, but it's not pure gold. Duromar goes on to say that when he was in Bronze Cliff he had heard that the required gold shipments to meet output at the mint had been failing to meet demand so the gold pieces are getting diluted (into electrum). The situation worries Duromar, the party decides to secure rooms for the next few days.

The party arrives at the Wayward Goose inn (finding the prices are in electrum but get a lower rate by paying in gold), Del Varis leaves after paying (without getting his key) and runs some errands. Rosemary, Merrigold, and Duromar get settled in and order dinner, Uriel takes care of their horses. As Uriel is taking off Bob's equipment, he notices that the potion of awakening is inside his saddlebag, Uriel decides to be helpful (knowing Duromar intended to give it to Bob at some point) and has Bob drink the potion. After a couple of minutes Bob begins to speak, with a slight winy, Bob and Uriel speak for some time about why Bob has to stay in the stables while the party gets to sleep inside. Bob then asks when he'd be able to use a sword like the rest of the party, Uriel points out Bob doesn't have hands, then he gets an idea. Uriel gives Bob his Rapier of dancing and teaches Bob how to attune to it, taking some time and practice Bob is able to use the sword, Bob still doesn't understand why he can't go inside so Uriel starts to lead him inside the dining room. Duromar looks over and sees Bob and Uriel in the doorway and gets incredibly flabbergasted, when Bob speaks in common Duromar gets even more upset and starts yelling at Bob and Uriel. The dining room stops all activity to watch this scene, Uriel tries to explain that Bob wanted to see the party's rooms but Duromar is having known of it and takes Bob out to the stables. Uriel remains inside and chats with the barkeep, mentioning that looked like the beginning of a joke, Uriel agrees and as they drink they start to talk about his adventures, the barkeep chuckles (thinking Uriel is spinning tall tales). Duromar explains to Bob that a talking horse will put some people off and for now Bob needs to act like a regular horse, the individual Duromar talked to earlier walks into the stable and gives Duromar the security deposit and a note with instructions. Duromar says he'll get to it tonight and that the individual should come back this time tomorrow, as the individual leaves Duromar tells Bob they have work to do and not to tell Uriel (Uriel's horse hears some of that and starts to talk to Bob). During all this Del Varis is out getting herbalism supplies and other things of interest, as he's shopping he comes across a gnome who seems to be bruised and has a limp, Del Varis asks if they're ok, the gnome replies that they aren't sure. Del Varis examines her further and it seems she is having memory problems and offers to make her feel better, he channels his ki and the gnome looks much better physically. shortly after Del Varis does this an important looking halfling and his entourage walks in, this freaks out the gnome and she begins move away with stealth and eventually gets out of the area unnoticed. Back at the inn Merrigold listens to a conversation and hears some people talk about acts of banditry on the logging camps south of the Berkmark mountain range.

Duromar arrives near the house in the instructions and sees it has a perimeter guard, thinking quickly he tells Bob to play along and approaches the guards, he offers the guards a quick show. Duromar states he has learned how to enter into the body of his horse through magic and has been working a 10-minute performance, after some persuasion the outside guards come to watch, but one of the guards opens the door and sounds like he's talking to someone inside who isn't coming out. Duromar casts dimension door and teleports inside one of the rooms, Bob begins to reenact a battle and walks on his two hind legs. Duromar finds two bodies and stuffs into his bag of holding, he misty steps into another room, there's no bodies but he finds evidence of someone being held bound (cut rope) and takes the rope. He misty steps into another and finds two more bodies, he grabs them and dimension doors to the river where he starts to use the rope he picked up and tie the bodies to rocks and dumps them into the river. Bob asks one of the guards to grab an apple and throw it into the air, using his Rapier of dancing to skewer it. Duromar Dimension doors into the next room and finds two more bodies and puts them into his bag of holding, he hears footsteps and he casts blink (he shortly goes into the ethereal plane). Duromar walks through the walls and sees the guard, he casts banishment on the guard from the ethereal plane, the guard disappears. Duromar exits the ethereal plane and grabs the bodies and quickly checks the entire house and dimension doors to the river to drop off his bodies and then teleports back to Bob. Duromar thanks the guards and gives them 30 gold pieces each and trots away with Bob, Duromar tells Bob he can go back to the stable and Duromar heads back to the river to finish his work. The day ends and the party long rests.

The party awakes and performs last minute preparations before they head to the elemental pitfight, buying many potions of resistance and healing. The party arrives at the cave entrance and gets checked in, they are lead to an open arena with water in the center. It's explained that the elementals are summoned from the magical water in the center in waves with greater and greater strength after each wave. The arena has crystals all around to provide the audience illusions of the party as they fight, as well grandstands over the fighting arena. The party deals with the first few waves of minor elementals with ease, then it's announced the easy part is over and 3 Fire Myrmidons appear over the water. Merrigold moves off to the side and starts to dodge, the Myrmidons and move up towards the party, one attempts to slash Merrigold but it misses. Rosemary uses emboldening bond and Duromar casts haste and sings his bladesong, Del Varis moves to assists Merrigold and strikes the Myrmidon several times. Duromar and Uriel move to flank one of the Myrmidons and land several strikes, the Myrmidons bursts with flames and swing multiple times at the party, but most fail to find their target. Rosemary moves in and performs a series of hit and run attacks with her quarterstaff, landing a critical strike, Del Varis lands a stunning strike on the Myrmidon threatening Merrigold (which leaves it unable to act). Uriel repositions, provoking an opportunity attack, and hurls his javelin of radiance which strikes all three of the Myrmidons. Merrigold and Del Varis finish off the stunned Myrmidon and then move to assist against the other two, Duromar and Uriel gang up on one while Rosemary continues her hit and run strikes on the other. The Myrmidons land several strikes on Uriel and manage to critically hit Merrigold but it is not enough as the party strikes them down shortly thereafter. The party gets a few seconds to catch their breath as the next wave gets summoned.

Two Fulminars and a Chronalmental appear in the arena, Duromar casts circle of death to start off the fight, this ends up being an instant crowd pleaser. The two Fulminars move up and surround Uriel and Del Varis in swarm of clouds and arcing lightning, they then use their lightning shackle abilities, most of the party manages to evade the shackles but Rosemary gets restrained by them. Uriel and Duromar move to engage the Fulminars (with Uriel getting struck by lightning trying to get out of the arcs), they both land devastating hits but pay for them by getting arced for hit they land (but Uriel takes less as he drank a lightning resistance potion). Merrigold moves to engage the Chronalmental, succeeding in tripping it and landing a sneak attack, the Chronalmental gets back up and manages to slam Merrigold with a critical hit. Del Varis gets shocked as he leaves the lightning cloud and moves out of the melee, he launches two needles at the Fulminar but they miss. Rosemary breaks the restraints and moves to assist Merrigold, Duromar moves out and casts a firebolt which kills one of the Fulminars, Uriel moves on the other Fulminar and strikes it down with two swings. Merrigold and Rosemary exchange blows on the remaining Chronalmental (which lands several critical blows to them) and Del Varis moves up and strikes it down with his fists. The party takes a few seconds to prepare for the next wave.
It is mid-morning on the 16th day of Leranth 2517 AGF
Report Date
06 Jan 2024

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