Session 10 - Taking Down a Bandit Stronghold

Jalan: The bugs are attacking! The lemon-scented bugs are attacking!

Plot points/Scenes

Stocking Up

• Robin offers to help us find the cult that attacked us in the first place if we want to pursue that
• We decide to go after that bandit and try to get him alive, get some income then maybe think about it
  • Gregory offers to come along
  • J: “as my bodyguard? Sure!”
  • G: “....he IS the one who needs it the most”
• Arguing over company finances and getting Jalan a palanquin
  • Jalan’s a bitch and refuses to walk, instead requests that the company finance a palanquin with 4 servants and silk and pillows for him
  • F: “bitch what”
  • Something about this being a “company expense”, and the DM suggesting at this point we’ve probably already set up a joint ‘company account’ and deposited a portion of earnings every month, which Fritz strongly disagrees she ever would have let happen knowing Jalan and his tendencies
  • Gregory(DM) talks Fritz into allowing it, and he comes back with a weird cage/spider thing that’s like a prototype prisoner transport unit, apparently 1-use only
  • It’s literally a cage on legs but Jalan’s all on board if he doesn’t have to walk
    • He pays Fritz into installing some suspension so it’s more comfortable and our trip is delayed by a few days
• Travelling Expenses
  • Jalan buys fancy pickled underdark fish
    • Has to get it special-ordered and our trip is delayed by another day
  • AND lemon scented smoke bombs
  • AND 30gp of pillows/cushions to make his cage on legs comfortable
  • Drant gets chips. And only chips.
  • Fritz gets many days’ worth of typical traveling rations

Journey to the Stronghold

• We bring along 2 pack carrying people (entirely for Jalan’s shit probably)
• Decide to come at the stronghold from the side of the mountain where it’s not guarded (requires some mountain climbing but we should be able to get the drop on them)
• History on the area
  • Used to be issues with dragons in the mountains collecting lesser beings under their will and sending them down the mountain to murder the townsfolk and wreak havoc
  • Fortresses like this stood as a line of defense from these things, had good defendable vantage points and were responsible for intercepting these hordes before they made it down the mountain
  • Also had something to do with spies and scrying
    • This place used to be an outpost used during the time of magic. Its main purpose was information gathering, like scrying and spying. It was the place for spymasters.
• Scouting out the fortress
  • Convince Jalan to go in and look around
    • After some joking around about using the contraption and Jalan’s snacks as bait
      • J: “how dare you it isn’t funny stop laughing”
  • Most of the castle is abandoned, sees enormous but dormant siege engines, one or two guards posted, the machines are very run-down/old/dilapidated but the main keep looks very well kept, there is a drawbridge at the far end that can be retracted
  • Look pretty lax and like they’re not at all prepared for an attack
  • Coming from underneath drawbridge something something I missed how you get anywhere or how jalan even got in
    • Under the drawbridge was the main entrance, you could go through the main keep area including a barracks and kitchen to the roof which was about 50 feet up. On the roof there was a drawbridge of sorts, that lead to the “captains keep”
  • Reports back to us

Infiltration

• Notices that since he’s been gone, the place seems to be on high alert and ~10 guards are patrolling
• Gregory notices from afar that the place seems to be more lively and alerts Fritz and drant that they should get moving
• Jalan picks a guard whose stature etc. looks like him, daggers him while he leans over the edge of the tower, strips him of his clothes, dresses like him, stashes the body, and takes his place on the top of the tower after setting a climbing rope
• Another guard approaches and strikes up convo, “why did you have to go and say you saw something, now we have to spend all night on guard” *spits towards Jalan*
• Guard lightly but roughly pushes Jalan who almost falls off the roof, Jalan not so lightly pushes him in return (trying to shove him off the roof), guard gets prickly and attacks Jalan
• Drant (casts haste so he can climb faster) then Fritz then Gregory begin climbing the rope having just gotten to the base of the tower, they don’t even know that this scuffle is happening yet
• Jalan does a backflip off the edge of the tower and snatches the climbing rope, the guard’s momentum crashes him into the wall which crumbles and he goes tumbling off the edge
  • Drant and Fritz dodge it but Gregory gets slammed by the falling armor-clad body
• Recollect
  • Everybody makes it to the top of the tower
  • Fritz and Gregory start stealthing forward
  • Drant hides under in-disguise Jalan’s cloak and they start waltzing across the rooftop, Jalan’s noticed by 3 guards but is able to play it cool for a bit, starts making his way across the drawbridge and is told to halt and asked for a password
  • Tells him that the guard he was with on the top of the tower “just jumped off. He was bitching about stuff then got a funny look then just jumped, I need to speak with the commander immediately”
    • Guard: “Why is there blood on your clothes?”
    • J: “I tried to stop him, he clawed at me”
    • G: “In armor...this dude with gauntlets on scratched you hard enough to cause THAT much blood”
    • J: “it was more of a punch really, he broke my nose”
    • *nose is clearly not broken*
    • *silence…*
    • G: *whistles for reinforcements*

Combat - Ballroom Blitz

• It’s decided from here on out to have either every combat have a theme song (like our X Gon Give It To Ya tavern infiltration)
• Jalan acts first and throws his lemon scented smoke bomb, runs out of the mist revealing Drant under his cloak and runs wildly screaming “THE BUGS ARE ATTACKING! THE LEMON SCENTED BUGS ARE ATTACKING” then fires the bow he got off the archer he killed wildly into the smoke back towards Drant
• Drant comes chittering out of the smoke trying to be intimidating
• Fritz shoots some dudes in the back with her crossbow
• Gregory runs up and fucks shit up with his sword, does some mystic sword things then charges into the mist
• Jalan moves forward and some freaky looking mechanical knife-wielding-tentacle pops up and tries to rip him to shreds, he steps out of the way and grapples a nearby enemy in between him and the trap
• Big guy who was initially guarding the bridge (who stopped Jalan to question him) tosses his two underlings out of his way backwards and charges to Jalan
• Drant heads into the smoke and curls into a ball to let his Haste exhaustion from earlier pass
• The trap makes a beeline for Jalan but there’s a body between them and it tears the bandit to shreds
  • Jalan makes a con save to not vomit
  • He’s cool He tosses the rest of the body on the trap and it goes to
  • town
• Fritz charges ahead and smashes one of the prone underlings’ skulls to a pulp, the other underling (on the ground right next to his partner’s smashed-in head) vomits and starts choking on it, stunning himself
• Gregory deals 45 damage to one guy and chops his head off (drant notices he does it without even looking) (I’ve suddenly remembered one of Gregory’s abilities is to see things happening around him without needing to see)
• Jalan disengages and attempts something intimidating to the big man
• Fritz crushes the other underling’s skull
• Gregory rushes forward, the machine tries to attack him but is clogged with body parts, he cleaves another crossbowman into oblivion
  • J: “I think he needs a raise”
• Jalan does some parkour-y rogue shit
• Bandit captain casts dark shit on Drant but Drant’s a wise-ass-mf and easily resists it
• Fritz crushes yet ANOTHER dude’s skull with her hammer
• Gregory slams the captain up against a wall and screams at him to yield
  • Jalan doubles down: “don’t make me kill you dude pls I don’t want this”
• Drant does a flying flaming haymaker
• Bandit releases a torrent of energy and throws Gregory backward into the spinny machine of death
• An archer fritz didn’t even know existed (damn walmart parking lot) appears out of the smoke and fucks her shit UP from behind
• Faced with dealing with the archer or saving Gregory, Fritz drags Gregory out of immediate danger, activates her armor prototype, and places herself between Gregory and both the archer and the machine
• Gregory fails a save and takes damage for existing
• Jalan rapiers the commander
  • (J: “I said YIELD dammit”)
• Drant magic’s the commander (BARELY avoiding not killing him with lethal magic I swear to god) leaving him with 1hp
• Archer once more fucks Fritz up, with 16hp she charges her and deals damage but doesn’t kill her
• Gregory STILL can’t make any saves and continues taking damage for existing
• Jalan screams at the commander to call off his archer
• Drant gives Gregory some heals
• Commander calls off his archer

Getting Our Loot On

• Archer lady is not happy about surrendering
  • “I despise the empire and everything it stands for” *spits on the ground*
  • J: “what is it with you people and spitting”
  • Puts Jalan’s sword to her own throat and demands that he just kill her
  • Drant doesn’t mess around and slits her throat then heals her
    • D: “what were you saying?”
• Bandit commander tries to bargain to get us to let him go
  • BC: “Who’s even the leader of this group”
  • J: *proudly* “I am!”
  • *Fritz winks*
• Commander talks of how “the empire is corrupt, open your eyes, we’re doing no harm to anyone” (F: “we’ve been hearing that a lot lately, I dunno”)
  • BC: *to Jalan* “You seem like a decent fellow-”
  • J: “I don’t think I’ve ever been called decent before”
  • BC: “you seem to be-”
  • *jalan kicks him in the teeth*
  • *commander spits blood on his shoes*
  • (J: “with the spitting-”)
• The knife wielding tentacle
  • It is still flailing around wildly, trying it’s darndest to hit any of us, it’s a little clogged with body parts and bolted to the floor but by golly it’s trying
  • Gregory: “Uhh should we turn this off”
  • F: “Nah it’s kinda cute can I keep it”
  • Fritz tries to dismantle it, fails, tries to take a schematic of it but probably will need to turn off the tentacle to get a reliable diagram
• Jalan demands that the commander bring out all valuables
  • Brings out a strongbox and scoffs at Jalan, saying he’ll never get it open and what’s inside will never be his
  • Jalan disarms the traps attached to the strongbox, casts dispel magic and picks it open
  • Bandit is very shocked
  • It contains a medallion and a lot of letters (medallion is somewhat glowing with divination magic)
  • Papers written in archaic or something (what wizmur reads), Jalan hands over the papers to fritz for later
• Two drawers
  • Find a desk with two locked drawers inside the main keep’s offices
  • J: “which one do you want, top or bottom”
  • D: “top”
    • Drant’s has 10gp and some paper
      • Once he’s done with it, Fritz searches for a false bottom and finds a lens with a gold ring around it (spyglass lens?) and a weird looking compass (doesn’t have 4 cardinal directions, has 5 different hieroglyphs in like a pentagonal shape, floats and tends to point in weird directions)
    • Jalan’s drawer has an elvish dagger (trace transmutation magic), bottle of wine/glass, pocket watch, prototype clockwork thing
  • BC: “if I only ask one thing of you, would you deliver that gift to my daughter”
    • Widower was his wife, lived in a poor section of our town
  • 500 gold stashed away
• The basement
  • Gregory offers to turn off the tentacle machine so fritz can draw it (BUENO she now has an auto-flail schematic)
  • Jalan finds a whole barrel of wine
• New stronghold
  • F: “hey guys now we technically have control over two bases”
  • 2 day travel by cart
  • 1 day travel with machines and extra help
  • J: “this place is a shithole”
  • F: “but it’s a useful shithole”
  • BC: “we’ve got some servants but I won’t tell you where they are so you can’t stab them, you sadistic asshole”
  • J: “hey whoa! I didn’t ACTUALLY flay you alive”
  • BC: “.......you say that like you expect me to be GRATEFUL”
• Loot the rest of the bodies
  • 300 gold total
• We manage to find the servants the commander mentioned
  • They give us hieroglyphic notes and babble on about the important research they do here and how the so-called ‘bandits’ were just protecting them
  • Fritz says she’s also a scholar and offers them a sponsorship/partnership, they say they won’t leave the mountain but they’ll accept if she can provide food and protection and prove that she’s actually a scholar and not someone who just wants to take advantage of them
  • Apparently the empire suppresses information who knew
  • They’re researching things, dangerous unknown shit attacks them from the mountains (like freaky telekinetic pterodactyl raptors with thumbs), they’re also researching how they could possibly undo the Rapture (the Break)
  • Head researcher tells of how Drant’s kind (tosculi) used to be harnessed by the thousands by the ancient creatures like dragons and thrown like armies to the cities below
  • Fritz wants to keep the fun artifacts we found but apparently they need them for research so boo, she agrees to leave them behind
• Leaving
  • Convince the researchers to hunker down for a few days with Gregory for protection with Fritz’s extra rations, until we can send mechanical spiders from our power plant to protect them, at which point Gregory will return to train a new regiment of soldiers who will move out to the stronghold to guard them
    • We want to keep these people’s research going but also keep it hidden from the government, and want to make sure everyone we send up here is tight-lipped and loyal, so Gregory has to hand-pick them and train them each personally

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 1: Just Your Normal, Everday, Morally Ambiguous Power Company