Session 21 - Stonedeep: A City Besieged

Naomi: Oh! How are you guys doing?

Jalan: I got shot.

Link: Put the knife down or I fire!

Jalan: He’s the one who shot me.

Plot points/Scenes

CARAVAN HEADCOUNT

• Jalan, Drant, Fritz
• Gregory, Nevermore, Meghan, Isabelle, Zavala, Jeochhmann, (Jarvis)
• 6 mercenaries

Healing and Off to Stonedeep

• Fritz rolls natural 1s on all of her hit dice and is more than a little salty
  • Literally 4d10 in a row….spent 2d10…..got advantage from Drant for the same 2d10….and 1d6 from Terrence….
• Jalan checks on Zavala
  • J: “If you ever need anything, you can count on me. Since I basically saved the day and everything.”
  • Z: “.....I thought that was Gregory?”
  • *he gives a long-winded response on why he’s so great, she replies that Isabelle and Meghan don’t have great things to say about him, he replies that she’s smarter than both of them combined, she says she should trust him because he’s clearly the leader…*
  • Fritz is not pleased
• Apparently the goblins were planning to use the area around our facility as the staging ground for the uprising against the city, and the city might already be besieged to some extent but we plan to pit stop and try to warn them
• Approaching the city, Drant flies up on his wasp stealthily to scout it out
  • Fritz rolls for the luck roll and rolls another natural 1
  • Drant uses his inspiration to let her reroll but for Christ’s sake that was 6 natural 1s in a row
• The city is definitely besieged, but there is no siege equipment, and there are caravans loaded with food that are coming into the city
  • They’re playing a long game, but Drant estimates the army will run out of food in about a day
    • J: “we’ve been gone for a day and a half? That seems really soon…”
    • D: *rolls a 9* “nope I’m pretty sure it’ll only take a day*
• Why are we here again?
  • Zavala wants to get her bag of holding
  • Maybe we can help the city?
  • Is there a secret way into the city?
    • Nevermore gives us fancy magic coins that allow us to blend in unnoticeably into a crowd until we do something obvious
      • Combination of illusion and enchantment

A Surprise Visitor

• Jalan mentions that this would be a good opportunity to get into the smuggling business and sneak food into the city, selling food to the people under the government’s noses
  • Fritz is opposed
  • J: “But if we go under the government’s noses, we help the people and hurt the government!”
  • F: “That’s still extortion.”
• As we’re talking, Drant notices someone sneaking up on us, and appear to be eavesdropping
  • Jalan hits the fucking deck and rolls into a bush to hide
    • DM: “....you can’t do that, they know you’re there”
    • J: “I do it anyway”
  • The figure starts laughing, then reveals themselves: it’s Naomi
• Naomi drops the casual threat that our plans to go underneath the government would get us in deep trouble with the right people
• She also mentions that with the power shut off to the city, it’s massively crippled, that we should retake the power plant and turn it on and that she’s willing to help
• While she’s talking, Jalan tries to subtly go to Nevermore inside the pleasure barge, but rolls 1 less than Naomi’s passive perception
  • N: “Where are you going?”
  • J: “....getting snacks? I’ve got some pickled fish in here.”
  • F: “He gets bored of conversations easy. It’s the most annoying habit.”
• Naomi advises that we should probably go into town and warn Francesca of the army marching down the mountain and our plan and maybe she’d send forces with us to take the plant back
  • BUUUT she wants to know everything about what we found on the mountain
  • F: “......I mean I don’t see what else you can offer us so no?”
• We tell her (in about as many words) to please fuck off
  • She disappears into the woods, shortly following an arrow with a scroll attached (that ominously reads Grimwold Torchstone) thunks into the side of the pleasure barge
  • We discuss how much of a threat she actually is...if she’s working with or for Torchstone, or if she’s bluffing and doesn’t have that much sway
• Drant is acutely aware that the power plant remaining off for any significant amount of time would likely release Ralodithius
  • F: “.......let’s fucking not do that”
• We also deduce that Naomi found us by following Drant’s scouting mission so we could feasibly flee without her being too much of an issue
• Options
  • Go to Stonedeep, speak with Embassy, then
    • Break the siege, OR
    • Free the power plant
  • Free the power plant, fuck Stonedeep
  • Fuck everything, go to Ambervern
• Jalan for once strongly votes to stay put and hope that Francesca/the Embassy (or maybe more likely the thousands of meat shields of the city’s civilians) will offer him some protection from the wrath of Naomi, Fritz thinks if we don’t deal with her we need to keep moving as soon as possible
  • J: “but we could smuggle food into the city, we could run a crime ring...we’d be rich! And we’d be feeding a besieged city, isn’t that moral?!”
  • F: “Feeding a besieged city, though noble, is not so high on my priorities right now. I think we need to keep pursuing these Millennium Artifacts, hope that Zavala gets more dreams and try to keep them out of the enemy’s hands. If whatever’s in the mountains gets their hands on these Artifacts everybody’s toast, we need to get to them first.”
  • J: “ah, I see, then we sell them. And then we get rich.”
  • F: “......no? Did you miss the part of the legend where the bearer of all of the artifacts is like unstoppably powerful?”
  • J: “.......yes.”
  • F: “So we don’t sell them…”
  • J: “...and I become super powerful!”
  • F: “No-”
• DECISION
  • To Stonedeep, speak with the Embassy
  • Free the power plant
  • Hunker down in the city long enough to let the people evacuate, holding off the murderous tides of enemies from the mountain before moving on
  • Hope Zavala gets more millennium dreams, and set off to get the Millennium Artifacts before the enemy can get their hands on them
• Nevermore tells us how the coins work
  • They are silver, and will disguise you for an indeterminate amount of time (the more people it has to fool, the shorter it can work)
  • As it runs out of juice, it turns copper

Sneaking Into Stonedeep - A City Besieged

• Jalan sneaks in, using the coin and stealthing, but stealths so well that his coin is still silver when he gets there
• Drant and Fritz fly in
  • Fritz’s wasp is being a bitch (she’s bad at Animal Handling, and apparently heavy and stinky and rude…)
  • W: “Is this the place?”
  • D: “Yes.”
  • W: *flips completely upside down, dumping Fritz over 300 feet from the ground*
    • We decide that Fritz’s gravity ‘cloak’ is a field of electrical energy that slows her fall
• Arrive at the front door, there is a mob outside and one level Brent guard trying desperately to maintain control
  • He refuses to let us in, and doesn’t recognize us - when we tell him who we are he flips SHIT and yells at us to put our hands out and submit to arrest because we’re apparently wanted for aiding and abetting the enemy (for them breaking in to our plant???)
  • Jalan says “fuck this shit” and casts Darkness on the guard, Drant follows him
  • Fritz is left alone with the guard
    • She attempts to non-lethally knock him out, he reaches out to handcuff her and she shoves him back into a wall hard enough that he’s knocked out
    • She fumbles her way to the door and tries to open it...it’s locked
      • F: “.....I guess I’d be attempting to pick it in the dark, huh.”
      • DM: “You’ve got a key…”
      • F: “......I’ve what?”
      • Apparently this was a reward for us getting Francesca into office, that we get an honorary key to the Embassy
      • DM: “Did I forget to tell you that?”
      • F&J&D: “YES?”
  • Jalan and Drant meanwhile break into an upstairs window and come face-to-face with a guard in a souped-up power suit
    • He immediately aims his gun arm at them and demands that they submit to arrest
    • Fritz comes around the corner, and tells the guard that the guy downstairs let her in to speak with Francesca, distracting him just long enough that Jalan tries to slip by
      • The guard shoots him with the gun-net-laser arm, Jalan takes a bunch of damage and is netted and thrown backwards into the window
  • Some secretary that we recognize comes strolling out a door down the hallway
    • S: “Oh hey Fritz! Hey Jalan, Drant. How’ve you been!”
    • F: “Can you help us? This guy’s not being very helpful…”
    • J: “I got shot.”
    • Secretary chews out the guard (Link) for not recognizing us and not letting us pass and shooting one of us, and gets Jalan out of the net and gives him a healing potion
  • Link finally lets us in

Speaking with Francesca

• Do we want Link punished for what he did?
  • Drant and Fritz agree nah he’s dumb but didn’t hurt anything
  • J: “you know, back where I come from (except I won’t say where), if somebody harms royalty (which I’m not saying I am) they’d be punished very harshly.”
  • Fran: “.......that statement was so full of caveats that I’m just going to ignore it”
• Naomi (attempted to) extort her
  • Won’t say what she wanted, but says that she offered to get the power turned back on for her
    • D: “And then she immediately turned around and tried to get us to do it for her…”
    • J: “She double played us!”
  • F: “but you didn’t accept her terms...right?”
  • Fran: “.....I won’t disclose that either”
• Weighing her options
  • There are a few prototype “Titans” which were designed to be deployed to protect upper-level members of government, but they wouldn’t really be enough to turn the tides
  • I really sort of spaced out here
• We mention that we could go turn the power back on, and ask for reinforcements, she offers to send Link with us as his ‘punishment’
  • Francesca offhandedly mentions that he’s a new recruit from the mainland and she’s actually somewhat suspicious that he’s an inquisitor spy from Ragnar’s inner court
  • Jalan brings up the valid point that the secretary from the mainland could also be a spy

We press a bit harder: what did Naomi want from Francesca?

• Secrets…that nobody knows exist
  • D: “Was it government secrets, I don’t know, an artifact?”
• She’s surprised, and tells all - asks if we know of Timothy Ryder (uh, yeah) and some ‘Wizmur’ (I see where this is going)
• There’s a switch inside each of the secret library rooms, if you open all of them, there’s a secret secret room with a bunch of 1st edition books of forbidden knowledge, and there’s a book down there that’s argued to be one of the Millennium Artifacts but nobody could prove it

Oh Shit

• F: “you didn’t tell her where the secret rooms were, did you?”
• Reassures us that there’s no way Wizmur would let anyone unauthorized past, and only Timothy would be able to point someone towards the rooms
  • Francesca: “so we’re totally safe! unless she’s like a master inquisitor or something.”
  • F: “............that’s exactly what she is.”
  • Francesca: “...........red alert.”
• We take off with Link to get to Timothy’s house before it’s too late

Rescuing Timothy from the Inquisitor

• Link busts down the door
• Timothy is chained to a chair, Naomi stands over him with a knife out, clearly in the middle of interrogation
  • N: “Oh! How are you guys doing?”
  • J: “I got shot.”
  • Link: “Put the knife down or I fire!”
  • J: “He’s the one who shot me.”
• Jalan sneaks around the back, Drant and Fritz distract
  • N: “I thought there were normally three of you?”
  • D: “He didn’t want to come. He’s definitely got a thing for you and went to like go comb his hair or something.”
  • Buy Jalan enough time to get to the back door - locked
  • Picks it and sneaks in, but she hears something - Drant tells her it’s just his ride (the wasps), Fritz assists by telling how they’re assholes, and Drant Prestidigitates the sound of wasps landing on the roof and scrabbling outside
• Jalan starts negotiating from behind, where Naomi can’t see him
  • Naomi threatens to slit Timothy’s throat
  • J: “I mean, I’m not gonna stop you from killing your own meal ticket…”
  • He doesn’t really succeed and Naomi goes to drop a jellyfish-like drill device on Timothy’s head, everybody scrambles
• QTE time
  • Drant Thorn Whips but hits Naomi’s non-knife wrist instead of the device
  • Fritz tries to tackle, Naomi clotheslines her with the Thorn Whip
  • Jalan jumps in and disarms the device just barely with a 25 as she’s distracted by Fritz
  • She slashes the Thorn Whip with her dagger and throws herself back through the plaster wall
  • Drant Thorn Whips again, Jalan rapier disarms her, Fritz tries to grapple her
  • We get her cornered, Jalan levels his rapier at her and gets her to negotiate

Dealing with the Devil

• Link is antsy and starts screaming at her to drop the knife and submit to arrest or else
  • J: “Link, go tend to Timothy or something.”
  • L: “I don’t heal, I kill.”
  • F: “Link, dear, we’re defusing a bomb here, please see to Timothy.”
• What do you want?
  • N: “Information.”
  • J: “That doesn’t make us trust you. Details.”
  • She likes to be able to do what she wants and came across legends of a few ‘fairy tales’ that would help her do that
  • She says that she’s very helpful to her friends but a horrifying enemy, puts her offer to help us in exchange for information back on the table
• Discussing whether to trust her
  • We tell Link to point his gun at her and we just go stand in the corner and whisper
  • We don’t trust her as far as we can throw her (which apparently for Fritz is 0 feet but still) but Jalan thinks we can con her until we can find a way to get rid of her permanently
• Jalan turns back to her and tells her the truth except he leaves out the part where we know who received the magical message and that we did figure out what said artifact was and that we did pick it up
  • Problem is that she immediately doesn’t believe him...because “nothing about that story was worth sacrificing something to withhold”
    • D: “Well if he won’t tell the truth, I will. He’s not telling you the whole truth because he had a thing with the one researcher who survived and didn’t want you knowing about it because he’s got the hots for you.”
    • J: *horrified* “Drant!!” *he turns around in a huff, hiding the fact that he’s not blushing*
      • (D: “well your skin is pure white”)
  • Naomi actually starts laughing and believes him wholeheartedly
    • Jalan tries to protest that he doesn’t “have a thing for….Z….what the fuck was her name again.”
    • D: “definitely Zendaya”
    • (F: “you’re unbelievable”)
    • (J: “I told you I am so bad with names!”)
    • *joins in on the compendium document*
    • (F: “NO no leave you’re not allowed you cheater, I will kick you”)
    • And then when he finds it, he still can’t pronounce it
• Naomi agrees to join us...at least insofar as the current deal requires

Leaving Stonedeep and Last-Minute Purchases

• First thing’s first, we get Timothy back to the Embassy safe and sound (except he’s unconscious and bleeding profusely from his head)
  • J: “Link! I told you to watch him!”
  • L: “I told you I’m not a healer-”
  • F: “You should have told us if it was dire!!”
  • L: “He’s fine.”
  • It’s just a shit ton of tiny scratches all around his cranium but none of them are dangerously deep, head wounds just bleed a lot
• On the way out, we stop to make some purchases
  • Jalan buys some dynamite, some chaps, a vest, and a cowboy hat
    • DM: “Is it...the Cowboy Hat of Hootin’ and Hollerin’???”
  • Fritz gets scrap (digs around in a scrap yard for 10gp)
  • Fritz and Jalan both go to look for phantasmium tools
    • Because apparently phantasmium weapons are +2 magical weapons
    • Find a very posh shop
    • Jalan asks for a phantasmium dagger
      • A phantasmium dagger would cost 2500 gold
    • Fritz asks how much a phantasmium warhammer would cost and he doesn’t even answer, just scoffs at “why you would ever put such a refined and sophisticated material on something so unwieldy and barbaric”
    • Jalan switches gears to arrows
      • Phantasmium-tipped arrows would cost 10 gold per and have 1 use
      • Full-phantasmium arrows would cost 200 gold per and be usable until you failed to recover them
    • Jalan tries to haggle
      • J: “can I insight this guy and see if he wants to haggle?”
      • DM: “Sure!”
      • J: “I’m not very good at this.” *rolls a 0* “I don’t know what I expected.”
      • DM: “He definitely wants to haggle.”
      • Jalan proceeds to piss the shopkeeper off by demeaning his line of work, tries to haggle it down to 350 for a pair.
      • DM: “Now it’s 500.”
      • J: “What? That’s higher!”
      • DM: “It’s starting to look like 600…”
      • Jalan exits without purchasing anything and pays some dude on the street 20 gold to go buy them for him
        • DM: “you successfully get those arrows for 420 gold”
        • (D: *snickers*
        • (DM: “......?”
        • (D: “I see what you did there”
        • (DM: “.........?”
        • (D: “420?”
        • (DM: “...oh.”
        • (D: “did you mean to do that”
        • (DM: “no”
  • Fritz buys 250 gp of unprocessed phantasmium from the mine owner (like 9 cubic feet)
    • Also warns the mine owner that he might want to start liquidating assets (Jalan accuses her of a moral crime in telling the owner something’s afoot and possibly causing mass panic throughout the city - to which she responds “an entire army is about to come down from the mountain and overrun a city which is already besieged by monsters, not only does he deserve to know but everybody’s already panicking”)
• Naomi shows us one of the smuggling routes she usually uses (not happy that Link’s there) to get us out of the city unseen and we head to meet up with the caravan

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 2: Uprooted