Session 44 - Between A Rock And Three Hard Places

Plot points/Scenes

Nearing the end of our journey

• Drant feels a sense of calm
  • He is suspicious
  • Nothing happens
• Checking on Crow-eye
  • Barbarian lady is now no longer terrified out of her mind of Drant, but repeats what she told us about her and CCL’s conversation with Terrence - he just asked them how they were doing etc., didn’t make any funky moves or cast magic shit
• Fritz fetches Tsed out of the caravan and starts having a conversation, “so how’ve you been, I know the journey’s probably been uncomfortable, you’re all cooped up inside that walking metal box…”
  • At some point it becomes apparent that DM thought she had fetched Terrence, not Tsed, and we awkwardly send Terrence back to the caravan while we pull the real Tsed up front to talk
  • [[Throughout all of this talk surrounding Terrence, Jalan and Fritz have this exact conversation no less than three times:
    • J: “Terrence is a nice guy! He’s not untrustworthy!”
    • F: “I’m not saying he’s not, I’m just saying he’s surrounded by some shady shit which, if we illuminate, may help illuminate some of the other shady shit surrounding us-”
    • (ultimately, like 3-4 repetitions of this later…
    • F: “you know, you’ve said the exact same words multiple times over and are not listening to the words I say in response, that sounds exactly like something someone charmed by Terrence to defend him would say-”]]
• TSED
  • Fritz comically repeats the line she opened with to Terrence, now to Tsed...
  • Tbh, he’s worried, was supposed to meet with people and nothing bad has happened yet
    • F: “....what?”
    • We OOC remember that Jalan had agreed to meet with the mech suit guy who was at the meeting with Roger the following day, it’s now been well over a week and we’ve skipped town
    • We also remember that this was a part of the conversation Jalan had with people while everyone else was out of earshot, and he probably just forgot to tell everyone else about it
  • Trying to figure out a way to get him to give us an answer about his relationship with Terrence while getting around his mind implant brain thing
• Codified Interrogation, v.02
  • “We are unsure of the soil in which those roots grow, and wish to know more as we’ve buried ourselves
    • “The soil is fertile, and I don’t think you’ll find the plant that grows there to be poisonous”
    • So, in his mind, Terrence isn’t a bad guy
    • (J: “See! I told you-
    • (F: “I never said he wasn’t---”
  • “How old are the roots that you share?”
    • “These roots are old”
    • They’ve known each other awhile
  • “Did your seed fall from his tree?”
    • “Yes”
    • So we (incorrectly) assume they’re related - like father/son, or similar
  • “Are you aware of the ability of this tree to be unnaturally terrifying?”
    • “I don’t know the species of this tree, so I can’t say anything about its properties”
    • He is unaware of not only Terrence’s fright ability, but apparently his abilities in general, as well as his ‘species’...weird for people who are related, so...
  • Jalan and Drant want to give it up, but Fritz wants one more clarifying question…
  • “Did your seed actually fall from his tree or did you just grow up under the shade of his branches”
    • “The shade”
    • Okay, so they’re not related by blood at all, but they share some sort of mentor or subservient or foster-parent relationship, where Tsed had some form of growth beneath Terrence
• Jalan gets bored and goes to talk to Terrence
  • “How do you know Tsed?” - he claims he doesn’t even know what we’re talking about
  • 
    
• Gregory calls
  • Man riding a large black horse with a large sword, four more men behind him in heavy armor, then a group of archers behind them...they look like government men
  • Drant feels some sort of fog lifted from his mind, is immediately aware of a group of people behind us, and to the left and right off the road...we’re surrounded on all four sides
  • “We’ve come to turn you in for your crimes against Ragnar and his great Empire!”
    • “Including the sacking of multiple Embassies!”
    • F: “Multiple?!?”
    • It takes her a moment to remember oh yeahhh, Stonedeep… technically yes we are responsible for the infiltration of two Embassies
    • J: “how did they even know that was us though?! That was so long ago!”
    • (DM: “and you are also fairly certain that your disguises in Stalwartz were solid…”
    • (so god damn it, something’s very wrong
  • Group to the north seems almost like a normal adventuring party, they declare they’re here to collect one “Prince Jalan Kendith” for the bounty on his head for the theft of 5 million gold from the crown
    • Jalan hops into the pleasure barge, disguises self, hops back out and pretends that “the ash-face teleported away while he was in there, oh noooo-”
• The groups seem to notice each other and get feisty
  • “maybe we can get them to fight each other and sneak out in the fray”
  • “A few of us, maybe, but we’ve got a full caravan…”
  • Group to the north
    • “Oi! The ash face is ours!”
  • Group to the east
    • Robot voice yells to “leave the gnome, she’s ours!”
  • Group to the west
    • Drant can feel the purple wolf there, it’s returned for him…
  • Group to the south
    • Some group from the government, maybe inquisition, maybe obsidian guard, but definitely pissed at all of us
• Jalan recognizes the voice to the east as jetpack guy, leader of the mechanical enlightenment we talked to earlier and who jumped through the hole in the cave ceiling, as the one yelling about the gnome
• Jalan turns to the adventuring group of bounty hunters behind us
  • J: “Let me go! I have a writ from the royal treasury!”
  • BH: “no you don’t! That’s where we’re taking you!”
  • J: “...anybody else here, I have a writ from the royal treasury!”
• One guy has like a .50 crossbow, with some crazy scope contraption...it looks like that shit would hurt
• Trying to entice them into fighting each other
• Gregory makes executive decision to back the squishies against a ridge on the left side while tension still hasn’t broken
  • Mercenaries form up a wall in the front, Terrence and Vincent too
  • Calypso, Naomi, and Alvira stationed to watch anyone who tries to cross the river and hit them full of arrows
  • Then pulls Fritz, Jalan, and Drant to be the forward fighting force for anyone who tries to charge first, near the bridge
  • Gregory whispers something at Jeochhmann, who starts to walk away, then Gregory tells Fritz to throw a flashbang in the air now
  • A bang, suddenly both Terrence and the pleasure barge is gone
    • Gregory whispers - Tristan is good at illusions
  • ME squad jumps off ridge in perfect unison
    • Fritz realizes, fuck...these guys are Robin-level guys, the ones who have no control over their actions in their suits...she tries to think back to her experience with them (they’re the flux suits she’s spent the most time with, after all), only remembers that there’s a kill switch that kills the wearer and shuts the suit down
      • F: “(shit…) try not to kill those ones, they don’t have any control over what they’re doing!”
• Largest, beefiest owlbear we’ve ever seen approaches from behind left
• Fritz talks to Mechanical Enlightenment, trying to talk them out of fighting
  • F: “We can talk, I don’t know what you want, maybe I can just give it to you!”
  • ME: “we want Jarvis!”
  • F: “I can’t just give him to you, but...I promise [“promise on what, why should we believe you?”] on my family name that if we get out of this alive we will talk and bargain like civilized people, I cannot promise I will give you what you ask for but I promise we will talk”
  • “With all the chaos that’s about to ensue, we might as well just steal him from you…”
• ROLL INITIATIVE
• (meanwhile Empire people and bounty hunter people were flinging shit at each other, Jalan and others were making preparations)

COMBAT

• (Drant realizes the four bounty hunters behind us are now only two...the other two are suddenly gone)
• Round One
  • “I guess it’s gonna be that way!”
    • Bounty hunter shoots this mechanical crossbow, sounds like a gun, knocks the guy backwards with recoil
    • Ragnar wannabe pulls the head of his horse up to intercept the bolt, it impacts the rips the head of the horse off, Ragnar wannabe tumbles off the horse, lands on one knee and looks startled
      • Collectively: “holy fuck--”
    • Two missing bounty hunters leap out from the sides of the road, tackle two archers to the ground
  • Stewart the lion
  • Spartan looking guy dashes forward
  • Fritz
    • Screams behind her “protect Jarvis!”
    • Starts to stab herself with adrenaline, ME guy whips out his go-go-gadget hand, tries to whip it out of her hand...he fails, she doses up
    • cackles...“Don’t get between a girl and her drugs”
    • ME guy mech-jumps backwards up the ridge and tosses something that explodes in fire
  • Wannabe Ragnar strides forward...
    • Four things happen
      • Ethereal skeletal wings, ,.....
    • Everybody but Jalan resists the fear aura
  • Jalan casts Faerie Fire on the ME hive mind guys, then jumps on Stewart (the lion)
  • Purple wolf does a “howl of the hunt”, a giant owl swoops down and tries to grapple Dan, fails, then flies away
    • Owlbear starts wading through the river
      • All ranged people release attacks
    • Back of road, rodents the size of people start coming out of the woods, then direwolves
    • Purple wolf steps out of the woods and shows itself
  • DM lets slip that the leader of the ME guys is named Watson
  • Drant decides Fritz needs help (F: “I’m fine-” D: “nooo you’re not”) and walks over there and casts slow on the group
  • Methos tosses a net at Roger 2.0 - misses terribly
  • Ivan grabs his shadowy sword with two hands and slices the net in half, a light shockwave buffets the group standing in front of the strike
  • Warcry from the four people wielding heavy swords and armor that were with Ivan, they charge forward and attack Gregory
    • Obsidian Eye = archers, faint twangs of bows over a far ridge we can’t quite see, where the two bounty hunters jumped the inquisition people
  • Gregory attacks the heavily armored guys, turns to Jalan and says “
  • All the mercenaries plus the people watching the river attack the beefy owlbear - BOB (beefy owl bear)
  • “Sean Jones” looks like he’s about to load his giant crossbow again, notices he’s being surrounded by animals...
    • Huge-ass crossbow has spikes which apparently aren’t just for show - he starts swinging it around like a greatclub at the pack of animals surrounding him, and kills one
  • The other bounty hunter
• Round Two
  • Fritz skirts the ME horde and gets up to the cliff face, uses her grapple launcher for the first time since the bandit stronghold, then adrenaline- climbs up the rope right into the unsuspecting Watson
    • F: “...miss me?”
    • Then tasers, then air in the bloodstreams (3 round delay)
  • Drant is attacked by the ME horde, tanks two critical hits, drops concentration on Slow
  • Ivan charges forward and deals 56 (halved because precognition, 28) damage to Gregory, then charges up his sword for another strike
  • Jalan casts Darkness on the tip of Gregory’s sword then peaces the fuck out - DM just for fun rolls the damage Jalan just negated by taking away Ivan’s reaction
  • Owlbear goes to try to eat Fishfingers, misses twice - Fishfingers retaliates by shouting “I am GOD!” and uses his fancy new armor, deals radiant damage, owlbear is considered “bloodied”
    • Sean Jones is grouped up on by the animals in the purple wolf’s posse
    • Owl once more attempts (and succeeds!) to grapple Dan, flies him straight up 20 feet in the air
    • Purple wolf howls something that sounds like “now!”
  • Drant disengages and moves back north across the bridge
    • D: “this is looking really bad...I’m sorry”
    • F: “Draaaant-”
    • M: “whatcha doin, buddy??”
  • Methos (in darkness) runs north, straight into Frank Mitchell (Spartan, one of the adventuring-party looking people who were Jalan’s bounty hunters), stabs him with the Chakram...but fails
    • F: “one of these days one of the dice roll you make will succeed”
    • M: “to be fair I rolled like 120 damage in the last session, I’m good to fail for a little bit”
    • Then backs back up into the darkness
    • *from Spartan’s perspective, little kobold sprints out of the darkness, shouts “OH FUCK!”, takes a swipe, then backpedals back into the darkness
  • “Massicar of the Nameless” (four heavily armored people) attack Gregory, only two hits for net 6 damage
  • Obsidian Eye spot Jalan riding by on his lion and kill it - NO! Jalan decides he really needs this lion, uses his reaction to somehow take all the damage instead of it (“your actions for Stewart emblazon him, he gets +2 AC)
    • Jalan reminds DM that DM had told him to tell him the next time he took damage...he takes 12 bleeding damage, his wounds aren’t clotting correctly, he will continue to bleed every round
  • Gregory goes darkness-ninja-killing
    • Strobe light impaling shoulder, then darkness, then body is chopped in half by sword, then darkness…
  • Brother Gurp decides to lead a charge...it seems he intends to use the rust monsters to attack Ivan
    • F: “yus!”
    • D: “well, as long as he has nonmagical armor…”
    • DM: “to be fair, armor was never exactly a focus of the OG Ragnar”
  • From within the darkness, hear a yelp and suddenly Ivan is running out of the circle, seemingly terrified
    • F: *GASP!* “is that Terrence?”
    • D: “if it was, he’s able to do his fear thing without seeing his target, because Ivan was in magical darkness…”
    • As Ivan runs past Jalan, he takes a swipe (even afraid) but hits, wasn’t gonna get sneak attack because of the fear disadvantage but Drant from afar gives him advantage
  • Fishfingers yells for the left wing to attack the owl and save Dan, then faces the owlbear alone...owl takes 84 damage from the crossbow/bow volley but doesn’t drop Dan
  • Alvira runs forward, uses her mage hand medic shit to stauch Jalan’s bleeding so he won’t take another 4d4 bleed damage
  • Vincent casts Shield of Faith on Fishfingers and DM says he actually gets a +4AC “because reasons”
  • Nymph casts a web around Gregory, hoping that he’ll be able to save because he can see it but the others can’t, but everyone in the darkness fails their save, Gregory included (Methos unaffected because spider patron class stuff)
  • Sean up north kills another wererat
  • Two headless bodies fall over the southwest ridge, and two bounty hunters stand up on the ridge, triumphant - it seems they’ve dispatched the side group of Obsidian people
• Round Three
  • Fritz heavy-hitter knocks Watson prone, then succeeds an athletic contest to press the Immovable Rod against his throat, pushing hard, then engaging it, pinning him to the ground
    • As some sort of reaction, Watson fires something and Fritz is grappled by a net - and is vaulted off the edge of the cliff from the force
      • From below, she hears grunting and struggling (he can’t get out from under the rod)
      • (we ultimately retcon all this because Fritz asks if she was knocked prone, then tells DM she has her gravity cloak equipped, and he says for flavor that she’s able to manipulate it to skid to a stop at the edge of the cliff)
  • Watson’s ME horde climbs the cliff to defend their master
  • Ivan goes to attack Stewart...BUT ROLLS TWO NATURAL 1s WITH ADVANTAGE, stabs his sword hard into the ground, loses concentration on his shadow blade, and lets out a whimper that breaks Jalan’s fear of him, Jalan is also given a free hit
  • Jalan runs away from the disarmed Ivan, then shoots at the owl holding Dan, kills it (Dan is dropped from the owl’s talons at a safe height of 20 feet into the river), Jalan then shoots his rope caster at Dan who does some really badass acrobatic rope swing stuff to end up going under the bridge and landing up on the side
  • Animals
    • Owlbear fails to hit Fishfingers with an AC of 24
    • D: “I’m just picturing Fishfingers against this owlbear like Gandalf and the Balrog”
    • (a whole bunch of funny references to Fishfingers following Gandalf’s story arc, getting drug down the river by the owlbear after he defeats it, seemingly never to be seen again, then returning as Fishhands McGoo with white robes and magical items)
    • A whole bunch of wolves/rats run up to Drant as if they’re going to attack him, but bypass him
      • (meta: he explains to DM that “he’s following orders” and that’s why DM rules they’re not attacking)
  • Methos stabby-stabs the guy in the darkness in front of him….and crit fails, but everybody protests because he literally hasn’t succeeded on a roll tonight, DM allows Drant to spend an inspiration to allow him to reroll
    • Guy’s restrained, he took his chakram, pulled it across his throat, then reached around and stabbed him in the eye with his offhand dagger

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 4: Untitled