Session Report 11: A Fire Elf and a Shadow Demon walk into an adventure

General Summary

Earth Date: 23 Aug 2022

Sigil Date: First Guild of Regula, HA138
Sigil Time at the Start of the Session: 5 hours after antipeak
Sigil Time at the End of the Session: 2 hours past peak


This session begins with the characters leveled up to level 3 after an undisturbed long rest in Kateesh House and the characters go pick up their reliable weapons from Cutlet in the Great Bazaar.
Fiona Hylon recently got a message via the fire chicken (originally found in Alterro's pet shop) that Fiona was to "Go Home!". As the Kateesh approach the location of the Manor Hylon, they find that it is in total ruins of ash and rubble except for the large stone fireplaces of the original manor. Ett Tiberon, always keeping an eye on the world around him, spotted a elf with glowing red skin hiding behind one of those fireplaces. Ett used thaumaturgy to alert the elf that he was seen and he attempted to run with Ett in fast pursuit. An ogre bolt launcher also saw the elf run and shot his enormous crossbow at the elf. Ett grappled the elf and took him to the ground providing cover for both of them from the massive crossbow bolts while the ogre felt the fury of attacks of the rest of the group. The ogre died and a captured elf had a conversation with the group in the burned out ruins of the Manor Hylon.
The elf spoke quickly and with no tact or respect. The conversation was therefore blunt but the Fire Elf found it impossible to believe that Fiona did not know who she was or of her history. The following is logically compiled summary of what Fiona and the Kateesh learn from Fire Elf 6 in this protracted conversation.
Fiona was born as a bastard child to the King of the Plane of Fire and one of his maids (Maid 6, in fact). The King is simply called "King" rather than having a name. Fiona's mother died in child birth (Fire Elf 6 says it was "Fiona's fault!"). Upon her birth, King was afraid Queen would find out about his out-of-wedlock heir and get insanely angry. So King sent the new baby, Fiona, out of the The Plane of Fire to the The Plane of Ice where he assumed she would freeze. But in that bitterly cold place, the Duke of Ice, Duke Hylon who was an embassador to Sigil for the Plane of Ice, found Fiona and took her for his own. According to Fire Elf 6, Fiona's brother Ardent (who died in one of the first sessions) was also adopted rather than being the natural child of Duke Hylon.
Fire Elf 6 was sent, along with eight other fire elves numbered 1 through 10 but without 3 and along with a phoenix, to "rescue" Fiona from the Hylon family in Sigil. He called the Hylons her captors. This contingency of fire elves and their accompanying self-motivated phoenix were the cultists that burned the Manor Hylon to the ground and killed much of Fiona's family and servants. However, they are not the ones that killed Ardent. The purpose of this burning and slaying was to find Fiona and take her back to the plane of fire to become the new monarch since King is dying. The Fire Elves are very worried about the potential of Queen becoming the new ruler. They say that upon learning of the existence of Fiona that she went crazy and started worshipping a large fire elemental named Burno. In fact, Fire Elf 6 said that Queen had received powers that were granted to her by Burno and that those powers made her yet more insane. Queen is therefore trying to kill Fiona Hylon so that she can not return to the Plane of Fire and claim her throne.
To that end, Queen has sent another contingency out of the Plane of Fire into Sigil. This contingency is lead by a mysterious figure named Avid. Avid is some type of murderous mercenary of Queen who leads ogre bolt launchers (and probably others) to hunt down and kill Fiona Hylon. It is this contingency that captured Ardent Hylon and expected to use him as bait to lure out Fiona so they could kill him. Unfortunately, Ardent died on that first night after Leaguehiem -- eaten by fire beetles while he was restrained by the Avid faction.
Therefore, the fire elf contingency wants to kidnap Fiona and take her home to claim her throne so that Queen can not have it while the Avid=led faction wants to simply kill Fiona and the fire elves to prevent that from happening. Neither contingency, except for Avid himself, seems very intelligent or competant.
This encounter ended with the ogre dead and decapitated (head in the pouch of Leo Corrigan's new found pet mechanical kangaroo) and the fire elf unconcious but stable. The Kateesh told Fire Elf 6 that they would contact him, if they wanted to, via Fire Chicken 2. Fire Chicken 2 randomly teleports between his cage in Kateesh House and Fire Elf 6's shoulder.
Next the characters decided to follow Liath Doughn to an art gallery in the lady's ward to ask about a missing painting that Liath's father, Sitith Doughn, would stare at religiously for many hours of his downtime. The painting went missing on the night that the doors to Sigil slammed shut.
Liath led them Jorge's Treasures. Jorge is a shadow demon who speaks in whispered, condescending voice and calles Liath "young Doughn". The shop acquires and sells macabre art depicting demons, devils, and attrocities. The shop uses a continual darkness spell, cast by Jorge, to remain always darkened when customers arrive. After they stumble into the shop, Jorge dispels the magical darkness. This is Jorge's security and safety system (since he can see in magical darkness). However it also ellicits a strong emotional response from the shopper as they are quite suddenly surrounded by the appearance of Jorge's macabre art collection.
Liath asked Jorge if he knew what happened to his father's painting that hung in his private study. Jorge feigned not knowing what painting Liath was speaking about, but then fessed up that he understood the young Doughn's question. Jorge said he knew nothing, but he would keep his ear to the art scene about the painting. Jorge made it clear that he expected to be paid well for any information he was able to dig up. This social encounter ended with a bit of intimadation from Liath as he flashed silver coins (stingers) around in front of the demon. The encounter was tense, but seems to have gone the way Liath wanted and expected.
The next order of business was to check in on Caine Azarad's house. Caine's father is a planeswalker and was out of town when the doors closed, but Caine knows his mother was home when he he was drawn to be Kateesh. Both Caine's mother and father were Jateesh and as he left home Caine's mother recognized the symbol of the Lady of Pain burning on Caine's forhead and knew it for what it was. She wished him luck and told him that she was proud of him. As Caine left in a hurry, Caine's mother, a powerful wizard who taught lessons to lesser wizards like Alterro Direclaw, was seen packing a bag.
Upon getting to Caine's house, the door was solidly locked and trapped. After using his key to enter, Caine found the house in an undisturbed state. Caine took a few minutes to clean up the place -- especially the muddy footprints of Ett! He then left a note for his mother updating her on his location and intentions. The note was left on the bed and the doors were locked on the way out.
Caine then led the party to Oslo's deli. Oslo is a lizardman who enjoys cooking and serving meat on meat sandwiches. However when the characters got to the deli, which is in Caine's neighborhood, Oslo had no meat to cook due to the lack of imports to Sigil while the doors are slammed closed. Caine gave Oslo the decapitated ogre head and Oslo opened his shop for customers as he butchered the meat from the head.
This was Erik's last session for the fall semester, but Caine's character will be dragged along with us for a while because we had no good exit strategy for his character in this session.

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Report Date

12 Dec 2022