Session 35: Port Damali Run Around

General Summary

The party greeted Thunda Largegut, a leader of the Claret Order, at the door to their new house. He said, "I have a lead" and then was brought inside. He took a seat inside in the downstairs living area and made small talk about the place and Immal before bringing the conversation back to why he was there.
He asked if the party had heard of the people who have gone missing in the area. It had been made mention in passing here and there, and looking back, some of the party remembered seeing whole town square statues covered in missing person posters. He explained that this has been an increasing problem on the coast but nobody has been able to find out what has been happening.
Sometimes people are found dead, covered in animal marks or dead from thirst or starvation. Others are actually found alive but have no recollection as to why they just up and left everything behind and ended up wandering around. No leads, until now.
Thunda told them that a contact he has within the Zhelezo (the Clovis Conchord's military) that had someone come forward with info about one of the missing persons. Apparently an elven woman named Teriani Beijor, a leathworker, had some details but the Zhelezo didn't take her seriously and sent her on her way. He was also told that she mentioned the tavern The Dancing Orc. So, whether or not this lead back to the Shadow Brood or not, it might be something worth checking out anyways.
The party gathered their things, full armor and gear, but packed a lot of it in the bag of holding to not draw too much attention, and headed down to The Dancing Orc.
It was a standard tavern in the Tumbledowns (the poorer portion of Port Damali) and it had its fair share of customers that evening. The sign above the door painted with a jolly, dancing orc on it. The party entered and Atreena immediately approached the bar and ordered an ale.
Brother Les talked to the bartender, an Orc, and asked if they knew where to get leatherworking done and was anyone in the tavern that night to speak about it. Persuading the bartender, they pointed out Teriani sitting at a table with two others. Brother Les ordered 4 ales and approached the table.
He quickly made friends with her and the others with the offer of ale and started talking to her in elvish in order to gain some privacy. Eventually, her friends left the table to allow for more talk on the subject of the missing person.
She explained, and with a little embarrassment, that she has been smitten with the missing person, Sieb Zwinsel. But about a week ago, she saw him talking to a beautiful blond woman that had sharp features and ears and could be mistaken for an elf, but not to an elf. He left with this woman on her arm (much to Teriani's jealousy) and then noticed after a few days that he was not showing up at the tavern as usual. Then, the missing poster appeared. She went to the Zhelezo but they told her that they could do nothing about it at this time; that there were too many missing people to worry just about hers. She described what this woman looked like but said she wasn't in the tavern this evening.
Meanwhile, the tavern bully saw the threatening size of Pooka enter and stood up to make sure he would not have to deal with Pooka. Pooka, making sure that no threat was coming, flexed a little and then scratched the bar a little to intimidate the bully. But this only served to make the bully upset at the damage to the bar.
Fortunately, the party got the details, and the name of a few other bars in the area that this woman has been seen at, and left before anything happened between Pooka and the bully.
The party made their way a couple streets down to The Stinging Nymph where they did not find the woman, but the bartender did mention that she did come in some nights and recollected that some of her regulars that left with her didn't come back. The party left.
They then made their way to The Bull in the Mud, where as they approached the door, a striking woman fitting the description walked out of the bar with a human man on her arm. Atreena immediately melted into the late evening shadows of the lamp light and then climbed up on the roofs to follow. The rest of the party made to enter the tavern, then turned to follow at a respectable distance.
A few streets down, the woman and her man turned into an alleyway. Atreena followed easily from the rooftops and watched them go about halfway down before they stopped and started kissing. A few minutes later, they stopped, the woman whispered something into his ear and then immediately parted; the man started walking to the other end of the alleyway to another street while the woman backtracked to the original street.
Atreena followed the woman first, watched her leave the alley, saw that the party watched her leave, and then immediately turned to follow the man.
As the woman followed the street back, Brother Les bumped into her and said a quick sorry to her for it and then when she walked a bit, called on his god to light the woman for his eyes wherever she went within a certain distance. They then followed from an even farther but safer distance.
Atreena followed the man, who walked back towards the Tumbledowns but kept going and eventually was approaching the northern most gate of the city. Atreena ran ahead of him and dropped down to the street and tried to gain his attention. She managed to do so and asked him if he could help her find her way to the Dancing Orc. He told her the directions but said he had important business outside the city and had no time but good luck! And then walked on.
Brother Les, Eglantina and Pooka followed the woman to some small apartments in the Tumbledowns where she entered for presumably the night. Then Brother Les used his god's messenger powers and spoke to Atreena about the woman's location. Atreena responded about the latest with the man, and the rest of the party started running towards the same gate.
Atreena followed the man out the gate into the dark night, keeping a distance. It wasn't hard as the 2 moons were full and bright. But the rest of the party quickly caught up and eventually reach Atreena without alerting the man.
They followed him a bit longer before he turned off the road and headed over the grass towards a small bit of forest. Believing that is where he was headed, the party jumped towards him and Atreena tried to tackle him, followed by an attempt to trip him with a stick, but that didn't work.
Brother Les thought about hurting him with some of his damaging powers, but decided against it. It probably would have killed the poor guy.
They did manage to surround him though, and with Eglantina's help to know he was enchanted, Brother Les called on his powers to potentially remove any enchantments on him. The power of Pelor was enough and the man was freed from an enchantment spell, and was immediately pissed off at the woman. They learned he was heading towards the trees to meet her there for "sexual bliss". They told him to turn around and go home. He happily did.
The party entered the forest. Atreena took to the trees while the rest of the party fanned out. Atreena quickly came to a small clearing where she spotted 4 individuals. Two relatively elvish like, similar to the woman and even others they fought in Molaesmyr, a mutated mass of a humanoid between humanoid and snake, and then one of the Yuan-Ti with a normal body but a snake head. They were waiting with a small one horse and cart in the trees.
Brother Les took it upon himself to enter the clearing, acting as if he was the one that was told to come here. With enough bullshitting, he managed to get close enough to them to touch them, but when one of the yuan-ti put a hand on him, he revealed his ruse and the snake headed figure shouted to kill him.
Immediately, Brother Les jerked away and took some steps back, casting and calling on his god of light to illuminate the entire glade with dawns brilliance. The middle of the clearing was suddenly as bright as day, but the area was also burning with that lights radiance. All four of the enemies burned from it, but it didn't kill them. Brother Les called out to tell his friends to stay out of the lighted area.
The rest of the party jumped into action. Eglantina hexed one of the yuan-ti and fired bolts of eldritch energy, punching holes in some of the them. Pooka sent in his echo to slash at the yuan-ti with the Lash (meanwhile, he felt pangs of disappointment from the Lash as he did so the echo being obliterated by the dawns light in the clearing after it wrecked the creatures. Atreena jumped down from the trees, fired arrows into them and threw bolts of necrotic energy.
One yuan-ti managed to escape the brilliantly lighted area, and tried to hypnotize some of the party with a massive swirl of colors and shapes, but nobody succumbed to it. The light followed it, and so did Pooka, and it was quickly struck down.
The fight was over in less than 30 seconds.
After the light faded, the party took stock of the creatures and the cart. They discovered the tracks leading back and they decided to see if the horse and cart knew its way back to where it came from. Eglantina jumped to the reins and with the invisible guiding hand of Xalicas, helped the beast find the path again and the horse seemed to know where to go. They followed the cart for a couple hours to ensure it wasn't straying then stopped the horse and bedded down for the night in a grassy field.
The next day, they gathered their things and hoped the horse would continue its path back. It seemed to. The horse led them north to the Gilded Roadway and the bridge over the Tyodan River. They crossed the bridge, passing by some other random travelers. About an hour after crossing the bridge, the horse veered off the road onto a poorly kept dirt road that led into the forest to the south. They followed it.
Once they entered the trees, Atreena crawled up and scouted ahead. After a bit, she found a large clearing in trees where a small fortified building stood. The building was stone and stood two stories tall. It had a large connected wooden palisade on its side with what could be a courtyard in the middle. Along the palisade stood yuan-ti guards, some more human like, others far more snake like. On the roof of the first floor (the second floor only covered the back half), was a ballista. She went back and reported what she saw.
They stopped the horse and let it graze while they moved ahead quietly. They all saw the same thing and then moved to the tree line opposite the complete stone side of the building. They made a plan to run and scale the walls to the roof of the first floor, to quickly enter with a surprise attack. They were quiet enough that it seemed none of the inhabitants of the building knew they were there. Counting to 3, they rushed forward.
They made the wall quickly, Brother Les stopped at the wall and boosted up Eglantina, who reached the top quickly, saw some targets and fired off bolts of eldritch force energy at some foes. Pooka almost reached the wall, then called upon his Ring of Jumping, using a magical force to propel him 15 feet up in the air, over the battlements of the roof. While in mid-air, he materialized his echo form near a yuan-ti on the roof, which proceeded to slash away. Pooka landed with a thud but ready for battle. Atreena climbed quickly up with her claws and fired arrows and her necrotic energy. Brother Les, after ensuring Eglantina was up, took a few steps back, then took a running jump up and managed to climb his way up the wall.
All four party members stood on the roof. Yuan-ti along the palisade turned with fury at their invaders, along with some in the courtyard. And who knows how many still lay inside the building itself? And what else could be found here?

Report Date

15 Oct 2021