Session Summary #9

Started by Nathan Sherman, December 13, 2019, 02:30:08 PM

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Nathan Sherman

Session #9

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham

The party takes some time to discuss their options and next steps. They consider talking to the Church of Imarus about what they are doing and why they need the skull of one of their saints. They decide to wait a little while before doing that. Instead, they will explore why so many Surians have been killed in the city over the past several weeks.

Before launching into their search they get a scroll message from Boazman that he has his note book on the coding in the demon banishing book that he would like to give the party before he leaves. He arranges to meet with Akronos at the Black Mug cafe down by the docks and shows him the coding method used. He explains how it shifts from page to page.

He explains that there are multiple sections of the book; one dedicated to banishment analyzing in general; one for Ynthar and the three paths of mind, body and soul; one to the riddle and trap coding; one to the gate with a full map of the symbols that has each symbol actually light up individually when detected with magic and explains that this is the only part of the book that detects as magical; one detailing out the limits and range of the banishment pull and the plan to lure in Draxorith and the questions on why it didn't work. Possibilities on why it didn't work is that it was too far a pull through the ground, too much magic deflecting/shielding stone in that area of the ground or unexpected defenses of Draxorith as a Major Demon.

Boazmans workbook has all of the translated pages that he has figured out to date. He has focused on the banishment analysis, why it didn't work, how it was supposed to work and enough pages from the other sections to identify what those sections are taking about.

He then has to hurry to catch the boat to flee the city with his wife but will be available by scroll if needed.

They party has been careful not to been seen together while in town. They have secured separate rooms in the same inn and when they walk anywhere they walk in three separate groups with about 30 to 50 feet between each group. They have taken the city's rules about no weapons and armor seriously and those that are wearing light armor take efforts to hid it and smaller weapons are carried but concealed.

They go back to the Kettle and have Ceress talk to Drakos. Drakos explains that Saurians have been turning up dead in the Dockside district of town at a rate of 2 to 3 per day. This is a large section of town that spans all of the docks, warehouses, stores and inns around the cities harbor.

The party decides to get two separate inns in Dockside and try to find out who is killing the Saurians and why. They get a room at the Captain's Galley Inn which is run by Captain Trenchard and another room in the more rundown Broken Mast Inn run by Jonathan. Otep goes to talk to the city guard about joining them (hiring and training happen on the second Tuesday of each month, two weeks away) and also asks about the killing of the Saurians due to concerns for his Saurian friend. He finds from Gurk the Halforc city guard investigator that the dead saurians are being dumped there but are being snatched from all over they city. There has been more snatched around the University districted that anywhere else.

The party spends two days and nights in the Dockside district looking for clues and loosing track of each other with no real plan on how to proceed. At one point they all split up and go out on their own at night with no plan on how to communicate in case they find something or get attacked, but amazingly enough, none of them get jumped and killed.

On the 3rd day Lutheo and Akronos talk to some of the street urchins (Matt, Muddy and Puddles) and after a comedy of errors and missed clues find out that someone by the name of Smiley is willing to pay for information about a saurian traveling with a halfling, elf and halforc. He can be found at the Rusty Blade here in Dockside.

The party moves inns closer to the Rusty Blade and get rooms in the Lost Anchor Inn and the Tangled Riggings Tavern (testing the ability of the creators to come up with enough Dockside tavern names on the fly). Theren goes into the Rusty Blade and asks the barkeep if Smiley is around. It's early in the morning and Smiley isn't in the inn at this time. He gets a room and asks if he can perform for the patrons in the common room and spend much of the day just hanging out. Later in the afternoon Lutheo comes into the inn and grabs a seat to enjoy the music. Otep also comes into the inn a little while later, all three of them sitting apart and pretending not to know each other.

Akronos then turns Ceress invisible so he can also enter the inn and sneak around with the plan that he will go upstairs and look through peoples rooms. Ceress successfully sneaks in but forgets about the plan and just hangs out near Otep, being invisible and watching the crowd. Before the invisibility ends he leaves the tavern and finds Akronos waiting outside for him a few doors down.

Akronos and Ceress decide to walk past the Inn of the Rusty Blade while talking and tempt fate just one more time. Sure enough, an assassin surprises them by running his short sword through Ceress's back right in front of the Rusty Blade. The assassin has four accomplishes that come out of the crown and join in the battle. One drops a smoke screen that creates loud bangs and fills the area with fog, creating a ring of obscuring fog in a twenty foot radius around the combat. The locals on the street flee the battle, noise and fog, leaving the assassins to their work.

With the battle breaking out right outside of the inn, Lutheo and Otep run out the front door to join in and Theren goes around through the back door to approach from an ally. In the short time it take for the rest of the party to join the battle, the assassin has dropped Ceress, one of his crew has tossed some sort of portable hole on the ground and another member has rolled his dying body into the pit. Otep wades deep into combat and lays about the enemy with his mighty maul. Akronos gets out of the middle of the battle and casts spells dropping one of the killers. Lutheo drops one, Akronos revives Ceress just before he slips into the sweet oblivion of permanent death and with the party fully engaged the thugs are quickly taken out. Most of the party has been injured and burned through their resources quickly but they have dropped every enemy. While in the pit Ceress had seen that there was a handle dangling inside it. The party quickly rolls four of the enemies bodies into the pit to loot later and revive the assassin for later questioning. Picking up the handle zips up the pit and they take it and the contents of it with them.

The entire battle took only half a minute and the streets are cleared due to the magical fog and noise so no one is around to see the party scurry off through the nearest ally with the captured assassin in tow.


This is where session #9 ends. The party has escaped an ambush and captured someone that should be able to confirm their suspicion that Saurians are being killed because they only make up 1% of the population in Aridorn so they would be the easiest to narrow the focus for the escaped slave digging team.