Dramatis Personae
- Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
- Dämmek, a human swordswoman with keen senses and the Living Blade.
- Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide.
- Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.
The heroes continue on their way to Seaquen. Dämmek easily avoids an unexpected bit of quicksand, but soon thereafter, she and Jesús have a disagreement on which direction to head to get to Seaquen.
They got into an extended in-character argument about which way to go, making up directions and landmarks as they argued. It was surprisingly entertaining.
Eventually, they decide to trust Jesús's assessment of the growth patterns of the local bryophytes and head in the actual direction of Seaquen. Soon, they encounter the backs of a pair of green-tinted gnomes peering through the shrubbery in the direction they are headed. They step back and, after some discussion, decide to approach the gnomes in pairs. One gnome eventually glances back and jumps out of his skin when he sees people coming at him from behind.
Jesús realizes these are forest gnomes, and the gnomes explain to the heroes that the Shahalesti started blockading Seaquen a few days ago and are now extending that blockade across the peninsula with ground forces -- in particular, the gnomes see a large group of elves, including several wizards, setting up a base. The gnomes think their best bet is to head north and try to cut around the elves.
After a brief discussion, Gusle suggests they simply walk up and talk their way through like they did when they were taking the longboat from the
Milsoven to Seaquen.
Aaargh! Here I am putting together a violent encounter to slow the party down (and entertain the younger players) so that word can spread of their heroic deeds, and of course Gusle reaches for the diplomatic option! Clueless of me not to expect that.
Basel disagrees, puts on his elvish high dudgeon, and asserts that these elves are looking for trouble, and the gnomes' proposal is their best bet. Eventually, Gusle is won over with the argument that they can always try diplomacy later.
So, the heroes and gnomes proceed north, but soon notice that there a hawk that keeps soaring nearby. "That's wrong." says Jesús. "Hawk's don't soar in drizzle!" They quickly realize that the hawk is keeping pace with them and surmise it's a familiar.
Eventually, as the terrain gets swampier, the heroes decide that the gnomes should duck into hiding while they lead the hawk further north, thereby giving them an opportunity, with any luck, to slip into Seaquen. The gnomes eagerly agree.
Fifteen minutes later, the swamp has gotten too swampy for them to be willing to proceed, so they first wander around a bit to give the impression of being lost -- which does nothing to shake their airborne tail -- and eventually decide to proceed east. They see three Shahalesti elves blocking their path.
"Hi, we're from Seaquen, and you have to let us back in because you're not allowed to let people from Seaquen leave the city," says Gusle.
One of the Shahalesti, Thalan, waves one foot a bit off the ground and replies, "Here, pull the other one!"
Gusle continues her argument, and eventually brings up the fact that they met Princess Shalosha. "Ah, there's the other one!" taunts Thalan.
Evenutally, the heroes decide that the conversation is pointless and proceed toward the Shahalesti patrol. In response, one elf casts
entangle as another orders them again to turn back.
"But wait," says Gusle. "How can we turn back when you have the plants trying to keep us from moving? Dismiss the spell and we'll turn back."
Basel, Dämmek, and Gusle do begrudgingly start working their way back (which is also the fastest way out of the
entangle), but Jesús has had enough. Once he's managed to escape the plants' grasp, he leaps upward and charges through the air at one of the Shahalesti. So much for diplomacy! Jesús's attack is successful, bringing down the one, but another of the Shahalesti releases a storm of arrows at Jesús, bringing him down into a heap. Fortunately, Jesús had already managed to cast a slow-acting healing spell on himself. He nonetheless spent the rest of the battle unconscious.
Unfortunate, that. While I definitely wanted someone to stir up trouble, I also wanted him to take a big part in the action. On the other hand, he conceded that he should have spent more effort preparing himself for battle before flying off the handle and intends to do better next time.
So, the heroes -- at least those that are conscious -- start working their way around the entangling plants, using trees for cover when convenient and taking shots with their bows as the opportunity arises, quickly bringing down another in the patrol. The one remaining standing then ducks down, crawls over to his ally, and stuffs a healing potion down his throat.
Now back into the action, Thalan returns to his plan. He's already cast
haste and now proceeds to cast
flame arrow as his ally heals the one Jesús brought down. He then uses one of the flaming arrows as a target for a smokey
pyrotechnics spell, engulfing both Basel and Gusle in a thick, choking smoke.
My original plan had been to use either the torchstaff or the flaming stump hook as the pyrotechnics target, but both of those were with Jesús.
The heroes continue trying to reach their downed comrade. Gusle and Basel manage to hide themselves behind a small tree to avoid the arrows. Alas, that set them up for the next trick up Thalan's sleeve -- he unleashes a
lightning bolt, frying Basel, singeing Gusle, and destroying the tree.
At this point, Basel has enough. In a flash of wizardly insight he realizes that Jesús benefits from Indomitability's boon. Trusting that the boon hasn't been activated yet today, he flings a
fireball at the four. That ends the encounter, and Jesús is only moderately annoyed that he was forced to pre-enact the rebirth of the Phoenix.
The heroes quickly search the bodies of the fallen and recover many scrolls and potions, a few wands, and a spellbook, along with three magical cloaks. They push on to Seaquen, arriving late at night, get to their residence, and promptly pass out.
The next day, the heroes go to breakfast and are startled to discover that they're famous heroes, thanks to word spreading about their rescuing the crew of the
Milsoven. Gusle really wants to sing an intricate improv of their darings-do, but Basel manages to pull her away by promising her to let her sing all about it at lunch.
Simeon isn't at the Lyceum when the heroes arrive, so they talk to Professor Vett instead. Vett is impressed by the profit opportunities a dragon egg would present, but has little information to offer the heroes other than the name of the broker he used to sell off his stirges.
They then manage to talk to Professor Steckart. He's grateful that the heroes are eager to help deal with Naizelasa, and promises that someone at the Lyceum will negotiate with the Shahalesti to permit them to return to the Dragonspire.
They have a brief conversation with Marlena, the broker Vett mentioned. Their story of an angry dragon outside of town inspires her to start preparing to leave the city, and she is only partially reassured when they say the dragon only threatened to attack ships. She doesn't have any good leads on where to find someone broking a dragon egg but promised to let Vett know if she comes up with anything.
Their last hope is Paradim. They make their way to Majestic Creations and talk with him about dragon eggs. Paradim thinks buying a dragon egg is a terrible idea, as his creations are much easier to train. However, once they explain why they're interested in dragons' eggs for sale, he tells them that Nira, his contact with the people providing his store's security goons, mentioned that someone hanging out at the Battle Royale was looking to sell an egg.
Cernaban seemed like the logical place for Giorgio to hire a halfling assassin -- through an intermediary, no doubt -- and gave me an excuse to introduce another of the NPCs.
So, the heroes decide to have lunch at the Royale, but only after first dropping by the Lyceum again to tell Simeon about everything.
The heroes have lunch and then go for a low-key approach to finding whoever might be selling the egg. Not low-key enough, though -- soon a young woman with her hair tied back in a pony table and bristling with weapons parks herself at their table and introduces herself as Natalie. Gusle talks in generalities and vaguely suggests that whoever might be have stolen a dragon's egg should be worried about the dragon's wrath, among other things. Natalie manages to come up with an excuse to head up to the more exclusive parts of the Royale, but invites Jesús to join her. She then manages to leave Jesús to his own devices as she heads up to the even more-exclusive parts.
Jesús, seeing little to be gained from hanging out on the middle floor, rejoins his compatriots.
I turned Nathan Lowduke into Natalie Dubas to throw off the player who had been through this adventure originally.
I was surprised that they -- well, Gusle, really -- was so coy with Natalie. With everything else, they launched into a frightening exposition about the dragon threatening to torch ships, but they didn't make any attempt to play to Natalie's morality and instead hyped up the threat to her in particular. While that makes sense, it did complicate things slightly, as I was assuming that all the NPCs involved with the egg would be working with the same information, which is no longer the case.
Anyhow, for reasons no longer entirely clear to me, Natalie decided that things have gotten too hot for her to remain in Seaquen. When she ditched Jesús, she went upstairs, downed her last spider climb potion, and climbed down the outside of the Royale. When Jesús went back downstairs, he briefly entertained the idea of flying up to see what interesting there was on the top floor, which would have allowed him to catch Natalie running off, but unfortunately didn't follow through on the idea.
Feeling at a loss for leads, they heroes return to the south shore and ask Paradim how they might find Nira. He sends them to a building sized for halflings, to their discomfort. Nira, after hearing what the heroes are on about, pass them on to Cernaban. Cernaban listens with interest to what they have to say about the dragon and the egg and assures them that he will let them know anything he learns. In the meantime, he is able to tell them that Natalie works at a brothel called Roger's Jollies, easily identified by the rather obscene Jolly Roger hanging above the door.
When they get in sight of Roger's Jollies, a woman with a canine muzzle, tail, and fur excitedly strikes up a conversation with Gusle, impressed that she was so clever as to get dragonfly wings from Paradim rather than the obvious butterfly wings. They chat a bit, and learn that the foxy woman, Jacklyn, works as Roger's Jollies as well, and is able to explain that Natalie provides security at the brothel and has a bed in a storage room on the second floor. Jacklyn in turn learns that Gusle's wings are original equipment, much to her surprise.
Jacklyn brings the heroes into Roger's Jollies, where they learn that Natalie had stopped by her room recently and left again. They manage to arrange to visit Natalie's room anyhow, on the pretense that Jesús wants to leave Natalie flowers and "girly" note with glitter on the outside and stalker overtones on the inside.
No, I don't know what a "girly" note is either, but he was adamant that the note be so described. And what self-respecting whorehouse wouldn't have some glitter handy in a store room?
Their leads exhausted for the time being, the heroes decide to stop for dinner. The inn they visit already has entertainment: Pickens Frankhart is holding court, going on about how Seaquen is trying to keep people down, etc., etc. Gusle attempts to convince him otherwise, but he twists all her points into "evidence" for his conspiracy theory. Eventually, she gives up and instead starts singing, quietly at first, to pull people away from Pickens.
I'm not sure how I want to deal with the Shahalesti letting them past the blockade. I had been thinking that they should go by sea just because the fleet is probably a bit less angry about their attack on Thalan than the land forces are. Then again, I can also see them being total jerks and letting them out but not letting them in -- or ambushing them on their way back, or.... Choices, choices!
Our next session is planned for the sixth of July.