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Episode 6: Hot Heads and Fast Words
Last time you began in the forest. Kelnys, Dolly and Endellion disguising themselves in the cloaks and masks of your fallen foes. Raidion and I (the character, not the me) hiding among the branches of nearby trees. After hours of waiting, and Raidion and I sharing a hammock nap, someone finally arrived. It was an exhausted, hungry, masked dwarf who refused to give her name. She passed on a message that you were to “return to the caves”, but as Dolly questioned her further on those caves and probed for more information, she became wary. She suggested that you should make your own way without her; that she needed to rest and recover her strength. High in the trees, I made a gesture to rell Raidion to say silent, though after a poor insight check, Raidion let fly with a Mind Spike which both harmed and terrified the dwarf. As Kelnys and Dolly attempted to intimidate her, she fled towards the tree line. Raidion casting Web before an arrow to the back from Endellion’s longbow snuffed out the dwarf’s escape. Chalk one up to experience.
You headed towards Baruun and stashed the cloaks and masks beneath the grate in one of the sprawling shanty towns that spreads out from the city walls. Kelnys spotted Raidion replacing his cloak and mask in his pack, and though making his disapproval clear, the dragonborn did not prevent his companion from doing so.
At the gates of Baruun, your bags were summarily searched. One of the guards moaning that someone called Grenwyrd (a member of the Council of Equals) was throwing his weight around unnecessarily by insisting on checking the packs of travelers who entered the city.
You gained entry to The Depths, the lowest level of Baruun, and hive of industry and activity. At its center you found a great staircase with a mural of The Virtuous scarred by the words “The Shadow Will Flood” in black paint. Raidion spoke to a guard called Marcus about the group you had encountered in the forest and demanded a reward for this information, swiftly being shot down in that request. Marcus took the party’s names (though Dolly referred to herself as Pamela) before you made your way up into The Deal (the second level of the city).
After filling your bellies with meat skewers, you approached a tavern called The Wise Walker. Endellion, Kelnys and I headed inside, but Raidion spotted a hooded orc beneath a half-finished web symbol scratched into the tavern’s exterior wall. He revealed himself to be a member of The Web. Telling Raidion and Dolly that The Spinner sends his regards.
The others were retrieved from the tavern and you all followed the orc, Casper, to his hideout beneath an abandoned apothecary. There you met Juno (Casper’s lieutenant) and Goff (a silent soldier who stared unblinking into the middle distance). Casper informed you of your new mission: to break out a member of their chapter, a halfling called Madea from Baruun jail. You headed out to case the joint before midnight when a guard change would give you a chance to spring and escape.
Down in The Depths again, Kelnys Wildshaped (it was a big moment for everybody really) into a cat and searched the walled jail complex (making friends with a guard and discovering a sickening act of violence that had been perpetrated by a female inmate that day). He also spotted a halfling matching the description of the one you were meant to rescue locked in a basement by looking through a grate in the jail floor. This done, he returned and explained the layout. “I” took up a vantage point overlooking the area and resolved to make his entrance via the roof planning to shimmy down on a rope secure to the outer walls of the city.
The plan for the others involved a Disguise Self-ed Radian and Endellion posing as guards while Dolly played the part of a prisoner, though Endellion wisely decided that her skills lay elsewhere, so she would keep a watch from outside. Kelnys turned back into a cat and slipped again into the jail complex. Raidion and Dolly put on quite a show at the gate, gaining access on the condition they were accompanied by another guard. As they made their way towards the jail, “I” misjudged his distances, crashed into the ground (alerting the guards to his presence) but a swift clamber back up the rope afforded him a chance to stay unseen on the outer walls of the city.
Kelnys entered the jail before dropping his cat form and trying to open a large door that gave access to the basement. Here he was spotted by a prisoner who begged to be released, though Kelnys snuck away as Raidion, Dolly and the other guard entered. Raidion convinced his guard companion to go home for the night, though not before lending Radion his keys. As you passed his cell, the prisoner made another plea, this one to Dolly. She recognized him as Indie, an old acquaintance and agreed to release him. He was too scared to help with the escape of the halfling however and instead snuck away towards the gate house.
By now “I” had made his way down to the ground behind the jail house (taking some falling damage in the process) before he scaled the building and shimmied down the chimney, joining his companions as they relieved the guard on duty in the basement.
There you met Madea. Bloodied, bound, and unafraid. Chained in a cell between grates in the ceiling above and the floor below. As you heard the sounds of Indie being recaptured in the courtyard, you quickly removed the grate in the floor allowing access to the fast flowing sewer water beneath. Radian unchained the halfling but triggered a glyph which left him briefly paralyzed. Madea insisted on having a weapon and having been lent Kelnys’ scimitar, thrust it through the throat of another inmate who “had been looking at her in a way she didn’t appreciate.” Heaving Raidion’s paralyzed body with you, you all jumped into the sewer. As Raidion regained the use of his limbs, you negotiated protruding pipes, sudden drops, and a near-death experience for “I”. As Madea managed to swing herself clear of the water, the rest of you were catapulted out of the sewers into a lake beyond the city walls.
Stinking but alive.
Endellion, you have watched your companions (as cats, disguised as guards, and as rope-toting Kobold rogues) disappear towards a prison complex. Then you have started to hear shouting. You can’t hear names, but you hear that someone is being recaptured in the courtyard. You are at a distance. There was a kind of collection of buildings that you were near. “I” had gone up and got a vantage point and looked into the compound. You, for now, have stayed on the ground floor.
♪Episode Song References♪
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Highlights
Endellion:“Hmm. Not my favorite…”
Great reaction from Alex. His visual enthusiasm is a sure sign of an invested player.
Essentially it flows out into this wide, shallow, rancid reservoir.
You can see some of the shanty towns have been there for quite a while. The city is about 100 years old and you reckon it probably would have met its capacity about 50 years ago (in terms of the housing they have there). There’s no reason why some of these smaller areas (that are closest to the city walls) couldn’t have sprung up 50 years ago and so have been there for quite a long time. You can see smoke curling out of chimneys. There’s signs of life. There’s torches lit. Like the streets of a village, think of them as a series of villages that are outside. It stands to reason while you can’t immediately see anything that there would be wells. There would need to be a facility for these people to have fresh water.
Dolly:“Our fault, but not our problem.”
Endellion:“Shit.”
Kelnys obtains “grey meat” covered in paprika.
Dolly:“How do you think?”
Casper:“Poo pipe?”
Casper explains that there was a dwarf on the council, Rashiid. A month ago he went missing. In lieu of an election, they drew lots from all the land owners. Grenweard’s was the name that was pulled. (Casper fails to pronounce another name starting with R-I, then mentions something Endellion is familiar with named Mouse (a small town to the southeast). No one knows anything about him yet. He’s such a minor noble, the family people don’t even know the family crest. They’re still trying to work on his seal. We hear rumors that he’s trying to make himself of use, but doesn’t realize he’s part of running the largest city in the now. You know? He’s not running three fields, sheep, and a tanner’s
Endellion:“Yeah, there’s a lot of sons (speaking of her brothers back in Mouse).”
Casper:“Bit of a beefy lad, a bit dim.”
Endellion:“Could still be any one of them.”
Then, where you are at the moment, The Deal, it would be Artisans. Then the prime real estate in Baruun is closest to the exterior walls because you get more light. you’d have the estates of notable scribes and low-level town officials. Ombudsmans (i don’t know exactly what it means, but it’s such a good collection of sounds) who would have their estates there.
Then up in The Crest, which is the very top, that is where there’s this extraordinary suspended park with a lake in its center. There are estates of the rich and powerful. There are separate plazas that are accesed by walkways. It would stand to reason that the Council of Equals (which is the government of Baruun) that is positioned up at the crest. The major religious sites would be positioned up there. It stands to reason that Grawnoth would be somewhere up in The Crest. I also think that’s more than reasonable that he would have told you of his destination.
Hollie:“‘I’ the me, not the character.”
Alex:“Dammit! It was Right There, Alex!”
Harry:“-says fade.”
Alex:“Goddamn, that’s good!”
“I will take you to see him. He is very tired.”
She leads you through a doorway and then into a study which is full of scrolls and books. There’s a chair that was once black leather, but has been patched and repaired innumerable times, so it’s more patches than it is anything else at this point. An ancient-looking desk carved from a single piece of wood, broad with spilled ink speaking to centuries, even millenia of use. Then a curtain beyond.
Brunhilda opens this curtain and at the far end of this space is a window which looks out towards the sky and Reliquiae beyond. The drapes are half-closed and there’s a great four-poster bed. Sat in that bed, propped up on pillows, is Grawnoth. There’s dust hanging in sunbeams as they come through the window and there’s a sense of stillness in the air. The smell of beeswax, pine needles, and fresh linen. Before him on the bed are strewn papers. A quill and ink on a bed table beside him. As you look at Grawnoth he’s changed. The piercing blue of his eyes has faded almost to gray. His hair and beard are white and thinning. He raises a hand in greeting to you and you see his fingers are crooked and arthritic. His knuckles are swollen and his cheeks have thinned. His eyes are ringed with red and when he breathes in, you can hear his breath ragged in his chest.
You notice Brunhilda doesn’t want to spend too long looking at the figure in the bed. She says,
“They have come as you said they would. I will leave you to your discussions. You call for me if you need me.”
(continued)
The tree beyond (I have no doubt you would have seen it) is the Feywild. Beyond futher, the Shadowfell.”
Raidion:“Reliquiae is a lie.” (and strikes again)
100 years ago, the gods began to fade (The Virtuous faster than before). They decided when they created Reliquiae that their penance for the crimes they had committed upon their people was that they would allow them to flourish uninhibited. Knowing that they would one day fade themselves (as their power was diminished by those they brought into being), they made Alvelion an open city. They trained. They knew that their absence would come and they wanted those people to flourish.
(On that unknown day) 100 years ago there was a sudden change in them, a weakening almost overnight. It was then that they abandoned Alvelion, seeing their condition they did not want their people to fear the weakening of their gods and so they made their home in Atria. We started The Deference so that only we could see them, only we could speak with them, and understand their teachings so that no fear, no panic would grip the people. Perhaps it is this child. Perhaps the child is a demigod.
more gentle bedside manner from RaidionRaidion:“We’re tied to this. We’re going to be alone. We’re underpowered and you are going to die.”
Harry:“He is in the room…”
silenceDolly:“Of course it does. It’s The Web.”
Raidion:“They wouldn’t tell us anything.”
Dolly:“Of course they wouldn’t. It’s The Web.”
Raidion:
lets out a breath like he's been holding it for a contest“Thank you!”Endellion:“Cheap, coming from you.”
Raidion:“I think I’ve taken enough licks today, thank you.”
Endellion:“Hot heads and fast words.”
Hollie:“Love that word.”
rolls a natural 20on persuasion to get them an audience with the High Advocate Trusk.“You must be Pamela…”
Ben can hardly contain his enthusiasm for a while.
Raidion:“Except they didn’t.”
The smile on Harry’s face.