Location: New Vasselheim, Issylra
Date: Whelsen, 22 Brussendar 845 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Party Members:
- Rinn – half-elf sorcerer/rogue
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
Absent Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Tunk – bugbear monk
Previous Session:
Before bed, Stubby sets both Alarm and Snare at the front door. 7am, Rinn comes by and gets caught in it, dangling and swearing in Draconic. Stubby and then Tāmarai go rocketing out to see what’s up, in their underthings/night clothes.
Stubby: So are you here to kill us?
[Reminder: Viktor Vonn’s clockwork dragon may have crashed on the Zenwick Mountains to the north. He may be alive, hidden by the weird magics going on in here.]
Just Hanging Around Till Something Happens
Dangling, wriggling, and swearing, Rinn does a great impression of The Hanged Man tarot card as Stubby laughs in delight that her trap worked. He probably didn’t come there originally to kill them, but now it’s definitely on the list of possibilities. (And it won’t be because the empress told him to. It’ll be purely for personal joy.) His anger and frustration are put abruptly on hold, however, as Rinn spots something suspicious and curtly tells Stubby to cut him down. Tāmarai frets that Rinn will fall on his head, but Stubby cuts him down anyway; Rinn fails to smash his skull, instead making a badass 3-point hero landing. That is how a rogue do.
Not one to crow about such a moment, Rinn makes for the stables, having seen someone on the roof. It turns out to have been not quite the smartest idea: there’s a whir-twang of a crossbow bolt aimed right at Rinn, and it strikes true, nailing him in the arm (6 piercing damage) and also resulting in a wave of nausea. Poison. This isn’t a regular house burglary, but an assassination.
Stubby orders one of her little clockwork buddies, Aegea, to protect everyone. It flashes with blue light, and everyone feels just that little bit tougher (11 temporary HP). Even as it does so, Stubby shoots a Thunder Wave at the hidden figure with her gauntlet. Not only does it hit (2 force damage), but it knocks the stranger backward off the roof (6 damage from falling). The resulting grunt of profanity has a masculine quality, so all three of our wee babby heroes begin thinking of the figure as “him.”
Thinking he is unobserved and subtle, Rinn quickly casts Blade Ward on himself. For good or ill, both Stubby and Tāmarai noticed the gesture of abjuration. The assassin stands and throws a dagger at Rinn, but misses; the dagger thunks into the outside wall of the Tal’Dorei Embassy. At the same time, Tāmarai runs around the other side of the stables to pincer in around him. Her Faerie Fire lights up the assassin with a sparkling blue outline, making him easier for the others to hit.
Aegea, Stubby’s little BB8, goes into the middle stable to continue boosting the ersatz party’s toughness. Stubby sends the assassin a Message, demanding “Why are you here? Surrender or die!” He replies, “She wants you alive. I want you dead.” Stubby now knows, though the others do not, that the assassin is here for her, not Rinn, as she and Tāmarai both originally assumed.
Rinn’s Dagger Dagger hit twice (total of 11 damage). The assassin hisses at him, “You aren’t supposed to be here!” and runs right past Rinn to attack Stubby again. Rinn takes the opportunity to trip him, and he eats lawn. Even so, the resilient bastard is not deterred. He leaps to his feet and goes after Stubby again with his shortsword (5 damage).
Tāmarai slashes at him with her occasionally-present claws. Her attack misses, but she uses Prestidigitation to land upon him a visible character in softly glowing Undercommon on both of the assassin’s hands, warning him that even though it will fade from his own sight, others will see it, unless she chooses to release him; and she advises him to stop. Despite being visibly intimidated, he does not appear receptive to that advice. Especially not after Stubby once again shoots a crossbow bolt out of her gauntlet? at him.
Rinn, too, continues his aggressive defense of Stubby with another Dagger Dagger. One hits, but the other misses. The assassin’s resolve remains unwavering. He is single-minded, caring nothing for Rinn or Tāmarai, focusing solely on his target. It’s an admirable trait, but a little misguided, seeing as how they’re the General Organas of this movie and he’s obviously a lone stormtrooper. Still, one supposes the characters in a movie don’t hear the soundtrack, and have no idea what side the orchestra has taken.
Yet again, Tāmarai misses with her claw attack. He’s tall, and moving very quickly. She orders him to stop; he doesn’t miss a beat, continuing to harry Stubby with his shortsword and daggers.
Stubby stops trying to reason with the person who has come to kill her, and focuses solely on crossbow bolts. They’re very effective. So are Rinn’s daggers. Though not all of them hit, throwing them as quickly as he does means that a lot more of them still land and do damage. He swears at the assassin in thieves’ cant, telling the bloke that he’s taken the wrong job. The assassin replies that he’s not the one who took the wrong job. Then he shouts out in Common, “For Vasselheim!” as he stabs at Stubby. (Unfortunately his Coolness Factor is nil; you’d think a nice shout like that would result in some damage, but no, the swing goes wide.)
However, that shout is enough to inform Tāmarai that she has heard that voice before. Not in the empress’s court; not from either of the embassies; not from any of the shopping they’ve done. Maybe at the Midsummer faire… she hesitates in her actions just enough to assess the little of him that she can see around his balaklava: ruddy, pale skin; covered ears; darkish eyes. She jumps at him for one more claw attack, and misses yet again, but at least her judo-roll off of him is stylish.
Stubby, getting a bit irritated, shoots two more bolts (one of which hits) and demands, “Who hired you?” Rinn drops one of his daggers and grabs at the assassin’s arm, delivering a Shocking Grasp. As he does so, there comes a low roll of thunder from the completely cloudless sky.
The assassin makes two more slashes at Stubby, then reaches for another dagger. He moves in such a way that there’s a moment in which no one is certain whether he intends to try once more to take Stubby down, or possibly means to take himself down. They all grab for the dagger to stop him. Tāmarai gets it, then holds it to his junk. (It’s right there, a little higher than eye-height for her.) “I wouldn’t,” she tells him, gambling that though he may be fine dying for whatever he imagines his cause to be, he would probably not want to risk living without his wedding tackle.
She is wrong. He steps right into the dagger and falls.
The trio tie him up with Tāmarai’s head wrap. It turns out it’s not a sleep bonnet, but a sleep turban, a very long length of silk. (It also turns out that Tāmarai’s hair is HUGE when it’s not restrained in a wrap or braids. Just wild all over the world, though very scrunched up from spending the night in that wrap.) They take away the stranger’s weapons, stabilize his health (and each other’s), and drag him to the niwa (inner garden) of the embassy. Tāmarai then suggests to Stubby that they need a message sent to the guard at the Xhorhasian Embassy, saying they would very much appreciate a military presence. Stubby’s Message spell doesn’t extend far enough, so she goes running to give the message in person. The guard tells her to return, and someone would be right over immediately.
Rinn and Tāmarai re-tie the assassin in actual ropes, giving Tāmarai her turban back, which she quickly uses to restrain her hair again. Then the two — and Stubby, when she returns — commence their interrogation; though that term is probably a bit more aggressive than what they actually do. They simply pull off his mask, Scooby Gang style, revealing Abe, the redheaded apple thrower at the fair. Answering their questions, they discover that Abe was sent by the local thieves’ guild to assassinate Stubby for the simple reason that the Empress wants her alive. The others in their group don’t matter, only Stubby. The Empress wants to destroy a city called Whitestone, and wants Stubby to be there for it, wants her to see it. It’s all for Stubby: a gift of sorts, they think.
Before they can disabuse Abe of the notion that Stubby and Empress Lydia are in cahoots, the door knocks. Tāmarai answers, revealing a Xhorhasian guard standing next to Ambassador Lanna Krynn. Ambassador Krynn has brought an anti-scrying candle so that they can all talk; the guard, seeing the damage done to Rinn in the fight, hands him a healing potion.
The Ambassador begins simply by putting it to him that he came to kill children and got his entire ass handed to him. She does put it much more classily, but the concept is remarkably clear. She also ask if this was ordered, or if Abe came of his own volition and initiative.
Abe explains, “We thought that destroying [the empress’s] method would keep her at bay.”
The ambassador notes that Abe works for the thieves’ guild, and suggests sending him back with a note explaining that the empress does not want Stubby alive as a partner to enjoy her plans, nor as a spell component, but to make her suffer. Abe actually listens, realizing that the guild’s information was woefully incomplete.
Ambassador Krynn also notes that there are no boats or ships to any other continent any time soon. The empress does not wish anyone to leave, and makes it inconvenient on purpose; also, boats that travel to southern Issylra have not returned. The empress is not related to the original Briarwoods as far as is known, so her taking of the name is suggestive.
Tam wonders if one mind can be put into another body. The ambassador indicates that it is possible, but does not believe that this is Delilah Briarwood possessing someone else. “But is that not more disturbing?” she wonders, then someone else wanting to take that name and accomplish such hurtful things in Whitestone.
Abe attempts to argue, shoring himself up with things he has obviously heard within the thieves’ guild. “But they got here and she invited them to the palace! And then put them up here at the embassy! They have to be working for her!”
Again, the ambassador disabuses him of the notion. “The empress summons everyone who arrives in an unusual fashion. Can you honestly think of anyone who has arrived in as strange a fashion as these? They are not the first strangers to appear before Empress Lydia, but are the first to appear out of nowhere.” Abe doesn’t believe the stories of how Stubby, Tāmarai, and the others arrived, but Rinn speaks up and says, actually, the group pretty much did magically drop in out of nowhere. Abe believes him.
Geralt, the guard, gives Abe a healing potion and Prestidigitates him to be a bit less bedraggled, then walks him back to his bosses to explain the entire situation. Before they go, Tāmarai gives him back one of his daggers, saying that a man should be able to protect himself — or a friend, she adds with meaning.
During the continued conversation with the ambassador, she asks to see the Flynn Stone. Casting Identify on it actually scares her. Visibly. “The entity inside this stone is very old. It was old before the Calamity, and it wants nothing more than to get out of the stone and inhabit a body with magical capabilities already intact. I would put it into a lead box, encase it in stone, put it into another lead box, and bury it deep in the early, then magically remove my own memory of where it was.” She pauses, glancing towards Stubby. “In fact, Whitestone may have an ideal place to keep it.”
“Oh, the Ziggurat?” Stubby agrees that it would be a good place for it.
The Ambassador regrets not being able to get the Flynn Stone to Whitestone, or even ask Whitestone’s permission for just such a protective measure. “There are more things also that should be there, rather than in Vasselheim. The Horn of Orcus, for one. And there is an important artifact of our people,” she indiates Tāmarai with a small nod, “that is also there, and it should not be there.”
Ambassador Krynn mentions that Lydia and Ryo were working with Krull (tortle), Arkhan (dragonborn). Viktor was working with someone as well, name unknown, but she believes it to have been a gnome, or some other small and angry person. There is more to the revolution than just those three. Viktor started it b/c their “leaders” didn’t do enough, soon enough, to stop Vecna, so they need a republic or a democracy. Lydia (then Livia Thorne) named Fort Viktor after Viktor Vonn, even after he betrayed her.
The ambassador also thinks Cobalt Soul know where to get proof of Lydia & Ryo betraying the people, and thus have the ability take Lydia down; because she believes Lydia is purposefully keeping people out of Old Vasselhim herself, rather than the madness being a byproduct of the explosion. All Cobalt Soul agents who have attempted to go to Old Vasselheim have had illness or strange accidents that were not caused by or in Old Vasselheim, so it stands to reason that the empress is either responsible, or knows who is. Stubby asks the ambassador with a Message, “You mean the Blue Sick?”
Ambassador smiles slowly in approval and gives a bit more information. The Blue Sick is related to something discovered in Aeor. The former Shadowhand spent time in the ruins, and through his work we came to learn that the ancients experimented with time, prolonging life; and through those discoveries came also the discovery of the wasting sickness. The Blue Sick appears to be an offshoot of this, but missing ingredients, including saltpeter, which she needs in a large amount. Of course, Aeor is not the only place one might find ingredients. It is commonly held belief that Eiselcross is the only place where the ruins of Aeor may be found, but there are other places, other norths, that hold smaller aspects of the city.
During the conversation, Stubby offers to let Ambassador Krynn speak to her parents. The ambassador assumes she means writing a letter to include in their tree-mail, but Stubby and Tāmarai instead bring out the communication stone. Stubby’s Aunt Pike is there, along with a snoring Uncle Grog just outside the view of the stone; soon Vex and Percy, and eventually also Aunt Keyleth, also make it there. Introductions are made, and briefly Stubby is given the news that her sister Vesper has had twins. Percy looks easily a decade younger just having seen Stubby’s face.
Once she sees Percy and Vex all together, Tāmarai gets a spark of idea, and whips out a sketch book to draw the empress, then holds it up to Percy and Vex so everyone in the room can see: the empress looks like a lost offspring of Percy and Vex. She is so similar, she could be one of Stubby’s siblings, albeit much stronger in the human features than the elven ones. Everyone is disturbed by this, wondering if she chose her appearance as well as her name to unnerve them. Rinn wonders if she is in fact a deRolo, possibly from (the same, or an alternate) future, and that’s why she’s so interested in dunamancy — she is into time magic?
They make plans to work with trees to send (non-magical) letters and objects back and forth, and only when that has gone safely will they try sending the Flynn Stone and so forth. They discuss time zones, and agree to a Zoom chat via Comm Stone on the morrow at dinnertime. Keyleth sees the tree behind them and knows she can scry on it. They’ll get Viktorya on their side, and the druids will tree talk, and…
And then Uncle Grog, asleep just out of sight of the Comm Stone, lets out a trombone-fart, smoking everybody out on his end of the call, and the call ends. Probably the timing is coincidence, but maybe not, because Grog farts are powerful stuff.
Once the call is over, Tāmarai realizes she has not offered proper hospitality, and makes coffee for the ambassador. She would have taken something stronger if they’d had it; Tāmarai makes a mental note to pick up some good sake (please, no one tell her they don’t make sake on Issylra). The ambassador also tells Tāmarai that her Mother trusts Tam’s discretion and capability to perform tea ceremony, though not advertise herself as shikomi. She mentioned adjusting the usual rates because these foreigners probably won’t understand the high price. She gives Tam a list of places where she can find the supplies she needs to begin offering tea ceremony and tea lessons.
She then offers to teach Stubby how to make those anti-scrying candles, and teaching both her and Tam some dunamancy. There is some discussion of Tam and Stubby moving into the Xhorhasian Embassy, though Ambassador Krynn feels it might look suspicious. They are welcome to visit any time they need to have an unobserved conversation, however.
The ambassador takes her leave, but later that day another gift basket shows up for Tāmarai. It contains a new hair wrap for Tāmarai, good coffee, decent booze, a sealed letter to be sent to Whitetone, and some money for Tāmarai. Plus a lead box either for the Flynn stone, or for letter sending.
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?
Loot:
- The Good Coffee – Household
- Some booze – Household
- Letter for Whitestone (sealed) – Household, for treemail
- Lead box – delivered from Xhorhasian Embassy for Flynn Stone or treemail
- 8 poisoned crossbow bolts – 3 Rinn, 2 Stubby, 3 Tam
- 4 throwing daggers – Rinn
- 1 crossbow – Rinn
- 1 poisoned shortsword – Stubby
- 25gp for Tam YAAAAY
- Hair bonnet – Tam