Session 20: Magnificent Miscellanea
Bag of Holding Contents:At Beginning of Session
500 silver pieces, 250 gold pieces, a mage armor scroll, a summon construct scroll, a sleep scroll, and a restore senses scroll (from the moon painting void hole)
150g (session 18)
captured inferno (session 18)
Color fruit (session 17)
Azlanti book (The title, translated: Never to have loved at all) (session 19)
From Rutana's notes, need to be verified: (Sprite's notes in parentheses)
Fairy fire potion x20
Plate mail (from the ghosts? Fancy and expensive)
Magic transmutation book
Magic color apples in a bowl (Wrapped safely in a towel!!!)
5 scrolls
book
key (moon door)
Hydra candelabra
Magnifying glass (comprehend languages)
Ball of fire orb (bird's lamp)
(No change by end of session. Bag of Holding is a character sheet in Foundry now, so everyone can see and interact with it.)
Session Notes
Porting to Foundry. Setting character sheets back up!
Session opens in the Cartwright barn, with a pile of junk, a 10,000-year old prince, and several other very confused people.
The party spends the next hour or so organizing the folks into groups by language they can speak—whether it be common, broken common, or no common at all—and they end up in fairly even groups.
The party takes a list of names, about 30 of the 40 present. Some are being pretty cagey, uncomfortable with the situation.
Aside from the Cartwrights, the nearest people in age to any of those present vanished 45 years ago.
A couple hours pass, the refugees are mostly settled.
Telltale clinky clanks herald the town guards approaching, with a very tired Astrafel leading the way.
The party briefs Astrafel, then Naialah enters next, leading a procession of priests.
High Judge Arabella enters too, observes the scene, and gives Astrafel the most pitying look imaginable. She snaps her fingers and her flock of priests help heal and clean up the refugees.
The acolytes who had accompanied the party get commendations from their superiors!
Astrafel walks up to the party to ask where these people came from.
They inform him that one is 10,000 years old, and the rest don't have any living relatives.
One of the refugees who overheard this faints.
Astrafel wearily invites the party to that drink they'd agreed on earlier.
The Sprite walks up to Arabella and waves up to her from the floor.
"Thank you for sending the acolytes! They were a great help!"
Arabella notices Sartorii and the Sprite are colorful.
She agrees to research the color apples in pursuit of a cure, and takes the bowl.
"Adventurers. Astra." She says her farewells, leaves her priests to handle things in the barn, then returns to her church to do High Judgely actions and deal with the paperwork.
Astrafel takes the party to The Red Swallow, the tavern which the party visited for rumors in Session 000. It's not the biggest, but it does have a painting of a red swallow. The group takes a couple of tables behind blood-red, satiny curtains.
The party does recognize the stitching on the curtains; these were made by Naialah!
The party hasn't seen Astrafel out of armor before.
One might think upon looking him that the armor adds a lot to his frame, when in fact it doesn't. This half-angel's just built like a brickhouse.
While everyone else takes a seat, Rutana goes to get drinks.
The bartender, old and skinny, croaks, "Ohhh, I haven't seen Astrafel in here in like five years!"
Rutana orders a round of five apple brandies, one silver apiece. A nice pretty lately carries them to the table.
The same size glasses for everyone, including the Sprite. He's gonna have a fun time.
Astrafel thanks them for the glass. He'd never had one of these before. He takes his first sip, and Emotes. (DM: Now I won't say he's got resting bitch face, but I'll mean it.) His eyes get a little bit big.
He gesturesat the party. "In my vagabond days, I was fooled by a friend of mine into the mindset that Men get pints. This is much better."
"With all the strange things you've seen in such a short amount of time, I have to ask. Is this on purpose? Do you have a method, or...?"
General Consensus: "It seems when you try to do the right thing, this sort of shit just happens to you."
The Sprite tells him about the funny horse that followed them home from Greenwall, that had told them they were being watched.
Astrafel doesn't know what it is from that description, but it sounds like the party encounters so many things that most normal folks would only see maybe once in a lifetime, if possible.
Sartorii tells him about Sweet.
"Why are you the way you are."
"It's easiest to just not think about it until something weird looks at you from a mirror and the next thing happens."
"Now I'm not as religious as the High Judge, but have you considered someone has a plan for you?"
Rutana: "I hope it's a nice plan."
Sprite: "The only person who's told us a plan is that dumb gnome who wants us to give him money."
Astrafel puts his face in his hands.
The barmaid comes back to ask about another round.
A couple blackberry drinks, a stout beer, and another apple thing.
The tavern keeper in the background, juggling tumblers.
Astrafel: "So not for nothing, but... Why mercenaries? Rutana, why not a scholar at a university?"
Rutana: University has limitations on what you can learn.
Sartorii: Grew up here, but stealing street rat, no on wants that
Sprite: I don't know how I got here.
Clarence: I wanted to go out to help here, then I ended up with these people, and now I'm here. We help a lot of people though so I'm succeeding at my goal I guess. (Bast showing off her new favorite paladin with baby photos)
Astrafel: I honestly wish you the best. Look out for each other. You see the craziest things the more you look into the world, it's why I retired.
Tell us a story!!
Astrafel: This was probably 20ish years ago. We were down in the river kingdoms, a tomb had recently been unearthed, we were hired to make sure all the traps were neutralized. We would get a cut of the gold.
We go in, and this place was wall to wall with traps. There was a living chess board, trip wires everywhere, some that weren't even connected to anything—just there to fuck with us! Oh, I swore. Whatever.
Well. I... I was a bit more brazen back then. You know, you're young, take on the world, yadda yadda. We'd seen what most of the traps could do, they were pretty basic. We were going to be in there far past our allotted time to finish the job. So I looked to Ara and said, alright, listen. Are you confident in your healing skills?
Back then she wasn't High Judge yet—he smiles, reminiscing—and she said she's pretty confident, why?
So I stood up and I ran through them!
He unbuttons his shirt to show a big scar just under his collar bone.
Turns out all of them were darts of flame and darts except for the big scythe trap.
Detour to talk about the Sprite's be on fire contest.
So they got to the bottom of this tomb and found a pool of pure powdered sulfur. It'll be fine. It's fine!
These horrid zombies, poor whatever they are, I guess men who were buried under it as a preservation method, they climbed to the top and they were burning inside from the sulfur, necrotic fire. I had to get rid of the shield because it smelled like eggs.
Ara only left me with a scar from the scythe to tell me I was an idiot.
And the zombies fucking exploded when they died!! Oh I swore again.
Before they leave, Astrafel says, "Hey I'm supposed to give you these."
He pulls out four envelopes with the royal seal of Brevoy.
"I didn't open them, but I'm sure I know what they are. You're supposed to show up for an award ceremony. Windbag he is, Segrid First let slip that you were responsible for quelling a goblin rebelling at the old fort. Between that, Greenwall, and this too, you are to be publicly congratulated."
Rutana: Aw crap we'll have to deal with that gnome soon.
Sartorii: But we didn't do much, it hasn't been that long!
Astrafel: That's the thing, in so little time you've gone above and beyond the call, more than anyone would.
The current ruler of Brevoy is King Regent Noleski Surtova. Ruby Fortress, Dragonscale Throne. Society roll to learn more about him next time!
And then there was a real life actual earthquake right as the session wrapped up. Weird!