Session 34: Pule-ing Ourselves Together
Sartorii capped off her night of drinking and info-gathering by praying to the partybooze god and was gifted a morning free of hangover.The party spends two days resting. Sartorii checks in with her various info brokers during the downtime.
Party each gets 100 gold!
A staff of healing is delivered to Linden.
Razor sharp and silvered, with an opalescent handle, a rapier named Moonbeam is delivered to Sartorii.
The Sprite is bestowed a Wand of Reaching!
Alexei attempts crafting some scrolls, fails.
Sartorii rolls Society to investigate the info brokers, gets 21.
Her list was five names long, and she manages to clear three. One is dead, the other two keep well away from religion.
Uugnok and Besh are all that remain.
With another roll of 22, she discovers Uugnok has had his hands full with the war effort down in Numeria. A warlord named Uugnok the Great has been folding up barbarian clans into his army.
The newspaper arrives honoring the Heroes of Greenwall!
Sartorii shares the result of her investigations.
Ser Dori comes down the stairs, sporting a shiny new sword after the party all forgot to get one for him themselves. He's slightly singed, and he apologizes for taking some metal scraps to make the sword himself. He's concerned about the elf who shadows Besh. Very poorly hides that he wants to duel the elf.
(DM introduces Ser Dori to Alexei and Linden's players.)
Ser Dori perches himself upon a chair, waiting for the chance to go duel an evil elf.
The Woodwatch crew gets a letter informing them to speak to a notary for further reward.
The Sprite sends a letter to Alexei and Linden inviting them back to Woodwatch Tower to discuss further plans.
The letter is incredibly fancy, calligraphied in gorgeous ink and highly eloquent, as if penned from the desk of a prince.
P.S.: Bring cheese. Yours in arms.
Alexei rolls a 1 on diplomacy to requisition a wheel of cheese.
He uses a hero point. 11.
Cheese success! He gives an IOU to his monastery. Robin Oryn, an opera singer running the Church of Shelyn, makes the exchange.
Linden spends 25 gold on the fanciest possible cheese wheel.
Alexei and Linden make their way to Woodwatch Tower. They spot a massive fucking bird inside the fence north of the tower.
Linden rolls a 16 to identify the terrorbird, a young adult hanging out in a fenced field all her own. No chain, no cage, no netting across the fence.
Sleeping on either side of the door to the tower are two very large monitor lizard with collars. Cozy in sunbeams, lazy.
The place is very clean and obviously lived in, just in a state of disrepair.
Alexei and Linden knock at the door. As Alexei turns to ask Linden if they should come back later, the door is opened by a disembodied glowing hand.
Sartorii and Clarence then answer, confused. The Sprite had not told anyone of the letter.
Alexei and Linden enter, also confused. They brought gifts of cheese. Alexei introduces his cheese and hands it to Clarence.
The Sprite shuts his book with a sharp crack and flits down from his nest of old books. "So. Sartorii found some information regarding who set the cult up in the sewers. I figured it was time for us to talk next steps. The cheese is for Rutana, she'll make grilled cheeses for the planning session."
Linden returns his very fancy cheese to the carriage.
Alexei's cheese:
Alexei and Rutana start work on the grilled cheeses. Linden shows the letter they got to the party, he was sure they were supposed to show up to a fancy soiree! But nope. That's the Sprite's handwriting.
The party catches Alexei and Linden up on who Besh is, and what he's done.
Linden asks if this is the person they need to get rid of.
Yep.
Alexei turns to Linden, uhhh you didn't say anything about coming here to plan anything terrible.
Rutana chides him to focus on the cheese. Don't burn it! Arguing means not paying attention and it'll burn!
At that point, Ser Dori crawls onto the table, still flaunting his very new, very well-sharpened blade.
"Take heart, young holy man! The destruction of eeeevil, wherever it lies, is the true calling of any heroic soul!"
Alexei coos at how adorable Ser Dori is.
"Hm. Don't like that."
Then ensues impassioned discussion attempting to convince Alexei to join them in murdering Besh.
Ser Dori posits that as the chosen investigators into this cult business, it is well within their right to search Besh's property, potentially digging up proof of collusion.
Linden manages to convince Alexei to at the very least go along and offer guidance.
Ser Dori also proclaims he will go along with them to meet this duelist!
Grilled cheese stress eating ensues. Rutana enables this by making two whole sandwiches for Alexei, and even tiny sandwiches for the Sprite.
Ser Dori's sword:
Actual planning ensues.
Alexei has a suggestion. As a member of House First, he could meet with Besh on those grounds to engage in civil discussion.
This plan is soundly laughed down. Alexei defers to Sir Clarence's wisdom. He is a Champion whose soul has been tempered by faith! Clarence, however, is tempered by confusion.
The current plan is scoping out Besh's villa to gauge his schedule or determine if there's any way to get in the walls. Linden will do druidy things to conceal them.
Besh's villa lies west of New Stetven, across the river.
It's two stories with some gardens, built to look foreign.
Sartorii uses a hero point to roll a nat 20 on stealth check, beating the DM's total of 20 on perception.
Sartorii and Linden also get pretty good perception checks.
At any point in time there are about 24 guards on staff, but they don't seem to be all that good at their job.
24 Guards
14 Servents
Sly
Besh
Unknown Man
There is a total of two entrances into the house, and one in the garden.
Main entrance, front garden, back garden. The wall is spiked.
Linden suggests jumping some of the people leaving the villa, taking their clothes, and walking in under disguise.
The servants wear light-blue dyed tunics and work pants, plus boots. The women seem to get recycled more often than the men. They go through servants pretty quick.
Ser Dori offers to challenge Sly to a duel in the courtyard to create a distraction. While this is happening, Linden can weaken the wall with druidly actions.
Ser Dori requests this happen just before high noon.
Linden suggests entering behind the stables in the southwest corner of the villa.
During the night, Linden casts Weakened Earth on a section of the wall, causing it to appear cracked and weathered.
The next day at 11am, up walks Ser Dori. He rented a riding dog just for the occasion. He ties this great dane off just outside the walls.
"I had heard that your resident duelist is a blackguard, but that he is skilled. I plan to put this to the test. You there! Carry message to him that I plan to test my steel against his."
The guards look at each other. Are...are you serious?
Ser Dori goes off on them for a solid minute on the rules of etiquette and dueling. The guard's like I'm not dealing with this, opens the door and starts heading in.
Besh, who stands only a few inches taller than Ser Dori thanks to his hair, comes out with his retinue in tow, discussing the semantics of this and whether or not this is proper. Eventually, it is agreed. All the guards pull out swords and shields, and Besh starts a countdown. When he hits 1, all the guards slam their swords to their shields.
And when he hits 1, Clarence strikes the weakened wall with his shield. The cracks spread. Linden finishes it off, jamming the butt of his staff into the widest crack and knocking the bricks out.
The party files in through the fresh hole in the wall, but spot a thug on patrol, so they quickly file back out.
The thug tolls 27 on perception and spots the pile of bricks strewn on the ground. He wanders close to investigate. As soon as he peeks his head out, Linden, Sartorii, and Clarence all clap hand, wing, and claw on him, forcibly yanking him out the hole of the wall. He's disarmed, disrobed, tied up, and dragged far out from the wall.
Alexei spends the whole time apologizing while Rutana shushes him.
The Sprite leaves trail mix in the thug's lap.
