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Viktor Marsk: Journal entry 3-54 Aftermath of the train disaster I remembered shouting, lots of shouting, maybe even fighting and suddenly, people being thrown through the carriage. The next thing I know is a peculiar young fellow asking me what happened. My face was in the ground, train parts and dead folk everywhere. The Raven Queen must have decided she still had uses for me. The scavenger, his name was Yetarlin Fizztinkerton, noticed that not all people died because of the crash, but some might have been killed beforehand. Upon investigating the wreckage further with my new acquaintance, clear sounds of fighting pierced the sky, followed by intense arguing. Seemingly two other groups of people have run into each other and a nervous guard nearly caused a bloodbath, were it not for some magic from a young lady called Luka. However this magic seemed to be something she was not willing to embrace. The other travellers included a snobbish young Elven noble called Esynndir, who was clearly born into a position of some power, but seemed to have an intuitive connection to nature. There was the honor-bound strider Eli Gupper, who is swift with his axes and notably an elderly monk from a land far away seemed also having ended up in these lands. He went by the name of Borma and seemed to be mostly concerned with stuffing “wordly pleasures” down his throat. This initial careful encounter shifted abruptly into a concerted effort to survive the cruel attack of shadow creatures, which proved to be resilient to most efforts. Without any hesitation, the group decided to face the threat head-on. And what a showing it was. Borma proved near unbelievable agility, when he sprang into action hammering these perverted abominations with his bare fists, legs and knees. Eli showed his proficiency in the use of his weapons, fighting with a viciousness, I have never observed before. The scavenger showed also a new set of abilities, as he attacked as a whirl of blades. Luka hailed crossbow bolts from the back of the field, putting serious hurt into those creatures. In the heat of the moment Esynndir realised that the elements could be of vital help in this deadly encounter, conjuring shards of ice and hurling them, however whilst they proved very effective, the collateral damage also sent one of his allies to the ground. After a long and hard-fought battle, not only has the group proven their capabilities in combat, but also compassion in the tending to the wounded. Encounters like those don’t happen by accident and I shall see where the Lady of Fate shall lead me traveling with these adventurers.

Viktor Marsk: Journal entry 3-55 The troubled town of Newsham The first rest with the group was interesting, people started to get to somehow know each other and the trust forged in battle was still present. Nevertheless, the raven kept a watchful eye as we slept. The next morning, we headed towards Newsham, a small farming village. Approaching the outsets of the settlement, barren fields and underfed commoners painted a grave picture of the state of this place. Were it not for the despair on the faces of the people it would have been a nice place, well-build and maintained houses, a lovely townsquare and a friendly tavern. Mayor Pimball, a man with the charisma of a sheppard and the self-importance of a king, murmured about problems with people going missing. It had come to the point, where farmers refused to tend the fields. People were malnourished, the food in the tavern was awful. To be fair, that did not stop Borma from digging in though. Esynndir was somewhat quiet in the tavern. I reckon the accident with the frost magic was still on his mind. A couple of loud and rude soldiers in the corner of the tavern caught the eye of Luka and Yetarlin. Apparently they were refusing to pay in coin, but had an arrangement with the owners about “guarding” the place. Even before we got served any food or drink, Luka and Yetarlin started a heated argument, which ended with a gnome throwing himself at a soldier literally twice its size. Let’s just call it impulsive, youthful lack of judgement. The others weren’t far behind and joined in immediately. After observing this spectacle for a while, some help was in order and those “guards” got what they had coming. Money was taken, bills were payed and Eli and (somewhat impressively) Luka “took out the trash”. Village folk were cheering, as those ruffians must have been a nuisance for far too long. A celebration was in order and I only seem to have a hazy recollection of the events to follow. Next morning we set out without Esynndir, who still felt heavily under the weather – him and Borma had shared a bottle of the taverns finest in the evening – to investigate the brutal, savage killing of a local town boy Tom, who was one of the latest people to die around Newsham. It was not too long, until we came across a disturbing sight. Three of the soldiers we booted out of the city had been brutally killed in the middle of the road just miles outside of town. The raven warned me just in time, so we could prepare somewhat for the ambush of beasts, we could later identify as gnolls, ruthless warriors wielding spears and bows. Immediately a battle line formed with Luka and me trying to stay out of immediate harm’s way as much as possible and attacking from a safe distance. Borma showed his lust for battle and blood, fighting with a precision only revealing itself to a keen eye. Eli showed once again how effective and relentless his axes can hack away at anything he opposes. Yetarlin, showed a lack of fear very uncharacteristic for his kind, taking these vicious killers head-on. It looked like a close, but winnable encounter, when suddenly fate struck. Luka’s eyes started flickering as she hurled a bolt of fire just wide of the gnolls, but a look of shame crossed her face, as Yetarlin noticed this. Maybe it was this fire and the confusion and intrigue it spawnedin him, but the gnolls managed to land too many heavy blows on the scavenger and he hit the ground bleeding heavily. A howl of these creatures attracted a pair of hyenas, one of which was of giant proportions. Somehow the hyena, as if obsessed with these corpses, started tearing away at those slaughtered soldiers, consuming their flesh at a disgusting speed. This lack of concentration allowed its giant partner to charge me and inflict heavy wounds. Borma and Eli showed prowess in felling the last of the gnolls, but they were wounded dearly. Luka hurled crossbow bolts, hitting hard and true, when a grotesque spectacle unfolded, as the hyena desecrating the bodies howled and seemingly twisted internally, until in a sudden movement its skin broke, blood splattered and another gore-soaked gnoll monstrosity had entered this world. Only by the skin of our death we avoided certain death. I still can feel the claws of the hyena and the arrows of the gnolls. Even Eli had passed out during this battle. Luckily Borma was somewhat proficient in tending the wounded. We carried Yetarlin and Eli back to town, where Esynndir healed their wounds in an expertly fashion and shared some of his knowledge about those savage beasts. At that point, we clearly had some beef with the major, who’s incompetence of providing information had nearly cost us our dear lives. Hearing of the gnoll invasion, a trembling in his voice was not even somewhat hidden. He just wanted to run. A big evacuation was the plan. “Let’s go to Griffonclaw, there is soldiers to protect us.” I don’t know, we can’t face these packs of beasts head-on, but travelling for days through the wild, with hundreds of underfed farmers sounds not like the greatest idea either. We got him to organise a town gathering. Let’s see how Newsham feels about this. If only Lady Fate would tell me her plans. Could this be it? Show me the way.

Viktor Marsk: Journal entry 3-56 Journey to Griffonclaw At last people started to gather in the town square, but so slowly and lethargically. Only raising my voice speed things up at all. It was unbelievable. The Major still tried to save his skull, even at the expense of all his village. Our efforts in convincing the people of Newsham, that a 3-4 day journey through gnoll infested woods might be the death of them all, were saved by the calming and reasonable words of Eli. Under his leadership and with the help of the locals we reinforced the defences of the local tavern and its basement, so that people could hold on in the event of an attack. Most people could be convinced to remain here and under Darcy’s command they held themselves together. Mayor Pimball, and some of his closest friends however deserted the town, which surprised no one. We did not have much time. We marched fast towards Griffonclaw, where wo hoped to get help in form of soldiers. On our travels, we run into a couple of disgraced soldiers, who in order to survive have decided to turn on innocent travellers. Eli and Luka took up flanking positions, whilst Yetarlin and me decided to stay behind. Borma acted as bait for a trap to be sprung, in case these marauders could not be reasoned with. Which they couldn’t, poor souls. Their leader and another were killed, we managed to capture the third, but the fourth escaped. Pointless deaths of those civilians and their attackers, six graves. Griffonclaw was not the most inspiring. The guards were on edge. The smell was awful. Some of the soldiers stationed here, had clearly not seen any war, or maybe too much. 30 soldiers in a city of this size during war. What a disgrace. Guard captain Mulberry was a reasonable man. Poor son, trying to keep this bunch of vagabonds together. We managed to obtain approval for 5 guard soldiers, half of what we asked, but five more than I would have given for this suicidal rescue mission. Nevertheless, we also were promised a different asset, payed for by Mulberry. We travelled to a local tavern, where we should be able to meet this mercenary. The food was mediocre at best and so was the liquor. It was not until long that an enormous goliath with a temper came in and started being himself. Gracy, the bartender, was visible scared he might cause trouble, but nevertheless we tried to hire him for the dangerous return to Newsham. Whilst the money was a point that did not go so well, the promise of right-out slaughtering some wild beasts seemed to turn him towards our cause. And so we will continue our efforts to save the people of Newsham accompanied by five guards and a short-tempered brutal maniac.

New beginnings/Willy lost his crabs Ampwell, Harvest, Hendrick, Lupin, Meritash, and Sasha woke after staying a delightful evening at The Rusty Fl-ale. The serving boy asked the group if they could deliver a letter to his sister who lived in Taer Valaestas, the party’s destination. The party agreed to complete this task for the nervous, nameless boy. The group asked for direction from the rich, but very disgruntled owner of the inn and set off on their way. Lacking a capable navigator, the group promptly began to travel down a dark and overgrown pathway. Suddenly, a man blocked the path of the party and began to demand surrender. When the man threatened that thirty arrows would be shot into the party, the academics of the group began to ask, argue, and theorize on how many bandits would be used to unleash thirty arrows. Would it be one bandit with a quiver of thirty? Six bandits with five arrows apiece? Or a mob of bandits who really needed to make their single arrow count? As the party argued over this vital piece of information so that they could make a calm and rational decision for the man, the human was himself riddled with arrows! It seems that a party of clever goblins had ambushed the human’s allies and slain them silently while he had threatened the party. The party immediately sprung into action when presented with a tangible, non-theoretical foe. Many party members began blasting and slashing their way through the goblin band like a thresher through wheat. Harvest did not. (She was having a bad day. She didn’t sleep too well last night.) Sasha revealed her true form: a large bear that attracted the ire of many goblins. After a few injuries and many goblin deaths, the party emerged victorious! The bodies were promptly looted and a large floating disc was piled high with the spoils of war. Lupin, unwilling to let the issue of goblins drop convinced the party to search for any remaining goblins. After a short rest, the group set off in search of more goblins. After tracking the goblin trail a short ways, the group was caught up in a goblin trap. Luckily, only Harvest was the only injury and that was quickly fixed by Meritash. Discouraged by the trap, the group decided that pursuing the goblins was not worthwhile and decided to head to the city. Upon arrival at the city gates, Ampwell stated that the weapon collection was intended for donation to aid the city’s defenses. The party was directed to the guards barracks where they dropped off the weapons and informed the guards about the dangers of the goblins outside the city walls. After a few inquiries, the group also learned about a minor bounty on the head of the bandit who had tried to rob the group prior to the goblin incursion. The group promptly collected their gold. After their discussion with the guard captain, our bold adventurers began to explore the city, specifically looking for a place to stay the night. They learned about several exciting places, and finally decided that the Passions Embrace was their ideal destination for rest, relaxation, and some alcohol. When the barmaid who greeted the group at the door expressed doubts about whether Lupin would be able to find a seat at a table, the gargoyle promptly left to explore the city. After looking at a job board, the group was approached by a crab farmer by the name of Willy. Willy was desperate. He had lost his crabs! Harvest began to empathize with the poor farmer who was anxious to regain his livelihood and convinced the group to help the man. The adventurers split up to briefly explore the city, but nothing exciting happened. After several hours, everyone met up at the Blackorb Inn to settle in for the night. Crab day cometh. . .

Bad Case of Crabs After a full night’s rest the party woke in the morning and all but Lupin began to consume a hearty meal of bacon, eggs, and toast. Lupin took the opportunity to find their employer for the day, Willy the elven crab farmer. Lupin invited Willy to join the party and the party interviewed the elf on the crabby situation. Willy knew where the crabs were located and could easily lead the party to them. However, the crabs were aggressive and strangely did not recognize the farmer who had cared for these creatures for hundreds of years. Before setting out on their crab-hunting expedition, the group decided to sell a few items that they had picked up from the earlier bandit and goblin incursion. After some keen negotiating the group sold the items for a whopping 12g! The sale had completed the group’s current business in town so they picked up Willy who was quietly sitting in the corner at the Black Orb Inn and set off to wrangle some crabs! Down by the riverside, the party immediately spotted a cast of crabs 12 members strong. The crabs did not immediately attack the explorers. Instead, they seemed interested in defending a specified area of the river. As the group began to probe and test the area the crabs were defensive of, Harvest stepped too close to one of the crabs and all of them suddenly became aggressive. It seems crabs don’t like tigers. . . Willy watched in horror as the party was forced to attempt to subdue the crabs using non-lethal force. After all, the job was to wrangle the crabs back to Willy’s farm, not kill them. Sasha the bear set about knocking the bears unconscious as Harvest grappled crabs nearby to try and keep them from striking at the bear’s back. Meanwhile, Meritash and Hendrick proved to be surprisingly adroit at tag-teaming crabs and subduing them. Ampwell, the small gnomish mage, tried to sneak into the protected area while the crabs were distracted but that only made the crabs madder. Several crabs emerged from within the waters of the stream, knocked out Ampwell, and began dragging him away. Seeing his traveling companion get knocked out and start to get dragged away, Lupin took a risk. He quickly grapnelled to the opposite side of the river, taking two solid hits in the process and blasted the crab that was attempting to drag Ampwell off into oblivion. Ampwell was healed but Lupin was quickly buried in a pile of angry crabs and himself fell unconscious. Things were beginning to look dire. The group’s two mages were separated from the group, desperately battling to keep from being knocked out and dragged off. As one crab began to drag off Lupin, Ampwell desperately began to blast all nearby crabs with an impressive volley of magic missiles. On the other side of the river, the remaining four party members were surrounded by an sizable cadre of crabs. The party was slowly making progress, but the need to use non-lethal force made the process much more difficult than it needed to be. The scuffle ended after a few moments more. On one side of the river, a battalion of crabs had been subdued, mostly alive. On the other side of the river, several crab corpses lay around an unconscious gargoyle and a very wide-eyed gnome. The crabs near the riverside had been recaptured, but the group was still bothered by the unnatural behavior of the crabs. After ensuring that the subdued crabs had been returned to Willy’s crab farm and taking a short rest, the party headed back to investigate for any cause to the crab’s strange behavior. After a short search, the group followed a path to a riverside bluff. In the first cave of the bluff, the party found nothing. In the second, the party was forced to put several crabs to sleep before being able to explore further into the cave. In that cave they were confronted by the Crab Lord, a crazed halfling druid evil by any standard put before him. The Crab Lord gave a short overview of his plans to replace the civilizations of the world with a new, better crab-based society. His shrill words failed to convince the party to join his new utopia and battle commenced with the strange cry of “Prepare to get crabbed!” The Crab Lord was a fierce foe. As his army of crabs once again attempted to maim, trample, and grapple the party to death, the Crab Lord struck out with devastating magics. He entangled the group with a patch of overgrown seaweed and then was able to knock both Harvest and Maritash out with a fierce wave of thunderous force. Seeing the dire situation, Hendrick himself let out a massive blast of energy that downed several crabs. As Ampwell too was dropped by the horde of crabs, Crab Lord made a dire mistake. While trying to reposition himself behind a formidable wall of crabs, he opened up an angle which allowed Lupin to pull him directly into the middle of the remaining party. Sasha was able to quickly heal Harvest which caused Crab Lord to panic. Crab Lord tried to flee but Lupin, after a missed attempt to drag the fleeing crustacean monarch back to the group, settled for blasting the fleeing halfling in the back. As the seemingly dead body of Crab Lord floated off down the river, the remainder of the crabs returned to their normal, non-aggressive state. The party, exhausted and a bit puzzled by the strange being that they had overcome picked themselves up, tended to their wounds, gathered anything of use in the Crab Cave, and headed back to town. Tomorrow the party would likely look for some other form of work, ideally something that did not involve seafood.

Extreme Goblin Prejudice- I Love It When A Plan Comes Together! Location: Taer Valaestas Party: Ampwell (Bojacx), Harvest (Paige), Hendrick (Schmmil), Lupin (Foster), Maritash (Kam), Sasha (Alica) After recovering from their crabby ordeal, the party was approached once again by Willy the crab wrangler on behalf of his friend Frunk. Frunk had work for the party. Something about his kids. . . The group did not show a lot of interest in working for Frunk, but they told Willy that they would contact him if they wished to complete the job for Frunk. As the group considered what their next job should be, they remembered that they were still carrying a letter from the nervous assistant at the Rusty Flale in Hillford, a nearby town. After checking the letter, the party was able to locate the boy’s sister, Vailca at a nearby estate. The party managed to convince the guards at the estate that they needed to speak to Valica. After delivering the letter, which the group learned was a request for living expenses, the party became a bit curious about why the boy, now identified as Roblin, was not just living with his well off family. Valica was not forthcoming and the party did not care enough to push any further. They agreed to deliver the requested sum for a payment and then headed to their next destination. Lupin was finally ready to complete his business within the city. With the group, he headed to the finder’s guild, House Tharashk. The group was greeted by a half orc named Daric d’Velderan. After giving a detailed description of his brother gargoyle, Fenrir, Lupin agreed to pay House Tharashk’s fee of 100 gold. Their business in town completed, the party decided to head off to Hillford to complete their delivery of gold to Roblin. As the group journeyed towards Hillford, they heard a desperate shout, “Not my last axle!” The group approached to find an elf who introduced himself as Old Tommy. Ampwell fixed whe axle with a few moments of concentration and the merchant offered to pay the party for safe escort to town. Sasha seemed reluctant to help the elderly elf, but Harvest’s enthusiasm and the party’s need for gold helped the old man to find an escort. The old man was quite the rambler. He regaled the party with stories of his misspent youth and the good ole days. Lupin quickly grew tired of the old man’s ramblings and took to the air to “scout”. The party continued along the pathway until they came across the site where they had been ambushed by both bandits and goblins before. The site had been cleared. Although the group was on edge and looking for trouble, they did not see the goblins until they were right on top of the group. The group managed to take out the group of goblins and hobgoblins after a brief and painless skirmish for all but Harvest. While searching the bodies and claiming any equipment and treasures, the group found a ring inscribed with the letters BFF. Old Tommy recognized a unique cultural item that always came in twos offered to pay for a set of two of the rings. Lupin, once again enraged that the goblins would dare to now attack the group twice, argued for the party to wipe out the goblin presence in the area after dropping off Old Tommy and Roblin’s money. In town, the group parted ways with Old Tommy after offering to buy his cart. Gold was traded and the group was now the proud owner of a cart! At the Rusty Flale the group did not see Roblin. Lupin began to ask around and was able to hunt down the nervous assistant and deliver the gold and letter to him. As he began his sob story, the gargoyle uncaringly walked off. Meanwhile, Ampwell was getting into trouble. He had headed to the nearest table full of drinks as soon as the party had entered into the tavern and just grabbed the drink off of the table, claiming it for his own. The men who had ordered the drinks did not care for the for the bold gnome’s audacity. The man whose drink had been claimed by the gnome began to swing at the gnome, but before the fist could impact, the clever gnome had put the man to sleep. Satisfied, the gnome once again claimed the drink and walked off with his ill-gotten gains. Shortly after, the man and some friends attempted to get revenge on the gnome. A quick casting of sleep once again solved the problem with no bloodshed needed. The party was sadly forced to camp outside of town because of the gnome’s shenanigans. The group woke the next morning and proceeded to goblin territory. Ampwell was able to sneak up on a goblin sentry and put him to sleep just before Lupin gave away the party’s presence in the area. The group found a sentry horn and hatched a plan. Lupin would stay in the area that the sentry was posted and blow the sentry horn to lure out a goblin war party. Meanwhile, the rest of the group would take a roundabout route to get to the goblin village and attack once the camp was unguarded. This plan would hopefully allow the party to destroy the goblin base of operations without too much danger. The plan began without any problems. The horn call lured off nearly half of the goblin camp, but a formidable force still remained. As battle began, the group was able to establish a strong defensive position at the top of a hill after Lupin had blasted the hobgoblin who was carrying a horn that could call back goblin reinforcements. The goblins were forced to charge through enemy fire as they ran up the path one or two at a time. Sasha provided a formidable wall in her bear form as the rest of the group supported and provided covering fire. A missed firebolt by Ampwell started a large fire in the goblin tents. The fire proved to be a distraction to many of the goblins, who rushed to put out the fires amidst a chorus of shrill goblin screams from within the tents. After several moments of battle, Meritash tried to get clever with his battle strategy but miscalculated. With a blast of thunderous force, Sasha was hurled down into the waters below the party. Down in the water, she was forced out of her bear form and unable to climb back up to the party. Ampwell puts several of the remaining goblins to sleep once again to buy time for Sasha to get to safety. Harvest dove down into the water and began to drag Sasha to safety. Meanwhile, Hendrick stepped forward to try and shield the party from harm. Harvest finally gets Sasha back up to safe territory and the two begin to retreat. As the two retreated, Ampwell was jumped by a goblin that nearly killed him. After being healed, Ampwell spotted the bearer of the second BFF ring and blasted him with a well placed firebolt. Finally, Hendrick managed to strike down the last goblin. Ampwell took a moment to set alight the last few goblin tents. The party was forced to flee before they were able to claim any loot other than the BFF ring on a nearby goblin. The team headed back to Taer Valaestas satisfied that the roads would be much safer with the goblin threat wiped out.

Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk: A Terrorist’s Tale Location: Taer Valaestas Party: Ampwell (Bojacx), Hendrick (Schmmil), Lupin (Foster), ??? (Papayotin) After taking a little over a week to train their various abilities, the party reconvenes in the Black Orb Inn to discuss their plans. As they gather, Sasha and Harvest announce that Sasha has been recalled by her family for important business and they must leave immediately. The party bids them farewell and they leave. After a few minutes of discussing quickly emptying wallets, the party is approached by a tavern drunk who seems to recognize Hendrick. The man buys drinks for Ampwell, Lupin, and Maritash and then gets Hendrick to speak with him in a distant corner of the inn. The man speaks with Hendrick about a mission of some sort and speaks of a missed check-in. Not willing to disclose any specific information to any who may be listening in such a public place, the man agrees to a more clandestine meeting later that night. Hendrick finishes his meeting and the party is approached by a desperately performing bard. The party, while trying to ignore the bard’s gyrations, notices a nearby firbolg who seems enraptured by the bard’s performance. Ampwell invites the firbolg to join the party at the table for conversation. Introductions are made and the party learns invites the firbolg, who has no name, to join them on their travels. The group decides to head out for the day after choosing a job. The job that the team has chosen was to assist a traveling salesman with a dangerous sale at a Magus Tower. The group headed to the market so that they could meet up with their client. On the way, the A-Team was waylaid by a group of small children who were shouting for a ride on the group’s cart. Lupin, possibly unintentionally, scares off the children with a look. As the A-Team approached the market square, Ampwell and Hendrick spotted their client. The group decided to spend Ampwell and Hendrick to speak to the flamboyant merchant while Lupin and the nameless firbolg watched over the cart. Ampwell and Hendrick introduced themselves to Marvelous Martef. The merchant told the two adventurers that he was looking someone to get him access to the Magus guild so that he could sell Marvelous Martef’s Magical Elixers. Ampwell and Hendrick were uninterested in the man’s proposal and began to walk away. Martef, not wanting to lose the opportunity, reveals that his real plan is to rob the Magus Society of a shipment of magic vegetables that they were due to receive. Ampwell did not like that Martef was planning to rob his patron guild. He casually suggested that they speak of this robbery in a less crowded area. Martef agreed and led Ampwell and Hendrick down a nearby alley. Meanwhile, Lupin and the firbolg did not notice their friend’s change in location due to being distracted by Lupin’s new familiar, a weasel named Johannes. In the alley Ampwell tries to use a spell to put Martef to sleep. The attempt fails to ensnare Martef, but does knock out several nearby residents. Martef quickly runs off and escapes from the two. Ampwell and Hendrick report what had happened to their other party members. The team decides to report the robbery plans to the Magus society instead of reporting to the guards. At the Magus society, the party asks the unenthusiastic clerk to speak to his supervisor. It seems that everyone wants to rob the Magus Society. The supervisor, an enthusiastic halfling, thanks the party for taking an interest in helping and agrees to search for any information on Martef. Nothing accomplished. Waste of time. Or is it? The party, hoping to keep their day from being a complete wash, looks for a job they can quickly complete with their day. They decide to pursue the dangerous vagabond on 7th Street. At 7th Street the party comes across a police presence surrounding a building and the dangerous situation within. The guards, several of whom are wearing equipment that they party had donated to the city guard, are looking for a negotiator who can talk down the “Milk Terrorist”, a desperate criminal who has seemingly taken the building’s residents hostage. The “Milk Terrorist” has two simple, but impossible, demands. He wants 500 gold in unmarked currency. (All currency is marked. Unmarked does not exist.) He also demands free milk for life. (Also impossible, milk is a private industry.) As the party assesses the situation, Lupin sends in Johannes to quietly scout the building. The weasel finds that there are two hostages upstairs in a locked room and one downstairs with the Milk Terrorist. Lupin proposes a plan based on the information he has gathered through his familiar. Lupin and Ampwell will sneak in through the upper windows while Hendrick and the firbolg distract the Milk Terrorist with peace negotiations. Ampwell and Lupin successfully infiltrate the building while Hendrick convinces the Milk Terrorist to speak of all of the circumstances of this situation. As the terrorist spins a tragic tale of murder, friendship, and acceptance, Ampwell and Lupin successfully infiltrate the building and free the hostages. Lupin attempted to stay out of sight of the hostages so that he would not panic these people even more but failed spectacularly. His attempts to pass himself off as a random inanimate statue in their hallway did not go unnoticed, but the two former hostages do not seem concerned by Lupin’s appearance and they are successfully lowered to safety. Ampwell and Lupin, keen on ending the hostage situation, attempt to sneak downstairs. Lupin was spotted and forced into action. He leapt forward and clubbed the terrorist while Ampwell tried to sweep the feet out from under the enemy. Hearing the commotion, Hendrick shouts for the desperate man to surrender. The firbolg decisively took action. He quickly knocked in the door and subdues the now very panicked and confused kidnapper. The city guard was very impressed by the A-Team’s negotiation methods. They pay the party for their efforts and offer to keep the party on retainer for future hostage negotiations. The party, happy to have build up some reputation within the city and to have gotten some worth out of their day, head back to their rooms at the Black Orb Inn.

Nobody Expects the Inquisition! Location: Taer Valaestas Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Hendrick (Schimml), Lupin (Foster) After a long day of attempting to apprehend master thieves and foiling terrorist plots, our adventurers head to the Black Orb Inn to get some well-earned rest and ale. At the inn, Hendrick received a note directing him to meet with his contact at the Mermaid’s Embrace, a local brothel. (Interested readers may remember this particular brothel as the location Harvest and Sasha visited during their first day in town!) Hendrick was instructed to come alone. He departed from his team and the holy man headed to the house of sin. The guard at the brothel allowed Hendrick to enter with some small convincing and Hendrick was directed into a backroom where he could speak with his contact, Knight Gautreme, about a job. After some rather uninteresting cryptic talk involving the key words “kill”, “free”, “past”, “light of the flame”, and “secrets”, Hendrick complemented the knight on his choice of cover for a holy meeting and asked about the job. Gautreme was interested in hiring Hendrick and his companions to help with an ongoing manhunt whose trail had gone cold. The A-Team was to apprehend a changeling named Vax and bring him, alive, to Gautreme. Hendrick was told that Dax had a gang that primarily holed up in the sewers of Taer Valaestas. Other information included that Dax was a tricky one and that the gang tended to enter and exit the sewers through the Thornshadow District. With that, Gautreme told Hendrick that he should divulge only the necessary information to his companions and dismissed him after giving him a small allowance of gold to aid this endeavor. Meanwhile, a roving gambler attempted to challenge the remainder of the party to a high-stakes game of their choice. After some needling from the gambler, Lupin finally agreed to the challenge after choosing his own game, chess. After a close battle, Lupin lost the match, also losing 20g in the process. After returning to the party, Hendrick told the party of a job to retrieve a missing person in the sewers and asked if the group was interested. Despite a few suspicions from Lupin that Hendrick was not being completely honest, the gargoyle found Hendrick relatively unreadable and the party agreed to pursue the job the next day. All but Lupin promptly headed to bed to rest for the next day. Lupin headed to work a few hours at his night job as a clerk before getting rest. The next morning, the group made a quick stop at a local potions shop, Grave Concoctions, and purchased 3 healing potions. Their preparations done, they headed to the Thornshadow District to try and find Dax. The group found several possible viable entrances to the sewer after a quick search. Hendrick, Lupin, and the newly dubbed Blue decided to watch three entrances for any foot traffic while keeping in contact every few minutes with magic. Blue and Lupin had uneventful mornings, but Hendrick soon spotted someone heading towards the sewer entrance he was watching. The group gathered quickly and headed over to investigate. Johannes the weasel was sent to scout and spotted two filthy vagabonds enter the sewers. The group waited for a few moments so they could enter unseen and then followed. Inside the sewers, the group immediate came across a split and could not find, smell, track, divine, or even fathom any clue on which direction was best, so Lupin eventually just picked a direction and set out. A short ways down the sewer Lupin, who was scouting, spotted a small fire and directed the party to halt and hide so he could investigate. Moving forward, he spotted a small group of an orc and some kobolds. After reporting to the party, the decision was made to attempt diplomacy before resorting to force. Blue changed his appearance to that of an orc using his inborn firbolg talents. He was sent to attempt to negotiate. If words failed him, Lupin would coach him through with secretive use of the message spell. Blue’s attempts to blend in with the small group seemed to be working for all of four sentences before a large blunder (apparently, “orc stuff” is not a very common reply to inquiries about what someone is doing) caused the diplomacy to turn into combat. Lupin quickly launched a sneak attack from the darkness against the orc leader. The orc was quickly downed and the kobold minions began to panic and flee. Two of the three kobolds were quickly downed by the party. The third managed to go through a trip-line of his own making before being crushed to death by a falling ceiling. Although there were a few confused shouts from deeper within the sewers, there did not seem to be any investigation. The party took a short pause and discussed their policy moving forward. Diplomacy did not seem to be an effective tool in their hands. It seems that force would serve them as a much more effective tool. The group continued forward. As the party came across the next group of guards, the guards heard some of the noise the party was making and sent a man to investigate. A massive blue fist pulled that man into the darkness and a blast of force instantly killed the leader of the group before a harsh shout demanded the surrender of the remaining guards. The guards immediately dropped their weapons and dropped to the ground, eager to seem a non-threat. The guards were tied up and then questioned. “Where is Dax?” “He’s just a bit further ahead.” “How many men does he have with him.” “Only six or seven.” The A-Team were ready to apprehend their man.

Changeling Chase or Grant's Bad Day Location: Taer Valaestas Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Hendrick (Schimml), Lupin (Foster) The party prepares to venture further into the sewers in order to seek out the changeling, Dax. Their interrogation finishes with a few more inquiries. What is Dax’s favored form? Does he have anyone he prefers to mimic? The party’s captives, Alwyn, Osmar, and Grant, inform the party that Dax likes to impersonate his own troops. He particularly favors his two seconds-in-command. As the group prepares to confront Dax, Ampwell and Blue stay behind to keep watch over the prisoners and keep the exit secure while Hendrick and Lupin move forward to confront Dax and his men. Hendrick and Lupin agree to once again attempt negotiation as they move forward. With Grant the prisoner in tow for insurance, they move forward and ask for Dax. No man in the group particularly stands out to the two adventurers, but one of the men replies and negotiations begin. The man who is speaking gives several telling glances to one of the orcs in the room. The tense exchange soon ends when the orc, revealed to be Dax the changeling, orders an attack and takes off running deeper into the sewers. Lupin immediately shoves his bound prisoner Grant into the nearby sewage in an attempt at a distraction. Poor Grant. He did not die well or nobly as his companions ignored him drowning in sewage. The two adventurers work to follow the changeling as his followers try to impede their progress. Hendrick was able to move forward as Lupin faces off against many of Dax’s men. After taking several hits, Lupin strategically retreated to the sewage water and began to focus on using his new position to fell the nearby bandits as they attempted to pursue Hendrick. Soon, the chase revealed a troll in the sewers. The bandits were terrified of the troll and began to shift the majority of their attention to the beast. As the three-way battle continued, Dax was revealed once again by Hendrick. The two briefly negotiated and agreed to a cease-fire to deal with the troll. The troll was felled and Dax fled once again, this time in the direction of Ampwell and Blue. Lupin began to shout for Ampwell and Blue to stop anyone who was headed their way. After a bit more fighting and chasing, Hendrick and Lupin came upon a strange scene, two identical firbolgs facing off over the unconscious body of Ampwell. During the ensuing stand-off, Hendrick was able to determine the identity of Dax using the spell Zone of Truth. The changeling was forced into a corner when Lupin decided to just ask the two identical firbolgs to attempt to knock the other out and prepared himself to knock out the winner if it turned out to be the changeling. Dax used a smoke-bomb and once again made a run for it. After yet another chase, Hendrick and Dax were beginning to lose their cool. Meanwhile, Blue was just rather confused over the whole situation. The group finally managed to corner the tricky changeling and he decided to surrender while he could. Hendrick decided to knock Dax out to relieve his annoyance. The group bound the changeling and then went to check on Ampwell. Upon awakening, Ampwell remembered being approached by Hendrick and then being knocked out while his guard was down. He stormed off to confront Hendrick over his perceived slight as Blue awkwardly and confusedly tried to explain what had actually happened. Meanwhile, Lupin was able to locate the bandit’s treasure stash. Lupin came across the only survivor, Osmar, on his way back to the group. Osmar was occupied futilely trying to resuscitate his buddy Grant. Lupin chose to spare the bandit, just telling him to stop trying to revive his friend and walk away. The group exited the sewers, hid Dax in their cart, and proceeded to the Mermaid’s Reef to complete their mission. On the trip to the Mermaid’s Reef, Lupin pulled Hendrick aside for a quick word: “I know that this was not a hostage rescue and I don’t really care, but I will not be lied to in the future.” “There are many things I cannot tell you. But, it is rather lucrative.” “I don’t need to know everything. Leave out what you need to. Just no lies.” “Understood.” The party soon reaches the Mermaid’s Reef. Gautreme and his flunkies take Dax and ask all but Hendrick to wait outside. Inside, Gautreme thanks Hendrick for his excellent work and mentions that he hopes to have work again soon for Hendrick and his group. After a long day, the group headed back to the Black Orb Inn, cleaned themselves up, and went to bed.

The party gets wierd. Location: Taer Valaestas Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Fearfacer (Samuel M. Schmidt), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) The adventure begins with another glorious morning at the BlackOrb Inn. Hendrick and Lupin are having a disagreement about the group's direction for the day. After a brief argument, Lupin and Blue decide to find work while Hendrick and Ampwell perform other tasks . As the morning progresses and the argument continues, three newcomers enter the Blackorb Inn. Nala, a female dragonborn merely settles herself at a nearby table with her pseudodragon familiar. Lupin's familiar Johannes begins to investigate. The second, a large goliath in shining armor, began to ask around the inn for a party that he could join for a time. The final newcomer, a lizardborn with a giant pet lizard. The lizardborn promptly decided to approach Nala and solicit for her attention. The attention was not appreciated. She gave the lizardman a false name, Rachel, and excused herself. As the Blue and Lupin finished their morning meal and prepared to leave to seek work for the day. they were approached by Captain Blake of the City Watch. There was another hostage situation that the party was once again asked to help resolve. The two invited Jeezargo and Fearfacer to join the party and began to exit the leave the inn. As they began to leave, Lupin sent Jeezargo and Blue on ahead to the guard barracks while he and Fearfacer approached Nala. Lupin asked her to join the party to help with any negotiations that they may come across with the upcoming situation. Nala agreed, despite her reservations about Jeezargo. On their way to the guard barracks, the group was crossed by a small girl with a large sword. The girl invited Nala to join her adventuring party. Despite the child's cuteness, Nala politely refused. In the city guard barracks, the group was given their task. Their job was to head to a nearby small village, Shunti. A former soldier who had recently returned from Cyre had lost his mind and set himself up as a prophet. The group was tasked with bringing the false prophet in with as little bloodshed as possible. The party headed to the village with their cart in tow. Jeezargo, a ranger by trade led the way towards the village. Strangely, the winding trail seemed to pass under the lowest hanging branches and the thickest mud. Fearfacer, who had volunteered to pull the cart had to exert himself, but he was able to successfully keep up. Meanwhile, Lupin kept watch from the air. He spotted a large, lone tree in the distance that seemed to have someone in it. Jeezargo offered to check out the situation and disappeared into the tall grass. At the tree, Jeezargo found a single corpse hanging in the tree. As the party searched the area, they were suddenly attacked by a marauding group of ankhegs. Although surprised, the party was able to quickly fell a few of the beasts. Suddenly, tragedy struck. Blue was knocked unconscious by a powerful blow from one of the ankhegs and Lupin was snatched as he attempted to take to the air and several of the beasts managed to knock him out as well. The fight continued. Nala lead several of the beasts on a wild chase as she used her powerful magics to blast them. Meanwhile, Fearfacer and Jeezargo competed on which of the two could fell more beasts. As the dust cleared, Jeezargo had come out ahead and Fearfacer grudgingly acknowledged his loss. The group began to search for the ankheg nest. They found it after a short while, woke their unconscious members, and proceeded to ransack the nest. The nest was filled filled with large eggs. The party decided to collect a few and then destroyed the rest. After their trying battle, the group decided to camp out for the night and prepare for the following day.

That Priest in on Fire! Location: Road to Shoonti Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Fearfacer (Samuel M. Schmidt), Hendrick (Schimml), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) The party awoke the next morning. Despite some heated moments, all had survived the night. While preparing to depart for the day, the party noticed a brief glimmer of steel in the early morning sunlight. It was Hendrick, who had completed his business in the city and had journeyed quickly to catch up to his comrades! The party returned to their trek whilst updating Hendrick on the job and their plans, expecting to reach Shoonti village by dark.  During the trek, Jeezargo continued to try to engage the party about his concerns about the plan. He was either ignored or overruled. In the afternoon, the party came across two adventurers who were resting near a decaying bridge. One was a human who introduced himself as Zoth the Jubilant and the other was a thri-kreen named Tak-Tha. Both were worshippers of the sun. The two are also headed for the village. They had heard rumors of the cult that had formed there and were interested in instead teaching them the religion of the sun. As the party introduced themselves, Nala continued to maintain her facade as "Rachel" because of Jeezargo's presence. As the newly expanded group readied themselves to proceed forward, they were confronted with a terrible and daunting problem. The nearby bridge seemed to be in bad repair. As Jeezargo attempted to cleverly latch a grappling hook onto the far side of the small ravine, Lupin flew across and assisted. Most of the party members crossed without much hazard and the ominous bridge was soon conquered and left behind. As the group proceeded forward, they began to discuss their plan with Zoth. Their favored plan of diplomacy was countered by a similar idea from Zoth: A contest of faith, Zoth against the cult leader, Elyon Shakas. After some debate, the party conceded to Zoth's plan.  Near dark, the party arrived at the village and decided to camp and wait until morning so that Zoth could approach in the light of day. Most of the party immediately created a small camp nearby. Jeezargo spent a short time scouting out the area. During this time, he discovered several interesting things, including that the villagers were maintaining vigilance at night and that they seemed to have prisoners somewhere within the village. The next morning the party took up positions from which they could observe the village and all that happened within. Soon after, Zoth made his approach. The priest challenged Elyon to a contest of faith and the cult leader, seeking to discredit Zoth challenged his to a trial of fire. As Zoth was set aflame, Fearfacer, who was watching from afar, grew incredibly tense. Surprisingly, Zoth was able to emerge unharmed from the flames. As Zoth showed himself immune to the flames, Elyon panicked and ordered his followers. At the same time, Fearfacer grew unable to contain himself and he sprang into action. It seems that conflict is inevitable. Will the party complete their task? WIll Jeezargo ever learn Nala's true name? What sort of problem does Fearfacer have with burning people alive? Find out next time!

Elyon-gelical Escapades Location: Shoonti Village Party: Fearfacer (Samuel M. Schmidt), Hendrick (Schimml), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) Zoth the Jubilant stood unharmed within the flames. Elyon's anger bubbled over and he ordered his men to attack. Doubt was planted within many of Elyon's followers and many were unsure of what to do in response to their leader's orders. Fearfacer charged into battle consumed by a fiery rage. As he charged forward, Tak-Tha ran forward and threw a large glaive to Zoth. Elyon saw the discord within his followers and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He promptly fled. Zoth saw this and shouted for the party members to give chase to the fleeing cult leader while he held off the followers. The party began to make their way across the village to give chase, but were met with resistance. Hendrick decided to resort to a peaceful method of conversion and strolled across the village attempting to teach any he came across of the path of the flame that he followed. Despite a large number of attackers, the party was able to subdue all of the dedicated followers without having to resort to lethal violence. The village was cleared out and several hostages freed. The party quickly gave chase to a nearby hill that the cult leader had fled to. At the hill, the party spots Elyon with several more followers and several archers who had a much more professional air about them than the villagers. The party joined battle. Jeezargo and Eurgo began to quickly scale up the bluffs of the hillside in an attempt to reach Elyon. Meanwhile Lupin pulled down one of the archers into close combat and quickly disposed of her as the rest of the party faced off against a cluster of cultists. Fearfacer, Hendrick, and Nala were bogged down by the cultist ranks. The dedicated villagers managed to down Fearfacer and wound the other two. Meanwhile, Jeezargo was able to near the top of the hill with the assistance of his animal companion and the cover of a fog cloud. Meanwhile, Lupin was feeling rather beleaguered at the middle of the hill, dropping once before being revived by his faithful weasel companion. Hendrick attempted a valiant charge before unleashing a mighty blast of energy. The blast severely wounded many of the cultists, but did not drop any. Soon after, he was downed when one of the archers decided to target one of her allies with a special shot that could harm those around the target. At the top of the hill, Jeezargo finally came across Elyon and one of his archers. Jeezargo and Eurgo managed to send the duo flying off of the hillside. Enraged, Elyon began to advance back towards the crest of the hill where Jeezargo waited to ambush him once again. As the final remnants began to fall to Nala and Lupin's blasts of magic, Jeezargo engaged with the cult leader in a dangerous struggle. The gargoyle ascended to help his ally, but the help was unneeded. In an impressive display of skill, Jeezargo knocked the man unconscious. Johannes quickly ran over to stand sentinel over the body as Lupin flew back down to attend to his allies. The battle was over. The lizardman immediately began rifling through pockets which seemed to set the gargoyle on edge. Unsure about what had set Lupin on edge, the lizardman began to explain his actions. The party secured their prisoner, looted the area, and then headed back to the village. They met with Zoth and Tak-Tha and rested. The next day would be their journey to deliver their prisoner to the city guard in Taer Valaestas.

Lizardmen Have Different Standards. Location: Shoonti Village Party: Hendrick (Schimml), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) As night passed and the party rested after their battle, Hendrick took the time to interrogate several of the "prisoners" that the party had acquired. He learned a great deal about the motivations that drove Hendrick. The next morning Jeezargo spent a short amount of time walking around the village and attempting to befriend the villagers. The easily misunderstood lizardman intimidated some villagers at first and caused a minor panic until Zoth greeted the party and helped to settle the villagers. Jeezargo hopped onto a nearby cart and attempted to make a moving speech as the party began to leave town. Hendrick was conflicted as they left town, his religious fervor made him want to apprehend and interrogate Zoth for his seeming betrayal of the Silver Flame. The group journeys back to Taer Valaestas. Elyon was securely shackled so that his chance of escape would be minimal. The prisoner woke up after nearly a day of being unconscious. Jeezargo attempted to interrogate him but fails. He soon called over Hendrick to help. After some convincing, Elyon begins to talk about "The Mourning", a disaster in which a legion of undead had arisen and thousands had died. The party was very interested in this news and Nala seemed to have some familiarity with the problem.  The next day, the party arrives back in Taer Valaestas. At the city gate, the guards are not the usual city guards. They are instead the Blademarks who had been hired to help keep the peace. The party gives their names at the gate. For some reason, Jeezargo does not seem to catch on when Nala gives her real name rather than her assumed name of Rachel. After entering the city, the party decides to head straight to report in to Captain Blake. On their way, Nala loses a large amount of gold to a young street urchin and his accomplice.  The party arrived at the city guard barracks and declared that they had business with Captain Blake. The party was asked to wait in a small waiting room until Captain Blake could see them. While waiting, Jeezargo struck up conversation with the room's guards, Curtis and Jenkins. After a short discussion, the lizardman inexplicably became upset about the lack of hospitality of the city guard for not providing ice for their guests drinks. After much convincing, Jeezargo was taken to an officer's lounge to ask about the ice. Inside, Sergeant Pillsbury told Jeezargo that there was no ice, after which the lizardman began to insult the sergeant. A short while later, Jeezargo ended up waiting in a cell until Captain Blake could see to him.  Meanwhile, Captain Blake met with the rest of the party. They reported their success and were given a bonus for the job. Nala also steps forward to give the captain a letter requesting aid from Marchioness Zara ir'Bonnertot Eston. The guard captain reads over the letter and promises what aid he can.   The party decided to spend the rest of the day completing various errands. They set up accounts with the banking house, Kundarak, and then depart to take care of personal business. Lupin and Nala first head to the libraries at the Magus Society. Nala directs Lupin to several excellent books and the two discover that they must become more established at the Society before they can get the more secure information that they seek. Afterwards, the two checked in at House Tharask to inquire about Lupin's prey. The representative, Duric d'Thrashk, reported that there is no concrete evidence but that the lack of underlings reporting back in the northwest of Cyre near Nerinath was telling. Nala requested that the house find a Lady Griscillis.  Hendrick decided to check in with Gautreme at the Mermaid's Reef. He gave Gautreme Zoth's regards and then briefed his contact on what had happened in Shoonti village. In the end, Hendrick was told that apprehending Zoth for interrogation was not a priority but that it would be allowable if the opportunity presented itself.  Jeezargo headed off to try and join the Hunter's Lodge. After some showboating, Jeezargo was told by a man named Tormund that if he wanted to join he would have to bring in the trophy of a beast he had killed himself in single combat. On his way home, Jeezargo decided to do a kind deed. He began to seek a young orphan. He passed by several older beggars before finding a young boy who seemed to suit his needs. Jeezargo struck up a conversation with the child who seemed to be intimidated by the lizardman. When Jeezargo had Eurgo try to "play" with the boy, a scream of terror summoned the city guard. The situation escalated as Jeezargo tried to talk his way out. All in all, the situation was not good. by the time the clamor had died down, Jeezargo killed three guards, knocked out another two, and Jenkins sat staring in shock at the bloodied lizardman. Jeezargo lied to Jenkins and told him that the killed guards were all assassins who had been trying to kill Jeezargo. He threatened Jenkins to stay silent and then sent him off, telling him to meet at the Black Orb Inn the next night for dinner and more instructions. While searching the area for any other witnesses, Jeezargo came across the homeless child that he had previously frightened. Jeezargo gave the wide eyed child the same warnings and orders as Jenkins and also sent him on his way. Jeezargo began to hide the evidence of his killings. He looted the corpses, cut them up for their meat, and then buried any un-usable or un-carryable parts in a nearby hole. Jeezargo returned to the inn very late that night, after the rest of the party had retired. 

Magical Murder Mystery Location: Taer Valaestas Party: Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Fearfacer (Samuel M. Schmidt), Hendrick (Schimml), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) The day after Jeezargo's fight with the guards, Jeezargo headed out to do some shopping. He had a dinner with Jenkins and an orphan to prepare for. As he went about his business, Jeezargo began to probe some guards and locals about the killings. Upon learning that it was not common knowledge, the lizardman began to spread rumor of the killings to any who would listen. Meanwhile, Blue and Fearfacer went to check out the fighter's guild.To gain entry into the guild, they are told they must prove themselves in 'trial by combat'. The two enter the arena with four other fighters. After a crazy battle royale filled with shouts of "Pound Town" and other various manly phrases, the battle ends when Blue managed to knock out Fearfacer for the victory. The two were allowed entry into the guild and were rewarded with fancy guild hats. Hendrick obtained some illicit materials at Grave Concoctions as well as a poisoners kit and some thieves tools. Nala began to ask around for two more individuals, Ivsaar Kelgwyn and Phraan Grerona. After errands are done, the party met again at the Black Orb Inn. Rumors of the killings came up during the resulting conversation. The party discussed if they should follow up on these rumors as Cpt. Pillsbury entered the Black Orb Inn. The party asked questions and were given a good deal of information. They were told of rumors of a Necromancer east of town.  The party headed to the scene of the killings. They managed to talk their way past the guards. As they investigated the crime scene, they came across several vital clues: Some blood looks different from human blood. The damage was dealt with slashing damage Chunks were cut off of the bodies. Some blood trails that led in and out of the conflict. Nala had also managed to speak with the slain guards. She was told that the killer was "white and grey" and some sort of sentient beast. Their search completed, the party returned to the Black Orb Inn. Later, Jenkins came to accept the dinner offered to him by Jeezargo. Hendrick and Jeezargo both noticed. Jenkins seemed mildly familiar, but they couldn't immediately place him.Upstairs, Jeezargo asks Jenkins about his day as they work to finish preparing their meal of chicken & human stew.  A strange sensation set Jeezargo on edge.He slammed the door open and discovered Puff in the hallway. With the door open, Fearfacer smelled the food and asks to join the meal. Jeezargo tried to convince his party member to leave, but the large goliath was insistent on sharing the meal. After a few minutes of arguing, Jenkins panicked and ran for it. Jeezargo yelled at the Fearfacer and gave chase. After the lizardman left, Fearfacer, Hendrick, and Nala ate some of the human stew. It was delicious. Outside of the inn, Jeezargo managed to catch up to Jenkins.Jenkins was curled up into the fetal position and crying to himself. A mysterious voice spoke to Jeezargo offering to make his problems disappear. Jeezargo accepted the deal and Jenkins awake with no memory of the events. Jeezargo snuck the nearly comatose Jenkins up to a room, locked him in, and told him to stay put. Jenkins could only respond with, "Five faces, trust Jeezargo, blood." Downstairs the party discussed the situation and decided to follow up with the city guard in the morning. 

That is one way solve a murder Location: Taer Valaestas Party: Party: ???/Blue (Papayotin), Fearfacer (Samuel M. Schmidt), Hendrick (Schimml), Jeezargo (Bailey C.), Lupin (Foster), Nala (Erica) During the night Nala knew. Everything pointed towards Jeezargo. Lupin got around to agreeing, but there was not quite enough evidence yet, or was there? “Tomorrow is going to be a great day!” Nala thought. Hendrick on the other hand wanted to stop these ridiculous quarrels within the group and decided to have a talk with Jeezargo, pointing out that the current state of affairs is not sustainable. On his way out, the lizardman confronted Hendrick with a story about the guard Jenkins, who had lost his ways. Hendrick decided to have a friendly conversation with the young man lasting the whole night, whereby Hendrick saw signs of what he could only think of madness or possession by evil spirits. Jenkins admitted the horrible murders and wanted to be brought in to the guard in the morning, a wish Hendrick seemed to suddenly feel the strong urge to conform to, even though his divinations seemed to suggest it might not be the best idea. It was during this night that Jeezargo fell asleep immediately after returning to his room. Suddenly he saw Jenkins before him, picking him up and inviting him to join him on a journey. He was in a place, there were no surfaces, nothing he could see. Just Jenkins in front of him, waiting. He conformed and they travelled throught this eerie space, however it felt more like everything was moving around them. When he first approached the area, he saw a golden ring. Upon closing in it looked made up of uncountable individual grains of sand, no they were orbs. The orbs had bizarre picture of people in them. One of them contained Jeezargo, but it wasn’t quite right. Distorted memories. An omnipotent voice sounded through the silence. “Everything you know, we know now.” He flew past his memories into darkness. “Meet your new god.” A maw dashed towards him and he woke up, with a very poor recollection of any specifics of this dream. Fearfacer decided he was ready for the next step and decided to carve a remarkable rock out of Jeezargo’s bedleg as a gift for his new found “rockbrother” Blue, a worthy fighter for the Goliath. Poundtown is strong in them. Come morning Hendrick shared the information with some of the party members and it was agreed on to bring Jenkins in for the brutal slaughter of those guards. Jeezargo agreed, but something seemed to be weird about him. Lupin was somewhat surprised by the revelations, but agreed that actions had to be taken and took it upon him to limit Jenkins flight risk by shackling himself to the murderer. Nala was in a previously unseen friendly mood, even with Jeezargo, whom she had treated worse than any other person since her arrival in this city. She was sure, she could prove Jeezargo’s guilt and had not heard of Jenkins confession yet. For better or worse, that morning Nala and Jeezargo had a lovely walk through the city together, leading to a surprising amount of intimacy and the beginnings of something stronger than friendship could be observed as the usually emotionally less adept lizards embraced holding rough scaly hands. Upon everyone’s arrival at the guard barracks Nala got confronted with the bitter truth, that Jeezargo was not the man being brought to justice today, but she things proceeded to fast for her to bring forward her theory in any meaningful way. The group got immediately brought into a waiting area and without any delay Jeezargo, Hendrick and Lupin brought the emotionally destroyed Jenkins to Captain Blake. The revelation left everyone baffled, but there was not enough time to fully comprehend the scale of the events, when Jenkins effortlessly broke free of the shackles and started murdering everyone he could find in the barracks. This no longer was Jenkins. Whatever had caused his madness had taken over and started psychically attacking anything in sight. Hendrick dropped like most of the room in an instant. A flurry of blades, never at any given place for too long this abomination seemingly had no intentions other than to kill anyone it could find. The screams of the guards and civilians were everywhere as their minds gave way, their brains dying in the sheer force of Jenkins psionics. The group, split up tried to follow and fight Jenkins to the best of their abilities. Fearfacer was quick to attack the mobile threat with his mighty weapon. Nala decided to hide in the shadows to potentially get the drop on this mighty foe. However, Blue could not quite deal with the sudden darkness and the confusion caused and attempted to find the evil that was killing people all around him. Lupin was quick to give chase, particularly after Johannes was brutally slaughtered. Jeezargo embraced his connection with nature, bringing Hendrick back from the brink of death before somewhat slowly following the trail of devastation caused by Jenkins. Against all odds, he started to show weaknesses. Successful physical and magical blows seemed to not diminish its ability to fight, but the hurting body of Jenkins seemed less and less able to hold onto such great energy. It was then, that the entity transformed Jeezargo's perception of the world, finally demanding loyalty of the lizardman and with psionically enchanted strikes Jeezargo felt the mighty gargoyle. Stunned silence emanated from the group, a fact which was exploited by the badly injured Jenkins and he teleported to the gargoyle to deal the final killing blow. Hendrick rushed to Lupin to attempt to help, but all he could see was death and Jeezargo looking saddened and resigned in front of yet another body he had caused. In a mighty blow of divine energy Hendrick managed to sufficiently burn the physical form of that bringer of madness and bringing Jeezargo onto his knees. Jenkins body began to destabilise and in a bright blast of energy the spirit was no longer contained, the left-overs of Jenkins corpse collapsing to the ground. Fearfacer was one of the first to manage to reach Lupins and his murderer next to Hendrick. Jeezargo knew he had reached the point of no return. He lay down his weapons, waiting for his judgement. Hendrick knelt with Jeezargo, calming him down. Last whispers of regret and even hope that situation could still be resolved escaped him. But he knew. Everyone knew. Nala came charged towards the scene and tried to wake up the bloodied gargoyle, but he was sleeping like a rock. Hendrick, saddened he could not save this lizardman’s soul, decided the least he could do is give him the chance to re-unite with the flame. After a good-bye started burning the lizardman with the magic of the everlasting fire, whilst Nala out of rage peppered his body with eldritch energy. Fearfacer, having asked for a final duel, tried to stop these proceedings by pushing Hendrick away but nothing could have stopped this now anymore. Suddenly, the voice of the creature responsible informed the party of their situation, being the sole survivors of a guard barracks full of over a hundred corpses. And with a manic laugh there was silence. Sobbing and silence.

Chapter Fifteen: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | November 11, 2017 In the aftermath of the slaughter at the guard barracks in Taer Valaestas , Nala has fallen catatonic as her brain attempts to understand what she has witnessed. Fearfacer decides to carry her out of the barracks as Hendrick quickly suggests that they go to the Mermaid’s Reef to seek help from his friend, Gautreme . As soon as they arrive, they are brought to a room to hide. Nala comes to consciousness, immediately asking what happened to Lupin . Fearfacer attempts to explain that he had died, but Nala could not understand, and finally Hendrick helps deescalate the situation by explaining that Lupin no longer wanted to join the party, and he went off on his own. This saddens Nala , but she is at least accepting. Meanwhile, a pair of quirky individuals searching for work are invited by Gautreme to help the group escape the city – they are Stella and Rune , and they quickly agree. After meeting the group, Stella explains her plan; to disguise the group as having an extremely rare and contagious disease that liquefies the insides. After the party is properly disguised (much to the dismay of Fearfacer ), they head out of the city completely unnoticed. They are stopped by the guards at the gate, but Stella’s quick wit and impressive penchant for deceit convinces the guards to let them pass without further inspection, lest they be overcome by the same deadly virus that inflicts the rest of them. Finally out of the city limits, our heroes set up camp and exchange stories over the bonfire. Tensions run a bit high as Stella and Rune believe that they are traveling with a group of extremely dangerous killers and the rest of the party reels in the fallout of a battle they weren’t prepared for. However, with memories shared and small bonds being formed, the group is able to sleep peacefully. The next morning, the group briefly debates where to head to, and Fearfacer implores the group to help him return to his people and defeat the kobold army terrorizing his family. After some convincing, the group agrees and they head north, first to an abandoned camp of the Silver Flame called the Starhaunt to rest safely from the pursuing Taer Valaestas guards. As the group marches on towards the Starhaunt , they come upon a stone wall and a tree stump with a few knick-knacks scattered about the base. Upon further inspection, Nala learns that the wall is a claim of victory for elves in a battle, but that the wall was defaced by a group of goblins sometime later. However, the inspection of the wall is quickly stalled as Stella discovers a sleeping beast behind it. Nala attempts to help the party sneak away, but Fearfacer’s lack of social cues mean that he does not understand and his voice is enough to wake the beast. As it comes around the corner, the party realizes that they are face to face with a Gorgon! Electing to fight instead of run, Fearfacer and Blue charge the creature while the others find relative safety and begin to help their comrades. Stella blasts the beast with a Heat Metal spell, Rune attacks it from on top of the wall with his crossbow, Blue and Fearfacer do what they do best, and Nala helps take it down with a few Eldritch Blasts; though they defeat the monster, it's not before it is able to Fearfacer into stone. With no way to help him and no way to carry him to help, the group decides to continue on their path in hopes of finding a way to help at the Starhaunt , or at least in a nearby city. TL;DR After escaping the city, Monsters Inc. , now being aided by Stella and Rune , decided to help Fearfacer defeat the kobold army terrorizing his people. However, on the way to their first stop, the Starhaunt , the group encountered a Gorgon which ended up turning Fearfacer into a stone. Now the group continues to the Starhaunt in hopes of finding a way to cure Fearfacer .

Chapter Sixteen: The Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing | November 18 th , 2017 With a few hours to spare before making their way to the Starhaunt to eradicate the evils there and to potentially find a cure for Fearfacer , the group goes about making the various preparations when they notice a man carrying a large chest right past them. Immediately, they rush over to see who he is and what he’s doing. He responds that his name is Varron , and that he is on his way to the Starhaunt to track down a lead about lycanthropes. He bears the symbol of the Silver Flame , and the distrust between the man and the party is palpable, though Rune invites Varron along, hoping to gain another ally in case the party runs into trouble. The party was in the middle of conversing with Varron when howls on the wind signaled a potential threat. When the howling grew closer, the party quickly sprang into action, preparing themselves for a fight. When a group of wargs burst past the treeline, the group was already in position for a battle. Despite their better efforts, however, the wargs seemed poised to kill until a group of skilled hunters also broke through the trees and began helping to take out the wargs. However, upon closer inspection, these people also had some lupine features of their own. The party was weary, but the people assured them that they meant no harm and that they were there to invite the adventurers to the Starhaunt to speak to their leader, Thaldrin . Our heroes make their way towards the Starhaunt , accepting an invitation to speak with the leader but plotting of course to kill him when they had a good opportunity. Upon reaching the Starhaunt , they find a heavily guarded fortress with many weary wolf-like people watching them intently. Thaldrin greets them, offering a place to stay and a good meal on their travels. He asks why they came to Starhaunt and the group admits that they had some trouble in the city and were looking for a place to stay on their way north. They also ask about a cure for Fearfacer , though Thaldrin tells them that he has nothing to save people from the effects of the Gorgon. He invites them further into the compound, and into a small area where they are given food and drink. The party accepts this graciously; all accept Varron , who denies the pleasantries and immediately sets the guards on edge. Thaldrin confronts Varron , asking his purpose in the compound and wondering about his symbol of the Silver Flame . Varron explains that he is looking for lycanthropes and that he has no qualms with the innocent people living there. Thaldrin tells Varron to leave, saying that he is not welcome in his home. Varron politely leaves, the tension in the room momentarily dispersed. It’s not long before Thaldrin and Hendrick begin talking, and Thaldrin explains that he knows who Hendrick is and what he wants, via a Zone of Truth. He also inadvertently reveals that Stella also knows who Hendrick is. Thaldrin implores Hendrick to understand him; to recognize why he left the Silver Flame after realizing how many innocent people he killed. Thaldrin spoke of the Lycanthropic Inquisition, which resulted in the deaths of many innocent shifters. He explained that he took refuge in the Starhaunt with the same kinds of people who were purged by the Silver Flame unnecessarily in order to seek repentance for his actions. However, Hendrick explains that was only told to kill Thaldrin , and they face off in one-on-one combat. Thaldrin proves to be too powerful for Hendrick to face alone, and when Hendrick seems like he might be in trouble, Nala steps in to help, attacking Thaldrin herself. Unfortunately, Thaldrin set his sights on Nala and quickly took her down in a few fell swoops with his weaponry. Nala fell unconscious, and Stella and Hendrick both went to help her. After seeing this, Hendrick admits defeat and Thaldrin mercifully allows the party to leave. Hendrick, resigned to his inevitable death due to his failure; Stella , paranoid about her identity being revealed to the party, and the others just ready to rest and forget the whole ordeal ever happened. TL;DR The party adopted their newest member; Varron the Bloodhunter! They also tried to take down the defector to the Silver Flame who was raising an army of shifters, but he proved to be too powerful. Stella is sketchy, Hendrick has some explaining to do, and Varron has a weird chest that no one really wants to open.

Chapter Seventeen: Split Decision  | November 25 th , 2017 Late in the night, Stella casts a silence spell and begins rifling through Hendrick’s belongings. Due to this, she does not hear the approach of Varron from behind, who attacks her mercilessly and fells her before the rest of the party even has a chance to wake up. Rune springs into action, not actually having been asleep, as Stella is dragged off into the woods by a creature that shifts to resemble someone close to her. Rune kicks Nala awake as another creature shifts form into Stella and the two return to the sleeping body of Hendrick and begin to attack. Quickly, the party is able to piece together that they should attack Varron and Stella , who were not the culprits but were about to kill Hendrick nonetheless. The Doppelgangers threaten to overtake the party, but Hendrick saves the day by healing Stella and Nala just as Blue and Rune take down not two, but three Doppelgangers. The adventurers take a moment to catch their breath and Nala sticks close to Stella , who was clearly shaken by the event. They finish resting for the night, taking turns keeping a close watch on the surrounding forest. The next day, the group decides to head for Pylas Maradal and elects to disguise themselves and take the main road. Hendrick notices some creatures in the woods, and Rune and Varron go off to investigate, finding several large wolf spiders. Varron immediately makes his way back to enlist the help of the rest of the group, but Rune slays half the horde though eventually retreating drawing their attention back to the cart. However, Stella and Nala quickly demolish the remaining spiders. The spiders had attacked and killed a family, so the group decides to put their souls to rest with a burial and a prayer or two. Nala assures the family that they can rest easy, that the spiders were dealt with, and then learns that they want to group to tell the man’s sister, Maev , of their death. Instead of returning to the cart with the others, Rune and Varron decide to investigate further and meet them ahead on the road. They find a small village and split up, with Rune managing to find a horse and make a new friend out of Twiglie the Gnome and Varron scaring away some random villagers with his edginess. Meanwhile, Stella and Nala are getting to know each other a bit better on the cart when they see something flying up ahead. Nala realizes that they are watching Terradons going north towards the Talenta Plains , and that they are carrying Halflings. Blue is ecstatic over this revelation that he is seeing dinosaurs. As the party meets back up, Rune asks the group if anyone would like to share some memories. Stella shares with him a lovely story about her childhood and her puppy. Nala also elects to share a memory, showing him the day she summoned Puff for the first time. After he questions her further, she decides to share the memory of the night she was captured from her home and witnessed her parents being beaten. Nala comes out of the memory crying, and Rune asks her to show him more about her parents so he can attempt to locate them for her. He finds that his ability is clouded and suspects that some kind of magic is preventing him from seeing where they are. He tells Nala that they could be in danger and tells her that he will help her find them. In anguish over the thought of her parents’ suffering, Stella comforts Nala , and the party decides to move forward, not wanting to wait any longer to hit the road. The adventurers stop briefly to help a merchant fit a wheel back onto his wagon, and he and Blue bond over Pound Town . Stella decides to scare him into submission to protect their identities. Not too much longer after this, Hendrick hears some sobbing from off the road a bit. Rune decides to investigate, and he stumbles across Maev , who he recognized from the locket he took from the body of the woman attacked by spiders. She is cradling the body of a dying man, and as Rune approaches to help, he is quickly ambushed and taken down easily. After Maev finds the locket at Rune’s request, she takes him back to their hideout and ties him up, waiting for his party to inevitably follow after him. The group falls for this trap almost immediately, going to chase after Rune when he neglects to turn up after about an hour. Stella finds the setup with Maev and the dying man while the others attempt to stay back, and as the party is ambushed, Maev holds up the locket and tells them they need to start talking. TL;DR Rune and Varron split the party, but Rune tempted fate one too many times and ended up getting captured by Maev , the sister of a dead man. Rune tried to help Nala find her parents to no avail. Blue saw some dinosaurs. The party is currently surrounded by enemies and unsure of how to get out of there alive.

Chapter Eighteen: Little Wight Lies | December 2 nd , 2017 We find Rune , stripped of his belongings and tied up while Maev’s guards watch. Through some careful social maneuvering, he is able to find out that they are searching for Blademarks and convince one of the guards in particular – Wolf – that he is not the person they are looking for. Wolf assures Rune that Maev will find out the truth and come to let him go soon enough. Meanwhile, Maev and Stella negotiate the exchange of information, with Stella knowing what happened to Maev’s family and Maev knowing where Rune is. Stella didn’t bother lying – she told Maev exactly what the party had seen on the way in, and was able to convince Maev that they meant her no harm. Maev sends for Wolf to bring Rune back, and in the meantime explains that their goals are to disrupt several Blademark travelers to steal their writs of passage as Pylas Maradal is on lock down. She also explains that they can then obtain a boat and get out of the city before whatever the Blademarks are planning comes to pass. The party is reluctant to agree to this plan, though after they meet back up with Rune and he pleads the case for helping Maev , they decide to help. However, they make it clear that they would rather attempt to steal the documents without killing any of the soldiers. The party comes to the spot on the road where the Blademarks will be traveling through and attempt to come up with a plan. Nala volunteers to be a wounded woman, and Rune posits that she should be pinned under a fallen tree branch. They set this up with Nala disguising herself as a badly injured and bloodied commoner, while Rune is turned invisible and he gets in position to search pockets and carts for the writs of passage. As the mercenaries approach, they stop and survey the scene, clearly agitated at the holdup but ultimately agreeing that they should help Nala and move the branch. However, Rune pickpockets them and unwittingly alerts the captain to a presence. He immediately becomes suspicious and a psionic appears, ordering the guard to kill Nala immediately. The psionic places a blade to her throat and questions her, probing her mind, and she finally reveals that she is not alone. The guards jump into the defensive and immediately, Maev’s people and the rest of the party jump into action. The group is quickly able to help Nala get out of immediate danger while Rune , still invisible, finds what he hopes to be the correct documents stowed away in a cart. While the group proves to be relatively adept at taking down the Blademarks, the psionic proves to be too powerful, and he quickly takes down several allies, including Stella . Rune continues checking the carts, but unfortunately releases a wight, which was traveling with the Blademarks unbeknownst to Maev . The wight is fearsome and it takes out several people on both sides, along with releasing two more stowed in other carts. With most of the attention focused on the wights, and only a few people facing the psionic, things begin looking pretty grim. However, a few good hits spook the psionic and he takes control of Varron and transports away, ordering him first to kill Nala . Varron attempts to strike her but luckily breaks free of the mind control before any damage is done. Rune and a few of Maev’s people are able to escape with the documents while the people fighting the psionic attempt to flee as well. Maev drags Stella away from the worst of the battle and Hendrick heals her immediately, bringing her to consciousness. As they run, Hendrick orders them to keep going as he stays behind to fight off the wights. He is able to get rid of them all and he quickly catches up to the party as they make their way back to Maev’s camp. Once there, Rune immediately goes off to find a place to sleep while the rest of the party follows Maev into the caves, where they come upon a captured Blademark. Maev beats him, demanding to know why he didn’t tell her about the wights, though it is clear that he knew nothing. After this, Varron takes Maev aside and chides her for planning to flee when her country clearly needs her help, especially considering that she and her men used to be soldiers. Maev is highly offended by his comments, and she casts suggestion, telling him to walk away and not come back. Varron walks for about three hours before the spell finally ends. Exhausted and in pain, he climbs a tree to rest safely until he can meet back up with the party. During the night, a horde of goblins investigate the area, and when Varron attempts to escape by jumping to another tree, he falls prone to the ground and the goblins kill him quickly, as he didn’t have much left in him after the fight with the psionic. Unfortunately, none of the party was able to witness his death as they remained mostly unaware of the situation, and Varron will not be properly mourned by his newfound compatriots. TL;DR The party is able to convince Maev and her people that they are not hostile, and Maev releases Rune . The party agrees to help them take down some Blademarks in exchange for passage on a ship. The Blademarks have three wights in tow that ultimately leads the party to run away, mostly victorious but having made an enemy out of a psionic. Maev orders Varron to leave after he insulted her, and in his weakened state is killed by a band of goblins.

Chapter Nineteen: The Tower of Certain Death | December 9th, 2017 Overnight in the bandit cave, Stella gains information about the Blademark stronghold Dul Zhakaar from their prisoner, Morim ; barbarian Wolf scouts out Dul Zhakaar in advance of a full assault; and Hendrick talks tactics with leader Maev , who is seething with rage and grief. Probably nobody sleeps well. In the morning, Stella reveals herself to Rune as a spy and offers him information in exchange for his help getting a psionic message to her superiors, whom she believes might be able to apply political pressure to House Deneith. Unfortunately, Rune cannot send a message to the other side of the continent. Rune finally looks at the documents he stole from the Blademarks during yesterday’s ambush. He has collected about fifteen documents, all psionically enchanted and unreadable, even by Nala , whose warlock invocation allows her to read all writing. One document is a map of Khorvaire that is cryptically labelled in places with a silver glow. Rune attempts to palm off a few lesser documents on Maev , but Nala promptly tells Maev about the map and Rune is forced to give her a copy. Stella also outs Rune as a psionic to Maev . Battle plans are drawn up for a two-pronged attack on Dul Zhakaar, which will be guarded by Blademarks and a House Deneith captain as well as the high-level psionic from last night. The team agrees not to kill their Blademark prisoner. Maev doesn’t wish to leave him in the cave under guard, since she doesn’t plan to return here. Rune convinces everyone to bring the prisoner along under guard so they can free him at the last moment before escaping on the ship. The team slips past multiple checkpoints toward Dul Zhakaar under cover of darkness. Rune , Stella and rogue Avi sneak down a cliff and up stone stairs to kill the nearest guards under cover of a Silence spell, enabling the rest of the team to move up close to the bridge using Pass without Trace. Although Rune is itching to move faster, the two teams co-ordinate to take out all six bridge guards in a stunning surprise round. As Maev ’s soldiers storm the ship that is just offshore, Blademark reinforcements flood out of the tower. Lightly armoured Avi risks his life engaging them to protect Stella . Maev and her archers provide fire support from a distance. Rune and Avi also notice a scout coming out of a side door. Avi gets a hit off, but doesn’t fell the scout, who goes back in, locks and bars the door, and alerts the whole tower. Rune tries to climb the wall and peek into a window. After teleporting, he spots a guard captain behind the window, most likely the Deneith heir, quickly putting on his plate armour. The window seems unbreakable and the building is magically enchanted. With more Blademarks pouring out of the tower, Avi is about to be swarmed under when the rest of the team finally make it to the combat. Blue and Wolf take the brunt of the enemy charge while Stella and Nala pick off enemies, Maev deals massive damage with fireballs, and Hendrick incinerates with Radiance of Dawn. Captain Deneith arrives and proves a fierce fighter. He fells a berserker, kills Avi , and nearly takes down the goliath Wolf before going down himself. The ship has been taken and the battlefield is cleared… for now. Hendrick takes ten minutes to cast a healing prayer to restore some health to the wounded party. Maev and Wolf mourn their fallen friend Avi . While they’re healing, Rune stealths into the tower by himself, without telling anyone. He’s confident he can scout ahead alone, but is quickly battered into unconsciousness. His last glimpse is of the psionic torturer who takes him captive. The party storm the tower. They fight animated armours and small dragon statues that breathe fire, then reach a lab with a short-range teleportation gate. On the other side is an apparent torture classroom where test subject Zeth is being held captive in an arcane ward. Zeth tells them about a woman who is also being interrogated by the psionic - she appears almost inhumanly perfect, like the psionic himself. Zeth joins them for now. More floors of the dungeon yield more animated constructs that eat through the team’s remaining resources. On the fourth floor they find a globe that shows all the continents, also marked with the cryptic silver glow from the map before. Sharn is especially bright and a continent on the other side of the globe from Khorvaire is entirely lit up. All the while, the psionic is watching their every move through scrying orbs and forces them to listen to Rune ’s tortured screams. He taunts Hendrick for failing to protect his friends and asks Stella if that’s her real name. Hendrick momentarily breaks his stoic shell, while Stella is highly stressed. On the brink of collapse, the team snatch a thirty-minute rest to patch up their many wounds and brace themselves for a final confrontation with the nameless psionic. As they rest, Rune is audibly begging for death. TL;DR Don’t split the party.

Chapter Twenty: Another One Bites the Dust | Saturday 16, 2017 The party makes their way to the top of the tower, where the psionic taunts them with Rune’s life. They come upon a hallway filled with magical blue mist. Hendrick uses guidance to help Zeth as he makes his way through the mist, though he still manages to lose intelligence. Maev uses dimension door to escape the mist, and the others make it through without issue. At the top, the party finds a manticore statue but ignores it, hoping it won’t come alive at some point. Once they make it to the top of the tower, Stella expertly unlocks the door and opens it to find the psionic stabbing Rune to death. Stella quickly uses healing word on him, but is unsure if it works because battle immediately begins. The psionic creates a magical darkness that Hendrick is able to briefly dispel but not permanently. After overtaking both Nala’s and Stella’s mind and wracking their brains with horrible illusions from their memories, the psionic brings the manticore statue to life to keep the party busy while he escapes. Blue manages to catch a crystalline orb that has been incapacitating the party in various ways, and the orb asks him to help. He smashes it and the orb screams in the minds of everyone nearby, though it then manages to attack the manticore and help the party defeat it. Hendrick deals the final blow and the party makes their way back to find the psionic. Maev runs up to him and casts fireball on herself, making sure to damage him as well. He makes his way through a teleportation device and the party desperately chases after him, unsure if he’s alive or dead. They find him sitting behind a magical shield, unable to move past it or cast magic within it. He taunts them further before finally leaving the physical body, ordering it to kill. The shield drops and the shell immediately attacks Stella , but is quickly killed by the crystal orb. The party attempts to get information out of the shell before he dies, with Rune probing his memories. They learn about crystalline towers across the sea with some unknown mystical powers, but ultimately don’t get too much information. Rune and Stella share a final moment before he passes away. Immediately after, Stella hears the orb sputter to life and the orb tells her that the tower will collapse soon, and tells her that the Quori Spirits were keeping the tower intact. The party immediately runs back down, Nala quickly disarming the mist trap to prevent anyone from losing any intelligence. Finally, they make it back outside safely and make their way to Maev’s boat. On the boat, Hendrick goes below deck to kill the remaining Blademark, and everyone rushes down to confront him. Nala introduces the party to Azur the Water Genasi, whom she had met above deck while everyone went elsewhere. After disposing of the body and assuring Maev that he won’t ignore her commands anymore, everyone does their own thing. Stella talks to the orb, who tells her that its name is Kashtai , and explains that it is hosting a Quori Spirit from Dal Quor , Plane of Dreams, and that it was the good counterpart to the evil Quori spirits who want to take over the world, based in Sarlona . The orb urges her to go to Sharn to follow a map that marked it as a place of interest for the evil Quori and Inspired. The orb also explains that the psionic was a part of the Dreaming Dark , a super evil organization. TL;DR Rune died and we met Azur the Water Genasi. The psionic got away after a long battle, leaving behind a shell that we quickly killed. We obtained a sentient orb that essentially gave us a plot arc to follow, and now the party will probably head to Sharn .

Chapter Twenty-One: Jumping the Shark | December 23rd, 2017 As night deepens, the fugitive ship begins crossing Kraken Bay, leaving the Cyran naval blockade at Pylas Maradal behind. In the hold, Stella finally tells Hendrick she is a Medani counterintelligence agent here to spy on him. Hendrick chooses to continue trusting her, but their relationship is seriously damaged. Azur attempts to eavesdrop on the conversation in spider shape, but Hendrick perceives him immediately. While Hendrick and Stella play a meaningful game of dragonchess, Azur heads off to talk to Nala instead. Nala feels the party isn’t paying her enough attention and is considering leaving. The two lighten the mood by exchanging jokes and stories about their pasts. Maev calls a meeting to decide where the ship is headed. Hendrick , Stella and Azur attend, while Zeth is still meditating and Nala is preoccupied elsewhere. They decide to head toward Sharn, possibly stopping at Korranberg to bring on fresh supplies. As an experienced sailor and navigator, Azur will helm the ship. The trip to Sharn will probably take one to two weeks and Azur hopes to keep the ship afterward. The next day is a much-needed break. Azur puts his water genasi skills to good use teaching the soldiers how to swim, while Maev gives a short lesson on the First Law of Thermodynamics to help Hendrick master his new fireball spell. While Hendrick is happily setting things on fire, Azur and Stella have a very evasive conversation. Azur claims he is an innocent sailor who shepherds dolphins up and down the coast and was captured after venturing too close to the Blademark tower. Stella realises there is absolutely nothing she can tell him about their part in the massacre of over a hundred innocent guards in Taer Valaestas, or the ambush on the Blademark caravan train, or their assault on the fortified tower. Awkward. Wolf challenges Stella to a two versus two sparring match to teach her some new techniques. Azur impresses by summoning a whole wolf pack and a healing spirit before getting dropped. Wolf questions Stella ’s leadership skills and mocks her combat performance. Stella becomes annoyed and confronts him, telling him she knows he blames her for Avi ’s death, which Wolf denies. After easily defeating her, Wolf tells her she has to believe in the people she gives her bardic inspiration to - as he gives her his own combat inspiration. Stella is still seething and Wolf walks away. As he recovers from his wounds, Azur attempts to persuade Hendrick that he is not a druid; Hendrick is having none of it. Maev tries to tell Stella that nobody blames her for what happened, but Stella only asks if there will be consequences for being outed as dragonmarked. Surprisingly, Maev doesn’t care - it’s enough to know Stella isn’t connected to House Deneith. Having burned many spells on their training, the party is caught by surprise when Azur spots dolphins swimming alongside the ship. They warn him of approaching sharks and sahuagin. Azur leaps into the water to fight the sharks, while the rest of the team rebuff the first wave of the sahuagin attack. A massive shark rams and damages the ship, knocking Hendrick into the water, where he delivers a wave of radiant damage to the sahuagin who swarm him. Wolf dives in too and, at Stella ’s suggestion, gets the giant shark in a chokehold and murders it while they pick off the surviving enemies. Azur discovers an amulet of the Devourer, a dark god worshipped by the sahuagin, on one creature’s body. They haul the giant shark’s body aboard the ship and Wolf prepares it for their next meal. It’s delicious. TL;DR Crossing Kraken Bay. Shark tastes good.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Black Sails | January 6th, 2018 Another dawn, another day of sailing. Azur ’s dolphin friends are still accompanying the ship, and Azur suggests another dolphin race. Wolf and Blue both join in. Azur secretly offers the dolphins fish if they let him win and make it look convincing, but unfortunately for him, Wolf casts Speak with Animals and learns Azur is a shameless cheater. The rivalry worsens when Azur challenges Wolf to a bet on the outcome of the race. The three dolphin riders take their positions in the water and the race begins. Any concept of fair play dies when Azur peppers his rivals with cantrips, Wolf gives his dolphin combat inspiration, and Blue disguises himself as Azur to win his dolphin’s loyalty. Azur and Wolf are so busy trying to push each other off their dolphins that neither of them wins - Blue sneaks ahead and ends up crossing the finish line first. With the participants drying off, Stella finally sits Hendrick and Maev down for a hard conversation about what’s going on. She warns them that if they find out the truth, they and everyone around them will be in even more danger. Both Hendrick and Maev opt in. Stella gives them a full briefing on the Dreaming Dark, with occasional input from Kashtai , and specifically warns them about the risk of dream invasions by the quori. They discuss plans for Korranberg. Meanwhile, Nala has been sleeping badly, her dreams tormented by the nameless psionic from the tower. He’s already back after his recent death and is searching through her memories, learning about her. Nala approaches Hendrick for help. As the ship turns south to follow the far coastline, Hendrick sits with Nala overnight and observes some kind of strange magical effect when she dreams. Now knowing about Dal Quor, he brings this problem to resident expert Kashtai , who confirms that Nala is likely to continue drawing quori attention - her mind is so different that her dreams burn much brighter than others. Kashtai isn’t confident she can shield Nala entirely, so Stella asks if she can make herself a more appealing target so that Nala can safely rest. Kashtai strongly suggests this is a bad move. She also drops the bomb that the quori are all uploading and downloading information overnight, meaning that anything one quori knows, the rest will all know by the next morning. Blue ’s grandfather isn’t happy inside his head and wants to visit the famous Library of Korranberg to find out more about their unusual situation. Unfortunately, Blue can’t read and might have to ask Azur to help him research. A black sail appears on the horizon. A pirate ship is racing toward them. They throw cargo overboard to gain more speed, but the enemy ship is catching up and it’s looking like a sea battle until Azur recognises the ship - it belongs to a friend of his. With their permission, an aarakocra pirate flies over to board their ship, where he declares himself Captain Jack Sparrow of the Kraken Queen . Captain Jack warns them of hostile goblin mercenaries along the coastline of Darguun and even worse enemies further out to sea. He offers to escort them with his pirate ship for fifty gp a day. History buff Zeth hasn’t heard of this wannabe-famous pirate and offers not only to write epic stories based on his accomplishments, but also to paint a picture of him. Captain Jack is very intrigued and slashes the rate he’s charging. The team accept his offer of an escort for the next week. They make plans to have dinner with Captain Jack aboard their ship tonight. Darkness begins to fall over the two ships. TL;DR He’s a pirate!

Chapter Twenty-Three: Strictly No Clothes in the Public Baths | January 13th, 2018 Aboard the unnamed ship, the team have dinner with Captain Jack , who asks where they’re headed. Cagey silence follows before they admit they’re headed to Breland via Korranberg. He tells them if they don’t pay at least half what they owe him upfront, he will leave and tell all his pirate friends to attack their ship. Good argument. He gets half upfront. Still exhausted from her disturbing dreams, Nala asks Stella what she’s planning to do about the quori tonight. Stella reassures her everything is fine and flirts with her. Nala gets adorably flustered. Kashtai uses her psionic power to amplify Stella ’s mind, making her glow brightly to quori. Stella enters a lucid dream that she reshapes as a war room with a tactical table. Immediately she’s visited by the nameless psionic from the tower and they have a hostile conversation. He uses the tactical table to illustrate how easily Khorvaire could collapse into war again before making a dramatic exit. Nala sleeps peacefully and wakes in the morning feeling much better. The ship makes good time and arrives in Korranberg in the early evening, passing a gold statue of a gnome with a book. It’s a beautiful city that houses the famous Library of Korranberg and the ancestral citadel of House Sivis, along with the Korranberg Council of Nine, which the party would get to appreciate at greater length if they didn’t pick up copies of the Korranberg Chronicle and immediately realise the Riedran ambassador to Breland is here in Korranberg on a state visit. And if he’s a quori, he will recognise them all on sight. Stella and Hendrick have an urgent discussion and agree to brief the party in full tonight. Until then, Hendrick warns the politics-loving Nala to stay away from the Riedran ambassador. They meet with gnomish harbourmaster Alian Kan Tarliach, where Nala springs for their harbour fee. Alian recommends some interesting places to stay and sights to see: Nala wants to attend an exclusive gnomish murder mystery party; Hendrick checks where the local Silver Flame temple is so he can avoid it; and Stella plans to visit the upmarket chocolatier and bakery that provides a front for the local Medani office. Alian offers to give them a tour of Korranberg tomorrow. While Stella goes to the chocolatier, the rest of the party heads to the Blue Lotus, a fancy bathhouse. They are warmly welcomed and recommended to attend the public baths, which is strictly no clothes allowed. Everybody undresses. Nala disguises herself as a human woman, based only on illustrations from the Book of Unspeakable Shame, and begins chatting up local noble cousins Cassia Lyrriman Lonadar and Hasal Torradyn Lonadar for political gossip. Hendrick is hilariously uncomfortable and chooses to sit on a steam bench, while Blue is staring fixedly at the ceiling as his grandfather begs him to check out the naked women. Although there’s some wolf-whistling at naked Blue , his awkwardness puts off the ladies, while Hendrick soon hits it off with an elf woman called Sylvana who claims to be an attaché. She invites him back to a private room, where Hendrick makes an excellent performance check. Meanwhile, Wolf is telling epic tales of shark wrestling to a legion of new fans. Blue tells a dwarf named Kraagor about having his grandfather’s spirit in his head. Kraagor recommends finding out how his grandfather died - what unfinished business was left behind. Grandfather remembers possibly dying in a jungle after meeting with a “book guy” in Sharn. Nala offers to help Blue . Meanwhile, Stella is visiting the chocolatier, where she warns local Medani boss Mystrane Belial Medani about a network of foreign psionic spies. Mystrane is none too convinced and requires further proof before any action is taken. Mystrane also drops the bomb that Breland and Riedra are in the final stages of negotiating an alliance. The Riedran ambassador has also worked his magic on Castar Canatar Korran, who is about to take a soon-to-be-vacant spot on the Korranberg Council of Nine. Mystrane offers to arrange a meeting for Stella with Elymar, political rival of Castar and writer of hostile op-eds in the Korranberg Chronicle, to see what can be done. When Stella finally arrives at the Blue Lotus, she’s still checking in at the front desk when a very handsome, slightly inhuman man with a couple of guards appears and sends everyone into a flutter. It’s Riedran ambassador Nevitash, possible extraplanar sociopath. An  awkward ride in the fantasy elevator follows. Stella makes a hasty escape just as Nevitash enters the public baths where the rest of the party is. Naked. Blissfully oblivious that Nevitash is their enemy. Unable to enter the public baths because of her highly conspicuous dragonmark, Stella is forced to grab an attendant and ask him to go find Hendrick . The attendant stammers that Hendrick is “indisposed” and Stella rudely interrupts Hendrick ’s afterglow  pretending to be his scorned wife . She manages to warn him that Nevitash is in the public baths with the rest of their unaware and defenceless party. Meanwhile, Nevitash is being charming to everyone. Bastard. He’s praising his utopian homeland and preaching the word of the Path of Inspiration to a crowd of smitten locals. He chats politely to Blue and Nala , asking them all kinds of questions, before Hendrick arrives to provide protective supervision. Everyone meets in their private suite to recover after the unexpected encounter. Kashtai sets up her telepathic wifi so they can talk without being overheard. After tonight’s near-disaster, Stella finally briefs everyone about the Dreaming Dark. TL;DR Reached Korranberg and met an Inspired ambassador from Riedra. Naked.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Trust Issues | January 20th, 2018 | 27th-28th Aryth That evening, in the private suite at the Blue Lotus, Stella makes her move on Nala and they sleep together. Once Nala is cuddled up asleep, Stella indulges her paranoia by setting up counterintrusion measures around the suite and keeps watch with a loaded crossbow. Having received a surprise reply to his sending to his old flame Sara, Hendrick vanishes in the dead of night to attend to personal business, leaving a short note for each friend. In the morning, the team react to this disappearance and discuss plans over breakfast. They decide to visit the chocolatier, where Stella can get an update from her local Medani contact. Stella and Nala are still flirting as Nala buys some chocolates. Zeth orders a tray of highly alcoholic chocolates that he’s warned to be careful with. Stella picks up the address of a local poisoner and learns the time and location of her secret meeting with Elymar , political rival of future Council of Nine inductee Castar Canatar Korran. The team heads to the Library of Korranberg. Everyone is eager to explore this famous library. At the reference desks, Nala excitedly discusses donating to the library and maybe even doing some temporary work there as a scholar. She also asks them to take a look at her Book of Unspeakable Shame, a powerful eldritch book. A specialist calls her in to a private room, where he becomes increasingly alarmed by the evil artifact that has twisted her mind and always returns to her. When Nala gives one too many ominous answers, eight gnomes enter the room. Nala is drugged and abducted to a secret prison. She is now in the hands of secret police force the Trust. Back in the main hall of the library, Wolf is grumpy because he can’t borrow cooking books without a library card, which requires establishing residency and a wait of six months. Zeth reads up on historical war crimes, while Blue picks out a children’s book about monsters. Maev and Stella split their research about Dal Quor and the Inspired to avoid drawing too much attention. Surprisingly, Nala doesn’t come back from the reference desk. Nor is she there when it’s time to leave. Stella tries to find out where she went, but the reference clerks don’t seem to know anything. Given her love of books, the party reasons she just wants to stay and read. Zeth volunteers to also stay behind and keep reading. Stella and Blue take a tour of Korranberg with gnome harbourmaster Alian, who can’t help wondering why all their other party members seem to have vanished. They make excuses for everyone who’s missing, especially Hendrick , who was the one to befriend Alian. As Alian shows them around Korranberg, Stella notes gnomes following them, but assumes the Trust is just running regular surveillance on interesting newcomers. The conversation turns political and Alian tells Stella that if Castar Korran makes it onto the Council of Nine he will be the new minister for trade. Afterward, Blue returns to the Blue Lotus, while Stella plans to rendezvous with Elymar . Lights snap on in a darkened room. Nala is manacled to a chair, facing what appears to be a full-height magical mirror of some type. The Trust interrogator begins questioning her in more detail and Nala begins telling them everything she knows. She even volunteers to be put under Zone of Truth so they can verify she’s being honest with them. The first question they ask is about her travelling companions. Nala confirms each person’s name and identity one by one. Within minutes, Blue is abducted blindfolded from the Blue Lotus by the Trust. Still at the library, Zeth has been getting steadily intoxicated off his very alcoholic chocolates and he too is captured. In the west gardens, Stella shows up for her rendezvous and is taken through an illicit portal to meet Elymar in his office. He tells her Castar Korran has been selling slaves to less civilised lands such as the Shadow Marches and Q’barra for decades - mostly goblins and goblinoids, who are considered second-class citizens. Korran has a private estate that serves as a waypoint for this traffic in slaves. Elymar wants Stella to attend a party at the estate tomorrow night to gather proof of these activities. Elymar is also annoyed that Korran allegedly has a personal taste for goblin lovers and suggests discrediting him this way. When Stella leaves, Trust agents move in to capture her. Stella spots them and promptly turns invisible and vanishes. Each kidnapped party member is interrogated at length in special rooms. They are questioned about each other as well as their purpose for visiting Korranberg. Nala admits to their involvement in the massacre at Taer Valaestas and explains about the psionic in the tower. Blue knows nothing and his interrogation is quickly abandoned. Zeth asks for another alcoholic chocolate and receives a short burst of lightning damage instead. He rambles about seeing demons (while partially mad from psionic interrogation in the tower near Pylas Maradal). Meanwhile, now invisible, Stella makes a dead drop, burying incriminating documents and items in a public park so the Trust won’t catch her with them. She changes her appearance with her disguise kit. Hidden in the crowds, she tracks down a Trust agent running surveillance on their ship at the docks and asks Kashtai to read his mind with her psionic power. They learn that Nala , Blue and Zeth have all been captured, that Wolf put up a serious fight, and that Maev is still missing. They also learn about numerous secret Trust facilities. Figuring Maev will head to the docks to hide among the human population, Stella intercepts the chase there and helps Maev escape the Trust. They discuss what to do next. Both of them know the smart move is to leave Korranberg with the surviving crew, but neither of them will. They have already lost too many people. Back in the secret prison, Nala protests she only wants to do good in the world, which is received with a certain degree of scepticism. The Trust interrogator lays it out for her: they don’t trust the Inspired or Castar Korran. They want information on Korran’s connections with the Inspired and his illicit activities in the slave trade. They order Nala and the team to gather evidence at tomorrow night’s party, where Inspired ambassador Nevitash will also be present, or face serious consequences. The team has one hour to discuss this offer. Unfortunately, Zeth is still drunk and Blue still doesn’t understand what’s going on, so Nala will soon be forced to make the decision herself. Still free and disguised, Stella approaches her local contact Mystrane at the chocolatier. Kashtai pings her from a distance and sets up the telepathic wifi. Mystrane is not happy about being questioned by the Trust and strongly suggests Stella turn herself in. Since storming Trust prisons one by one doesn’t seem like a great option, Stella leaves Kashtai to take cover with Maev and hands herself over to no fewer than fifteen annoyed Trust agents. They tell her to get on the floor before they obliterate everything in a twenty-foot radius. It’s Stella ’s turn for interrogation. The Trust interrogator is having a long, frustrating day. He orders Stella to deliberately fail her save against Zone of Truth, which she duly does. Stella confirms the Inspired are their enemies and have hostile intentions toward Khorvaire. When this is met with scepticism, Stella stops talking altogether. She hears them out and leaves without another word. As they leave, the Trust exact an annoyance tax on Zeth , taking his money. Zeth reacts by slapping a Trust agent in the face and gets a burst of psychic damage right back. Nala is forced to place him under Suggestion and order him to shut up and come with them. The party return to their suite at the Blue Lotus. Wolf is already there, recovering from a serious beating. A stunned silence forms. So that was the Trust. TL;DR Nala hands over the entire team to the Trust. We now have to attend a party and get incriminating evidence on Castar Korran. Or else.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Party Planning | January 27th, 2018 | 28th-30th Aryth Back at the Blue Lotus that evening, Stella asks the rest of the team what happened. Nala takes her aside and tells her the truth about the Trust and the Book of Unspeakable Shame. She admits she’s afraid of this eldritch artifact and tries to convince Stella she’s still a good person. Stella promises she’ll take care of everything. They hug. From the docks, Hendrick uses his sending spell to update Stella . He’s been followed today, maybe by the Trust. What’s going on? Stella strongly warns him not to approach the hotel unless he wants to be captured and interrogated. Don’t worry, she says. Everything is under control. Luckily, Hendrick is out of sending spells with which to question this obvious lie. Then Hendrick sees gnomes heading toward their docked ship. Lots of gnomes. He follows at a safe distance and watches as the gnomish security forces evacuate the crew from their ship and set up a security perimeter. Still in disguise, Hendrick is chatting to the crew for an update - apparently the ship is being searched due to an anonymous tip - when gnomes start running from the ship in a panic. Seconds later, it explodes. A massive fireball rips the ship apart. Two crew members and at least one member of the security forces are instantly killed. Others are left severely injured on the docks. Hendrick rushes to stabilise the dying and heal the victims with his cleric powers. He also provides a witness statement about what he saw. Nobody realises who he is. As he’s leaving, Hendrick is slammed into a wall by the invisible Maev , who asks what the fuck is going on. She is understandably pissed off about losing yet more friends. Both decide to lie low for now. Hendrick goes to a dockside tavern, where the locals are blaming foreigners and immigrants for the explosion, and turns in for the night. In the morning, the Trust deliver a copy of the Korranberg Chronicle to the private suite at the Blue Lotus, with an article about the explosion circled. Stella leaves to go investigate. Nala and Blue plan to scout out Castar Korran’s estate ahead of tomorrow night’s party. Zeth is hungover and plans to spend the day at the library. His remaining alcoholic chocolates have disappeared overnight, another annoyance tax from the Trust. Stella heads to her rendezvous with Maev at a dive bar. They speculate the kalashtar may have targeted the ship because it came from the psionic torture tower near Taer Valaestas. It seems their future allies believe they are agents of the Dreaming Dark. Awkward. Especially since Kashtai doesn’t know how to contact the local kalashtar to sort this out. Maev is also not happy about Nala turning the party over to the Trust - she thinks the others are a security risk. Disguised as human and dwarf, Nala and Blue take a look at the fortified Korran estate. They check out the walls and watch the guards patrol. It appears as if slaves may be being secretly moved in and out via the river that runs at the back of the property. Nala asks her familiar Puff to sneak inside in spider form; Puff finds there are chambers on the fourth and fifth floors that are inaccessible and the underground levels seem to be magically warded in some way he can’t pass. Following a tip from her Medani contact, Stella visits a local alchemist in an apparent shack that is suspiciously well warded with magic. She buys a supply of dreamlily, a narcotic that lets you sleep without dreams, in case the quori begin stalking them again. The alchemist warns her that dreamlily is addictive. Zeth reads a book Maev left for him at the Library of Korranberg yesterday. It talks about an invasion of extraplanar entities during the Age of Giants tens of thousands of years ago. Perhaps this is linked to their own ongoing extraplanar invasion. Somewhat reluctantly, Stella visits her Medani contact Mystrane at the chocolatier to debrief about yesterday’s encounter with the Trust. She tells Mystrane the Trust are blackmailing them to do the exact same job Elymar wants them to do - infiltrate the party and find incriminating evidence on Castar Korran. Having found out about the dragonmark, Mystrane ominously warns that the senior Medani will now be watching Stella closely. The lives of the dragonmarked are often short and exciting. Don’t screw up. The team meets for clothes shopping. Zeth is comically unable to recognise Nala and Blue through their disguises. Zeth attempts to get a dress and Blue wants to wear a studded loincloth, but with Nala ’s expert help, they pick up everything they need for the masquerade. Stella asks Nala to attend as her date. Meanwhile, Hendrick buys a suit for the party, then goes to the Brelish consulate to take his elf attache Sylvana out to dinner. She is totally into him in his suit and invites him to attend the masquerade as her date. She brings him back to her place for drinks. Next morning the Korranberg Chronicle is delivered to the suite again, courtesy of the Trust. Inspired ambassador and probable psychopath Nevitash is quoted in an article blaming kalashtar terrorists for blowing up their ship. He says the kalashtar are separatist rebels from a mountainous part of Riedra who followed the Inspired here to Khorvaire to continue harassing them. Hendrick spends the day relaxing and feeding the ducks with Sylvana before they leave for the party. The rest of the team make final plans and also head out. They have a plan. Invitations. False names. Masks. Everything they need for a smooth infiltration of a high-society masquerade. The second they reach the estate, all their plans go up in smoke as one guest cracks a joke to another and Nala gasps. It’s her old party member Invidia , one of the most powerful spellcasters in Khorvaire. Looks like this party is about to get complicated. TL;DR We’re all set for a total clusterfuck at a very expensive party.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Phoenix Protocol | February 10th, 2018 | 1st Vult A frozen silence falls in the courtyard of the Korran estate. Invidia doesn’t seem to notice Nala . Stella hustles her inside before her panic draws too much attention. At the door, half-orc Koll checks their invitation before being relieved of door duty by elf Zephyr, who apparently has no love for their boss Castar Korran . Inside, there’s music and mingling. Hendrick is already at the party with his date Sylvana, the Brelish attaché. Nala warns Stella that Invidia likely recognised her; Stella is concerned Invidia might use Nala ’s real name in front of everybody. As Invidia talks magical theory with a group of interested guests, Nala reintroduces herself to him under her cover name, reminding him they once travelled together - and he coldly dismisses her. Hurt, Nala backs away. Uncomfortable in his suit, Blue sidles away from the crowd and bumps into Cardinal Tremain of the Silver Flame. Tremain despises this lavish party. And gnomes. And the Brelish. He sizes Blue up and decides to recruit him for an unspecified task, giving him a magical business card so they can talk later. Stressed out and stuffing down appetisers, Zeth heads upstairs and encounters the House Sivis party on the second floor. He daringly approaches the Sivis matriarch. She decides to be patient with him and they chat about Zeth ’s interest in war history. Koll chats with Invidia about magic. The half-orc studied at the Arcanix in Aundair and reads books of eldritch secrets for fun. He likes conjuration and planar binding. Hendrick takes a liking to Kellark Kundarak and helps him strongarm a reluctant waiter into giving him another bottle of vodka. As Stella suspected, Kundarak is working on magical security measures for the estate. He reveals that the vault upstairs is divination-proof, warded against teleportation, and secured with arcane locks. Hendrick uses his sending spell to warn Stella ; Stella updates him on their mission as she and Nala explore the second and third floors. The fourth and fifth are closed to the public and they’ll need passwords to get past the arcane wards on the stairs. They walk in on the Brelish prince fooling around with a servant girl. Stella politely pretends not to know who he is until the prince snaps at her to address him as Your Highness. What an idiot. He facepalms and takes the girl somewhere more private. Stella and Nala open a window and send spider Puff to crawl up the outer wall and investigate the upper floors. Puff discovers a heavily guarded vault room on the fourth floor. It appears to be full of safes and possibly paperwork. Blue immediately bonds with Koll and they head upstairs to play beer pong. They make a successful team, not least because Koll is scaring the shit out of their opponents. With the party in full swing, Castar Korran gives a speech about what a bro he is. As he calls out various important guests, it becomes obvious that everyone hates him. He was a star pupil at the Academy of Artificial Realities, but Provost Morrimar can’t stand him. Even Inspired ambassador Nevitash is subtly eyerolling during the speech. Dance music kicks in and Hendrick dances an epic tango with Sylvana. Korran flashes his shiny diploma to impress Invidia , telling him the motto of Kappa Delta Phi: When in doubt, whip it out. Stella is now certain she needs Kundarak’s information about the magical defences of the estate, but Kashtai warns her Kundarak may have special training against mind-reading. Stella slips a dose of dreamlily into his drink. They chat about the pressures and expectations of belonging to a dragonmarked house, with Stella playing the innocent nobody. As he falls asleep, Kashtai reads his mind and reveals bad news - his passwords are out of date. They will have to target someone else. Hendrick gets Sylvana to introduce him to Cardinal Tremain. Hendrick asks about a Silver Flame member who supposedly healed him once many years ago. Tremain tells him Sara Korsgaard is now a high-flying templar stationed in Flamekeep. Upstairs, Zephyr offers Zeth access to the restricted section of the Library of Korranberg in exchange for doing a job for him. Zephyr isn’t getting paid enough and plans to tender his resignation by having Zeth and the team break into the basement vault and steal valuables for him. At Stella ’s request, Zeth gets him thinking about the passwords for the upper floors too and Kashtai skims them out of his mind. Stella pings everyone over the wifi. Hendrick makes his apologies to his date, who gives him a key to her place in case he can drop by later tonight, and joins the rest of the party at the northwest stairs on the third floor. Zephyr is waiting to give them access to the basement. The party clears half the basement in a surprising display of teamwork. Zeth deals damage, Nala casts Pass without Trace, Blue uses Alter Self to impersonate a guard, Stella kills one without mercy, and Hendrick manacles the surviving guards so they can’t raise the alarm. They disable arcane and mundane traps to get into the slave quarters. Starving and manacled goblins huddle in dozens of cells. Still hiding, the party debates whether to just release all the goblins into the event upstairs - maybe that would be compelling enough evidence of Castar Korran ’s guilt. Then they trip an alarm. All doors slam shut. Castar Korran appears on a wall screen. He thinks it’s a dick move to break into his slave den when he’s throwing such a cool party. He initiates what he calls the Phoenix Protocol - summoning a pair of fire elementals to kill all the slaves. The fire elementals begin systematically incinerating the slaves in their cells, turning them into scorch marks. Guards are also stabbing and killing with a caster backing them up. The goblins scream for help. Nala keeps hitting Hendrick by accident as he and Zeth try to keep one fire elemental occupied. They manage to drop their elemental, but the other is still rampaging despite Blue ’s best attempts. Stella leans around a corner and drops the caster with Dissonant Whispers. She hits the second fire elemental with Shatter, but it puts her down, smouldering and dying. Hendrick heals her, but is badly injured by an accidental blow from Blue . Stella burns the last of her spells in a desperate attempt to bring up her dying friends before Zeth finally finishes the second elemental. Battered and bloodied, having only managed to save a handful of surviving goblins, the five are barely on their feet when Castar Korran reappears on the wall screen. He’s annoyed enough to come down and kill them all himself. Then he gets attacked from offscreen. And the feed cuts out. TL;DR Everybody hates Korran.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Midnight Delivery | February 17th, 2018 | 1st-2nd Vult The ashes settle in the basement dungeon. Zeth is throwing up as Stella and Hendrick pick locks and open manacles to release the four surviving goblins. Alarms are still going off and emergency lighting is flashing. Hendrick finds keys on a guard’s body and they enter the guard room to find it empty. There’s no sign of the vault Zephyr wanted them to raid and Stella finally realises there is no vault down here - they are a distraction so Zephyr can hit his real target. A secret staircase leads directly up to the fourth floor vault, now scattered with stabbed and magically burned corpses. All the safes have been broken open and everything of value taken. Castar Korran is bleeding out rapidly. He begs them to save him - he’ll pay whatever they want. Seething, Stella plans to kill him, but Zeth steps between them, insisting Korran needs to face trial. A standoff follows before Stella backs off. While Zeth stops Korran ’s bleeding, Stella quickly searches the vault and finds manifests and receipts regarding Korran ’s slave trades. A note from Zephyr lies on top of the paperwork: Better luck next time. Z. That’s when Nala attacks Korran . Surprised, Zeth tries to shield him. Nala blasts him across the room. Hendrick tries to reason with her and Nala drops him with another eldritch blast. Something is very wrong with her. Stella manages to steal her arcane focus, but Nala prepares to unleash her dragon breath. Zeth has to hit her and Stella sneak-attacks her with her dagger. Nala falls to the floor unconscious. Only Stella , Zeth and Blue are still on their feet with the frightened goblins in a circle of guard corpses when Invidia and Provost Morrimar walk in. Awkward. The newcomers take in the carnage. Zeth immediately tells them the party is here working for the Trust to find evidence of Korran ’s slave-trading activities. Unconvinced, but intrigued, illusion specialist Morrimar decides to cover their exit with a Major Image spell. Korran ’s unconscious body is stuffed in a trunk carried by the goblins posing as servants and the group makes a hasty exit. Or tries to. Four guards are waiting for them at the front door, none too happy that they’re leaving with a trunk. Stella takes the leader aside and tells him Korran   killed somebody and is making them dispose of the body . The guard replies, “Again?” Stella suggests they find another employer. The guards quit, shaking their heads. The party delivers the trunk, the paperwork and the goblins to a Trust office. Satisfied, their mystery Trust friend pays them a hundred gold pieces each and pointedly books them passage on the lightning rail to Sharn. They have forty-eight hours from the next morning to leave Korranberg. When the rest of the party leaves, Stella stays behind to debrief. The Trust agent confirms this success goes some way toward mending the rift between the Trust and House Medani. Stella asks him about the bombing. Her suspicions are correct - the explosives were brought on board the ship by a member of the gnome security forces. The Trust agent is annoyed that his people are specially trained to resist magical interference but don’t seem to be as effective against psionics. He agrees to send along a briefing on the suspected kalashtar terrorists, who have already left town. As everyone heads back to their respective lodgings, Invidia offers to bring Zeth along to visit the restricted section of the Library of Korranberg tomorrow. Zeth is thrilled. Hendrick leaves to spend the night at Sylvana’s apartment and the rest of the party returns to the hotel. In the morning, Blue is working on his colouring books and watching over Nala , who is still sleeping. Hendrick visits and asks Stella about Nala blasting him with her spell. Stella is certain it has to do with the eldritch book that so alarmed the Trust, but she doesn’t want to betray Nala ’s secrets. Hendrick walks off, frustrated that Stella is covering for Nala . Zeth and Invidia finally get into the restricted section at the Library of Korranberg. Invidia reveals he studied at the Tower of the Twelve and his father was a Medani inquisitive. Zeth promptly tells him he also has a Medani friend. Zeth begins researching House Medani. Stella visits Mystrane for a final debriefing. Mystrane asks her to make official contact with the kalashtar on behalf of House Medani. She also gives Stella a sealed letter to deliver to Sharn for Baron Trelib d’Medani. The letter is to be burned if there is any risk of capture. Hendrick investigates the warlock book that Nala is clutching in her sleep. It begins talking to him creepily in his head. It tells him that she tried to kill Castar Korran because she has to spill blood to cross each threshold in her journey. The book attacks him with psychic damage. Meanwhile, Invidia is researching extraplanar invasions. Zeth begins telling Invidia all about the quori. Invidia is not yet convinced they’re more than just a myth. On the way back, Stella goes to pick up the dead drop she buried when the Trust first came after them. A gnome is waiting for her in the park. He gives her a thousand gold pieces - a reward from a pleased Elymar, who is taking Castar Korran ’s intended place on the Korranberg Council of Nine. Nobody knows Elymar was ever involved. Hendrick brings his burned and destroyed suit back to the upmarket tailor who sold it to him. He tells her it somehow set itself on fire at the masquerade. She’s so horrified, she pays him five gold pieces to keep quiet. She’ll fix the suit for free. Invidia and Zeth head to a market to shop for painting supplies and get cornered in an alley by extremely ambitious muggers. Zeth apologises as he knocks them out with the aid of Invidia ’s animated construct, Mai Butler. They feel so bad for the muggers that they leave them some money. With Blue still watching over Nala , Hendrick visits with Wolf and Maev. As their ship has been blown up, Maev is struggling to raise the funds needed to get her friends to Sharn on the lightning rail. She plans to continue taking jobs here until they can afford to reach Sharn. They make their farewells. Stella is last back to the private suite at the Blue Lotus to find Invidia making dinner. She stops dead. Zeth explains about their day at the library and everything he told Invidia . Stella is reluctant to even tell Invidia her name - she claims she’s just a singer. The cryptic crossword provides a good excuse not to interact with Invidia while he’s cooking. Dinner is served. It’s spectacular. They chat about their future plans to go to Sharn. Invidia offers to cover their costs if they want to travel with him on the lightning rail. Zeth gets Invidia talking about his connection to House Medani, but Stella doesn’t take the bait. She’s finding it incredibly suspicious that this mystery high-level wizard is taking such an interest in them. So suspicious that Kashtai sneaks out of Stella ’s pocket and hovers around Invidia . He’s intrigued by this green glowing orb, whom Zeth promptly explains is a quori, and allows her to read his mind. She’s able to confirm that he is probably not an agent of the Dreaming Dark. Well, that’s a relief. Looks like we’re taking the lightning rail to Sharn. TL;DR Castar Korran is toast and the Inspired are foiled in Korranberg.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Operation Overlord | February 24th, 2018 | 2nd-3rd Vult At dinner, Stella reluctantly begins to brief Invidia on their Dreaming Dark situation before Nala wakes up and comes to join them. She has no memory of what happened in the vault at the Korran estate. When she finds out, she’s horrified and wants to bolt - the party are safer without her. Hendrick goes for a walk with her, sits her down and patiently persuades her they are better off together. Nala asks him to check the team are all happy having her around given the risk she poses and if anyone says no she’ll leave. She goes to her room with cheesecake so the rest of the team can talk in private. A heated argument follows, especially when Hendrick reveals the book wants blood and attacked him. Invidia wants to research the book. Stella wants to destroy it immediately. Hendrick thinks it’s too risky to attack it. They agree to gather various types of incense so Invidia can cast a divination spell to learn more about the book. Hendrick considers breaking into a Silver Flame church for the incense, but Stella vetoes that. Just buy it. She doesn’t want to cover the cost personally since she may have to shell out twelve hundred gold pieces to put twenty people on the lightning rail to Sharn, so they hit up Nala for the cash. Nala decides to visit the Library of Korranberg now the Trust have allowed them generous access to the restricted section. Hendrick and Blue go with her. Stella is not happy and considers going after them in case Nala attacks anyone, but she’s distracted when the Trust deliver a secret briefing about the kalashtar. They believe around thirty to forty militant kalashtar may be operating in small terrorist cells in Sharn and Wroat. This is the team’s next port of call for dealing with the Dreaming Dark. At the library, Nala researches eldritch items. They learn about the Age of Demons millions of years ago when powerful evil fiends ruled the world until they were bound by couatls. They also discover Blue may be haunted by his grandfather’s spirit because of unfinished business connected to a professor at Morgrave University in Sharn, who sent him to the jungles of Xen’drik. Hendrick spends that night watching over Nala . He gets no sleep at all. In the morning, Stella brings Hendrick and Zeth to meet with the alchemist who supplied her with dreamlily. They buy the incense. Blue is left to guard Nala , who has an awkward conversation with Invidia at breakfast. They catch up about old friends and past events. Invidia casts Legend Lore. They learn the book is connected to one of the Overlords from the Age of Demons and is being sought by fiends. It wants death, and they won’t be able to stop it affecting Nala ’s mind. Their only real option for destroying the book is to bring it to a manifest zone linked to Fernia, the Plane of Fire, or Risia, the Plane of Ice. Once the spell ends, the book is glowing faintly red and seems pleased. Invidia is wiped after the spell and Hendrick has to help him out, distracting them at the crucial moment when Stella activates her dragonmark for the first time and attempts to cast Detect Thoughts on the book. Nala counterspells her. It escalates rapidly. Stella cannot believe that Nala is knowingly protecting a demonic abomination after what they just heard. Nala protests she’s protecting Stella . Stella asks if Nala would even realise if her mind is corrupted and her decisions aren’t her own. Nala grabs the book and runs. Hendrick and Stella both follow, but Nala throws up Pass without Trace. With help from the book, Nala manages to slip away. As she sits on a bench in a park, the book speaks to her directly. It convinces her it can help her find her missing family. The team are only holding her back. There is an airship at the docks. She needs to go there and get passage to Aundair. Hendrick continues to search for Nala . He sends to her. “ Nala . Are you sure you want to end up killing all these innocents? We want to help. Let us. Come back." Nala replies, "I'm just trying to protect you guys. I love you all." Stella seethes. The girl she liked so much is an agent of fiends. Now Nala has disappeared into the city with her murder-happy book and they’ll never find her. Nobody listened to her warnings. She gives up on them all and hits the nearest bar for a drink, full of rage and helplessness. Nala convinces the captain of the airship, Elrym d’Lyrandar, to take her to Passage in Aundair. It’s slightly out of their way, but since she’s crewed an airship before, he will waive the additional fee if she makes herself useful. Her book fiend introduces itself to her. Its name is Tul Oreshka. Invidia sends his raven familiar up into the skies searching for them, but can’t spot Nala . He polymorphs Blue into a giant owl. Circling above, Blue spots the airship leaving. Blue flies to Hendrick , who climbs on his back, and they race after the ship. Kashtai confirms Nala is most likely aboard. They catch up on the ship. Which fires a warning shot at them. Which they ignore. Then hits them with an explosion. Hendrick falls fifty feet onto the deck of the airship. It hurts. The crew are poised to kill him when Nala pleads with the captain not to harm Hendrick . He reluctantly gives them a little space to talk. Meanwhile, Stella arrives at the Blue Lotus. All their gear is already packed. Invidia is concentrating on Polymorph. He tells her when the spell drops, he will teleport them and Zeth to the others. Stella doesn’t let him finish. She silently picks up her bags and leaves. Back on the ship, Hendrick sits on the deck, exhausted and injured. Nala says she has to leave to find her family. Hendrick tells her they are her family and they need to face this together. Nala agrees to come home to the team. Frustrated, the book tries to take over her mind. Nala resists it once - twice - and, with Hendrick ’s guidance, thrice. The book gives up and leaves in disgust. To find another host. Nala finally experiences sanity again. Her delusions are gone. Death is real. She remembers everyone she’s killed, everyone who’s died around her. And she is no longer a warlock. That’s when the captain orders them tossed overboard. Hendrick is thrown off the ship. Nala jumps after him. They plummet from a thousand feet up. The countryside spins dizzily below them. Blue makes a desperate dive and Hendrick manages to grab onto his claws. Blue swoops again and catches Nala on his back. He’s saved them both from being splattered. They have just enough polymorph time left to make it back to Korranberg. Exhausted, they head back to the Blue Lotus to reunite the party. Surprise! No Stella . TL;DR The book gave up on Nala to seek a new host. Nala is no longer a warlock.