Ferrous Fortune-Hunters: Session XIII

They then began to trek back to the trading town after allaying the fears of the mining town that they were safe to leave. The party was greeted by half the city guard and the Collector himself. He held them under arrest for multiple charges, and brought them in for trial, including Flynn and Antric for association (at least until they ascertained their innocence).

A day or two later, they were brought out of jail and before the judge. During their wait, Flynn was given access to the law books and was allowed to present their case. With masterful use of debate, all charges but the killing of the guards from when they left the city were dropped, and that charge only levied against Megan's character and Audrius. The punishment for killing a city guard is two score years of enslavement. They agreed to do a service for the city to help pay for Audrius's freedom (Megan left for good, so we're letting her rot as a slave)

Their job was to keep low and investigate a possible homicide by one of the arcanists in the city. There had been a major writing competition, and the usual winner was found killed by his girlfriend (who then committed suicide with bottled poison), and the arcanist won the contest with a masterful work of fiction; despite his 7 prior attempts that weren't fit to be on paper.

In their investigation, they discovered that the girlfriend had minute traces of a poison that is used to make the victim much more vulnerable to mind-control magicks. There were also rumours of the dagger the woman used to kill the writer was holding a demon, which possessed the woman. They also found evidence of someone leaving the writer's home after his death.

Before they could investigate further, they were greeted by a sociable fellow, who in his conversation revealed himself to be a creation of the Black Lotus Eaters. They tapped into the Dreamscape to recreate one of the Beast Folk (rival race to the Melniboneans), for the purpose of getting the prophesized flower from the party. The creature, Saireen his name, told the party they didn't know what the flower metaphorically represented, but guessed it to be either Ino or the Shield of Chaos. He also told the party that the Black Lotus Eaters believed Audrius to be the most powerful member, unable to get enough information (all agents have died) to realize this to not be the case.

He told them that he didn't want to take it by force, and was willing to perform a trade, but it was revealed neither side was either capable or willing to provide what they had. With that, his two idiot-looking guards turned into scree and Saireen dropped his disguise and turned into a tiger headed man with reversed hands and a large runed sword.

When Kagemane pulled out his Mender (which alerted Saireen and made him decide to take that too), he tried to stab him with it, but missed soo poorly, he created a breach to another world. The inn was filled with a howling wind and filled the area with an aura of chaos and destruction. Amidst the howling wind, Saireen spoke a spell of domination, and Kagemane fell under its influence and began to attack Jorn. Flynn took a noticeable amount of time to come to the decision to help the party in the fight, uncertain as to whether to attack Saireen whom he had gained a healthy amount of respect for. Eventually, he decided to help and taunted the violent Kagemane away (who was immediately cowered into a corner to cry by Audrius). It was a vicious battle, as nobody could reliably harm Saireen. Audrius refused to use magic, out of hope of cleansing himself of taint, while Jorn could barely hit/harm Saireen in the howling wind, and Antric wasn't doing much damage to begin with. Eventually, Audrius was convinced to actually use magic, and took out Saireen in a single shot of his magic missile. They finished off the remaining Sscree and called it a night.

The next morning, while they investigated the prior crime scenes, a vrock (bird demon of chaos) began to assault the city, screaming out cries of freedom from 'that accursed blade'. When they tried to take it down, it summoned 16 dretches (minor demons), and began to tear into the party. Because they were such minor creatures, they repeatedly struck Jorn's Shield of Chaos, causing a number of wild surges. One dretch turned to stone, another turned into a trumpet archon (angelic creature of Law, retained the dretch's mind), the immediate area in a 30' radius exploded in fire for a minute, and Jorn gained a charged aquatic field of energy around his free hand which he used to punch out the vrock.