Overall, a relatively uneventful session due to the player for Cast getting very distracted by phone calls, food, shiny things, etc. They also sidetracked events a little over halfway through into something I hadn't planned for. We were also without X37 due to the player having RL concerns, which they felt the pain for such later.
Once in town they hawked off the lot of their stolen goods and eventually made a contact with an interested buyer in the ninja-specific items; where Cast did not join at the exchange due to the less-than-legal situation. At an empty theater, they met a robed hobgoblin that purchased the equipment with much more money than it was worth, and then delivered a message as a representative of the Barghest's Maw. So as to cut down on the bloodshed, a neutral location has been chosen where the party and the leader of the ninja clan will meet to come to a 'final decision'. In the bag of money was placed the location, a city called Herrein one month's journey away (with frequent sea voyages).
The party took this offer and began their travel, which ended up costing them most of the money they made from the hawking of their spoils of war. Herrein in a city of extreme class difference, gothic architecture, advanced technology, and a slight problem with lycanthropes. They were told to seek out a shop named "Jack's Extermination", which they found, the shop sign showing a large mousetrap and flanked by two actual gargoyles. Extremely cautiously, they opened the door from 30' away with the open/close cantrip to see if the gargoyles responded, and tip-toed in with the expectation of them moving and attacking. The stone eyes twitched minorly at them, but otherwise they never moved.
Inside, the small mousey shopkeeper got confused by their demands to speak to the Barghest's Maw, but eventually remembered a delivery from the Great Tinkerer for a pair of foreign aasimars and a tiefling. He found the box and revealed a life-sized toy monkey with cymbals in its hands, but before he could touch it or face the party, the device shot a knife into his head (promptly fell, unmoving) and began to clap the cymbols together.
Spells of defense flew on, but it did nothing else but clap for a moment and a magic mouth began, "The ninjas only needed you out of the way, and a two month goose-chase satisfied their employer. Sorry you got fooled." A round or two later, the shopkeeper got up with a splitting headache (the knife only took him to -9 and fast healing got him conscious). Not asking questions, the party grumbled and began their month journey home, the lot of them very tempted to work even harder to hunt down the ninja clan so as to kill them all.
Once home, many news were revealed. The orcs of the wastelands are beginning to unite under the banner of the Hungering Maw, and assault the borders with the Empire. The Blackened Grove has gotten an influx of soldiers with darkness spewing armor and are making more serious offenses. And the minor kingdom that is Cast's home very unexpectedly & recently swore independence after aid from the Empire of the Sun from a grass-roots rebellion to depose the king on seemingly baseless (but now known to be fully justified) accusations of fiendish pacts.
Not sure of what to do, they party ultimately decided to surprise me and head for Riddle Manor, a mere four day journey south. They found traces of kobolds and eventually the entrance to the maze. Before attempting the open gate/entrance, they searched for secret doors and found one, where Tow promptly fell down a 50' pit to open said door. Climbing out, they took the secret entrance...which took them into the main corridor in plain sight of the open gate. They never tried the front entrance, which would've revealed that the gate is actually completely blocked off by an invisible wall (requiring the side entrance to get around it). Walking down the maze of corridors (10' wide, 15' high), they didn't even attempt to check for traps and set off a wall scythe. Promptly, they had Tow hold the front to check for traps, where his Take 10 ended up finding every single one as they moved.
Note, the resident apparently took things easy and only trapped half of a 10' wide hall. Sometimes, after a turn/intersection, it would switch to a different half, but never did it have a trap on a lone side. Of course, thinking this too obvious of a trap, they check the safe side to be certain.
At a major intersection with fountains and such, they see a pair of minotaurs at the end of another hall. Their response is to cast a defensive spell and Marshal uses his battle shout, which prompts the minotaurs to take out their greataxes. Cast charges forward and harms one a fair bit, only to get grappled and held against a wall scythe trap (auto-reset, pretty much auto-hit when he's pinned), while the other minotaur squeezes around and gets ready to take on the other two. A short interplay with Marshal, only to find himself grappled and held above the minotaur's head and about to be coup-de-graed on its horns.
While other spells had been attempted, I've been rolling natural 18s and thus Tow's magic was largely wasted. By this point, Tow's hypnotic pattern finally works and the minotaur just stares blankly while Marshal struggles out of its grip. The other minotaur, confused as to why its buddy got stupid, finished off Cast (-19) and starts to walk over. Tow casts another hypnotic pattern before the other minotaur can un-fascinate his friend. Marshal's healing aura gets Cast conscious within three rounds, where they look unthreatening and nonchalant until they both charge and power attack the more injured minotaur into death (this broke the fascinate effect on both). The other minotaur trips & chops at both of their faces from the provoked AoO, misses the chop part because of their very high ACs, then goes down from Tow's crossbow.
They begin to read the writing on the walls (all in Giant, which Tow uses magic to translate), which is where we end the session for the night.
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