Elemental Affairs - Session 6
As we stand in front of the gates of the Corvinius Manor, where we ended last time, and Hadall has just revealed that he might be Kaya’s father, a guard comes up. Hadall recognizes this elf as Lionel, a personal guard of the Corvinius family, and upon realizing who Hadall is, Lionel rushes indoors to get the lady of the house – Hadall’s wife. After a short wait the two front doors to the manor swing open and out walks a tiefling woman with another child in her arms, and she greets us – and in particular Hadall – with three words.
“Kuvan. Fucking. Forestone.”
She goes on an angry tangent against Hadall until her eyes fall on little Kaya, she then goes dead silent, runs forward and finally holds her daughter in her arms again. After an embrace, she straightens back up with both Kaya and the other toddler in her arms, and she turns and starts walking back to the manor in silence. Awkward and with no idea what to do, we follow her inside. Lionel takes Blatrenn and brings him to the barracks to be locked up, although we don’t tell anyone that he was Kaya’s jailer.
Hadall’s wife introduces herself as Zalasti Corvinius and she brings us to a sitting room where the servants of the family serve us food and something to drink. Zalasti then sits down and waits for Hadall’s explanation. Hadall starts talking, starting with an apology, then telling her that he couldn’t take becoming the head of the house and that this life was simply not meant for him. Killing people was all he ever knew, but all he ever wanted was to be with her. Zalasti’s father sent him so some guy who shittalked the hell out of Hadall and he lost it. After that incident, Zalasti’s father told Hadall to leave to save her reputation. Zalasti retorts that her reputation was ruined regardless – rumors spread quickly and people didn’t like it that her husband simply up and left while she was pregnant (despite the fact he didn’t know that). The weight he left on her shoulders was almost unbearable.
Hadall figured it was better to leave her than for her to have a husband who couldn’t control his temper. She snaps that he was wrong, “as always”.
Zalasti shakes it off and asks about where Kaya was, and Hadall carefully explains where Kaya was being held and under which circumstances, how a cult has been trying to eradicate Hruhkis’s elemental influences by sacrificing druids and genasi children.
Zalasti mentions she won’t easily forgive him, but that she is grateful that he brought Kaya back nonetheless. We now take a closer look at the other toddler, who looks a little like Kaya and is the same age but takes more after his father, with bigger tusks and Hadall’s amber eyes. His name is Cabion and he’s Kaya’s twin. It’s late and Zalasti puts the children to bed.
With Zalasti out of the room, Hadall quickly explains that Kuvan Forestone is the name his mother gave him, as she is also a Forestone.
When Hadall’s wife returns she proposes something to us. She says she either wants to pay us for bringing back Kaya, or she wants to test us to see if we’re capable enough to keep serving the family, and she challenges us to a 2v2 duel: she and Hadall vs two of the others. Rei and Trick agree to represent the Catastrophe Conglomerate in the duel and with that it’s a deal. We’re led to a courtyard/arena kind of place and Rei and Trick take their positions against Hadall and Zalasti.
Despite their best efforts, Trick and Rei are quickly taken care of without even leaving so much as a mark on Zalasti – she can turn herself invisible at will and creates duplicates of herself, causing a whole lot of mayhem and making sure she remains unharmed. Hadall finally regains his ego since last time he and Trick sparred, Trick kicked his half-orc ass. Luckily, the medical services at the Corvinius manor are fantastic and their wounds are swiftly patched up (and Rei is practically stitched back together lmao they took a greatsword to the chest a few times).
Having seen Zalasti’s great control over her magic, Lynnae asks the tiefling lady for advice about casting magic, but unfortunately Zalasti’s a wizard and Lyn’s a sorcerer, meaning they draw their power from way different sources. Zalasti does offer to let Lyn into her library, though, an offer which Lyn gladly accepts.
The entire group except for Lynnae heads to the great garden of the manor, which is absolutely huge. Hadall walks off to a pair of trees: the Trees of Engagement is a Fassian tradition where someone who proposes for marriage plants a tree and offers the intended a seed. If the intended then also plants the seed the proposal is accepted. To Hadall’s great relief, both of the trees are still standing in the garden and they look healthy and well-kept, showing that Zalasti still hasn’t given up on him.
Cassandra and Rei enjoy themselves swimming in a small lake in the garden while Lara spends a moment skipping rocks on the water. As this unfolds, Lynnae quietly sneaks off into the barracks. Unbeknownst to her, Trick follows. Lyn goes to Blatrenn’s cell and asks Lionel if she can talk to him in private for a moment, which Lionel allows since he has no idea that Lyn has so far tried to murder Blatrenn twice. Trick remains in the shadows to listen in on the conversation.
Surprisingly, Lynnae seems calm and remains that way. She says that even though Blatrenn hasn’t won her trust, she still wants to talk to him and ask him some more questions.
- Why wait with sacrificing the children? Does the Many-Eyed demand sacrifices at specific times? Kauthrien ordered him to not kill off too many at once, in case the Many-Eyed deems a sacrifice unworthy. Blatrenn doesn’t know what makes a sacrifice worthy or not.
- Hykaril kept a notebook with details about his sacrifices, including their names. Were you lying when you said you didn’t know the names of the missing children of Pasekar or did you not keep a notebook? Hykaril had a bit of a tendency to write down everything, he was a very organized man and relished in it. Blatrenn didn’t know the names of the children.
- Why only kidnap and kill children? It’s easier, simple as that.
- What are Vurryl and Falk like? What are their groups like? Vurryl is a ruthless and sadistic killer who enjoys toying with her prey. Falk is insane, and wanted in Kyllm, the region of Air. Blatrenn despises Falk and dislikes talking to them. Falk also enjoys puzzles and traps, so Blatrenn warns Lyn that it won’t be easy entering their base.
- Where in Trestyr and Port Yketan are their bases? Vurryl’s base is in some ruins just outside of Trestyr and Falk’s base is in an old, burned down library in Port Yketan.
- What business does your hunting party have in Parwyn specifically? Restocking supplies, mostly. Afterwards, they want to head to Hykaril’s old base.
- Any plans of going to Parshyr? Not that Blatrenn knows, and with his crystal in Cassandra’s hands he can’t call them to find out.
After Lyn has asked her questions Blatrenn wants to ask a question in return: why is Lyn so interested in Parwyn and Parshyr? Lynnae grew up in Parshyr and likes to keep tabs on her hometown in her own ways. Lynnae leaves the barracks again, failing to notice Trick yet again, and she returns to the rest of the group in the garden.
In the evening, Hadall heads to Zalasti’s private study where she is reading a book about trading. She’s glad he returned and asks if he’s planning on staying, but Hadall’s plans lie elsewhere: he can’t stay, he has to fight the Followers of the Many-Eyed and finish this. He wants to be the Kuvan she deserves so he has to finish what he started, and he promises he’ll come back and stay once that’s done. Zalasti almost begs him to stay, she needs him, she wants him back, never gave up on him. His children need their father in their lives and that she didn’t have the heart to tell them their father had walked out. Hadall says he missed her so much and that he wants to be with her, but that the life of the Corvinius family is one he is not cut out for. He has lost himself before and he doesn’t want to do that again. He can’t. Everything Hadall has done, including the more questionable decisions, has been for his family – he knows he could have gone around it differently but this is the only way he can.
They hold each other. Hadall promises he’ll return once he has taken care of the Followers of the Many Eyed.
Dinner is served in the Corvinius Manor, and this is an entire buttload better than the food at the monastery. It’s delicious and we greatly enjoy the feast though Zalasti’s pretty quiet throughout all of it. After Cassandra asks for some strong booze and receives a bottle of whiskey, we retire to the guest rooms for the night. Lara and Rei build a blanket fort and everyone happily falls asleep.
(At this point, Laraëssil gets a private moment with the DM, the rest of the party has no clue what happened and yours truly is also clueless)
The next morning we reconvene downstairs to have breakfast. Lara looks seriously shaken by something but when she’s asked about it, she just mentions having had a nightmare and brushes it off. After breakfast, Zalasti says she wants to reward us for bringing back Kaya despite having lost the duel from the day before. She walks off and returns with a few magic items, allowing us to choose one for the party to bring along. Trick picks the magical handaxe and brings it with her. Since Zalasti enchanted the items herself, Lynnae approaches her with a special request: she asks the tiefling if it’s possible to enchant her gloves to make them fully fire-resistant so she won’t burn through them if she starts leaking embers again. Zalasti is happy to accept and Lyn hands over her gloves so she can later pick them up again once they’re enchanted.
It’s the day before Cassandra’s and Rei’s birthdays (they share a birthday) and the party wants to go shopping for presents in Fjynlen, a modest town that’s close to the manor. Hadall gets some sweet pastries in the local bakery while Rei buys Cassandra a few daggers and asks Lara to engrave them with more daggers. The Conglomerate returns to the manor once they’re done shopping.
Hadall turns to Lara now and asks her if he can make two little statuettes of crows out of wood. She does so and places small gemstones where the eyes should go.
Cassandra asks if she can use the kitchen and – once she has permission – bursts inside and sends the cooks away so she has the entire place to herself. She then starts baking something for Rei. Lynnae draws a thing to put on the cake, leaves it for Cassandra to use and then heads to the library. There, she copies Fassian recipes out of a cookbook for Cas.
Hadall goes to the garden and gives Kaya and Cabion the two crow statuettes. They immediately start playing with them, pretending the crows are flying. Zalasti walks up to him and tells him how nice that was. Trick, meanwhile, casts Thaumaturgy to make it look like the statues are making crow noises. The kids couldn’t be happier.
Rei walks up to the third floor of the manor with the fairytale book they stole in Wintyr in hand and leaves it in front of Zalasti’s room with a note that it’s from Hadall (since they can’t find the rooms of the children).
And as everyone is happily going about their chores, all the Walkie Crystalkies suddenly crackle and a voice springs forth. Lynnae’s soul just about leaves her body as Kara Violet Laroche, her sister, finally reaches out: “Oh boy— Lynnae? Ugh, this is stupid. Lyn? Is that you?”
Kara’s surprise that this actually works quickly turns to astonishment and anger – the two sisters haven’t spoken in years and this is the first sign of life Lynnae has given since she was fifteen, Kara has no idea where Lyn is and to be fair, she thought her younger sister was dead. At this point (considering Kara’s crystal connects to everyone’s) the rest of the party joins in on the conversation and they’re not happy. Lyn told them she had simply lost the first crystal, after all.
Lynnae apologizes to her sister for leaving her and her parents without warning, that she figured it was best to run away, but Kara disagrees, begging Lynnae to come home. Lyn remains adamant that she can’t come home, not after what happened and not with the cult running rampant. Kara says that her parents were overjoyed when they heard Lynnae was still alive. There was even a funeral for her shortly after she left since everyone thought she had died. Lyn asks if Isowyn, the lawmaster of Parshyr, knows that she is alive – Kara says no and Lyn begs her to keep it a secret for she’s afraid Isowyn might kill her or send her to an asylum. Kara assures her Isowyn wouldn’t do that, that the lawmaster wanted to help, just like her. Kara has been looking for answers everywhere, studying, trying to find a cure, a fix for Lyn’s chaotic magic. The elder sister was even accepted into the Soot Seminary in Sudh – a mage’s academy. This greatly surprises Lynnae as the last time she saw Kara, she only had aspirations and dreams of casting magic and attending the Seminary.
Lynnae says it’d be dangerous for Kara to keep the crystal, that there are people who won’t like she has a crystal, but Kara decides to keep it for she has been growing stronger and stronger in magical power herself and she’s sure she can hold her own. The rest of the party starts filling Kara in on the activities of the cult. Kara seems a bit worried about the people her sister has surrounded herself with, but Lynnae assures they’re great people and they look out for her and protect her. That puts Kara’s mind to rest. Lyn tells of the party’s plans to head to Trestyr soon and she promises to stop by Sudh to see Kara, as she will have returned to school by then. After an exchange of I love yours, Lynnae stops talking into the crystal and runs to the gates of the manor as fast as she possibly can.
Hadall and Rei are much faster than Lynnae, though, and she’s tackled to the ground and pinned down so she can explain herself. Soon the complete Catastrophe Conglomerate is together again, except for Cassandra, who returned to baking after the call ended. Hadall calls Lyn out on her bullshit and she finally gets honest about ‘losing’ the crystal back in Runar. He’s obviously disappointed, as are the others. Trick, intrigued by what Kara and Lyn were talking about, asks Lyn why she took off from Parshyr but she doesn’t let anything go about it, except for the fact it’d be dangerous to tell them, that she never told anyone and that she isn’t planning on telling anyone either. Hadall says he just wants to help her and help her get over it, face it. Lyn keeps refusing and – frustrated as all hell – Hadall stomps off, back to the manor. Lynnae locks herself inside a guest room while the rest has dinner and she remains there for the rest of the night.
Zalasti, in the meantime, has found the fairytale book in front of her door and as Hadall goes upstairs he hears her read to the two children from it. After the story’s over she thanks Hadall for giving her the book, and though he has no idea what she’s talking about he just goes along with it, especially since Zalasti appears to forgive him to the extent that he’s allowed in her bedroom again. Though they don’t make a move towards each other, they spend the night asleep in each other’s arms.
Rei and Lara have a private moment that night, and Laraëssil fills them in on what has been going on (again, yours truly has no idea what happened here but Rei is SHOOKETH).
We wake up to Cassandra’s and Rei’s birthdays, and Cas being an Extra Bitch™ she prances down the stairs of the manor to receive congratulations and presents. Hadall gives the tiefling some of the pastries he bought in Fjynlen yesterday. Lyn initially doesn’t want to come downstairs but Cas and Rei are still her friends and realizing this, she eventually also joins. She gives Cassandra the copied recipes because Cas really loves baking. Rei is the last one to join, as they slept in a little after what Lara told them last night. As soon as they hit the stairs they YEET the wrapped daggers towards Cassandra, who catches them despite being caught off-guard. It’s now time for Cassandra’s present for Rei, which she and Lynnae are extremely excited about. Cassandra fucks off to the kitchen and returns with a ginormous cake. Pasted on top of it, in fondant, is a picture of a very naked Tibor flexing and showing off his muscles – the drawing Lynnae made yesterday. Rei takes off the fondant illustration and stuffs it in their bag with the biggest smirk ever.
After the gift exchange Zalasti gives Lynnae her newly enchanted gloves, which the sorcerer immediately puts on her hands – feeling safe for the first time in forever. Hadall decides to ask Zalasti a question that has been on his mind for a good while: where the rest of the family is. Apart from Zal and the children it’s really just the servants. Zalasti says they’re having a meeting in Suald with the Dyrhide family. Zalasti also has no idea where Hadall’s siblings could be hanging out. They give each other a small kiss before the Catastrophe Conglomerate heads out on their journey to Trestyr, through Sudh. Lynnae also asks if they can stop by a village called Kyrrash. We pick up Blatrenn from the barracks and just before leaving, Laraëssil takes out one of the gemstone charms she made a while back – the fire one, this time – carefully cuts it in half with her tools, fashions necklaces out of them and gives them to Kaya and Cabion. They’re overjoyed and with that, we wave the Corvinius family goodbye for now.
The journey from Fjynlen to Kyrrash takes about five days, and on the second day of travel it’s the annual Fading Light Festival, which is basically the Hruhkis equivalent of New Year’s Eve. Everyone has their own traditions and rituals they like to practice, and we head into a small town off the road to celebrate. Rei and Lara buy lanterns they can light up and let float to the sky, Cassandra gets piss-drunk, Lynnae holds a little boat from paper, writes a wish and a point of gratitude on it and offers it to Mystra in a prayer. Hadall makes a small woodcarving, and once he’s happy with the result he buries it.
The next day marks the first day of the year, the New Dawn Festival. After the celebrations of yesterday we head out again and cross the border from Fass to Suald. The crossing of the threshold sparks something within Lyn: a certain warmth settles in her heart, silencing an empty feeling of cold. She instantly knows she’s home again. Rei, being only used to the high, snow-covered mountains of Kyllm, is sweating from pores they didn’t even know existed. The Sualdian climate is quite a change.
Two more days later the Conglomerate arrives in the small, volcanic village of Kyrrash, where a quiet, wary and protective atmosphere lingers. There’s a small temple, two taverns and a general store, but not much else except for a residential area. As soon as we walk into Kyrrash Lynnae transforms herself into Aerith Araynore. When Hadall asks her why she’s transforming herself she explains that she’s actually wanted in Kyrrash for the burning of the old general store some years ago. She tells of how she burned through a pair of gloves in the middle of the store, which really pissed her off since she had bought the gloves because they were supposed to be enchanted so she’d never have to worry about burning them to hell. Unfortunately it turned out to be a scam, set up by a little halfling girl named Brenna.
As Lynnae is telling this, Trick absolutely loses it and is on the floor laughing, then casts Disguise Self and turns her face into that of the girl who scammed Lynnae, revealing this Brenna the Cunning was actually her. Lyn, out of sheer anger, drops her disguise and screams at Trick before Hadall grabs her shoulder and asks if the people here remember her. Considering there was a wanted poster with her face on it, Lynnae assumes they do, and Hadall tells her to turn the fuck back to Aerith. As soon as Lyn casts the spell again, her Wild Magic takes over and she suddenly starts levitating.
Holding her by the arm to prevent her from floating away, Hadall asks why Lynnae even wanted to come to this town if she’s wanted here. Lynnae’s old mentor Theodred Araynore lives here, an elderly elven man who taught her valuable spells and life lessons. She sends him gold from time to time but other than that she hasn’t been in contact with him for about a year or two.
Luckily, the Wild Magic surge wears off after a few minutes. In the outskirts of Kyrrash we find Theodred’s house, which is really more of a big shack. The elderly wood elven man is happy to see Lyn, he’s proud of her for making friends and finding her way in the world despite not having made peace with her powers yet. He is rather confused by the very much shackled Blatrenn we’re still dragging with us, however. After tea and dinner we sleep over at his place and the next morning we set out to go to the capitol of Suald: Sudh.
Just before we reach the city after a few more days of travel, Cassandra dons her disguise kit – it may have been a good year since she was last in Sudh, but with Ana having betrayed so many members of the old assassin’s guild she has no doubt that she might be in trouble.
The city’s loud and proud, and enormous, the streets are packed with people. There’s music playing and the market is bustling and crowded, filled with colorful stands of all kinds, merchants selling everything from baked goods and fresh fruits to clothing and cooking ware. On a plaza, two performers are busking, standing on top of each other, and they’re juggling apples that might have been “borrowed” from one of the stands. The smaller performer backflips off the shoulders of the other, still juggling, and with an underhand throw they land all the apples in a basket. They strike a pose, end the performance, and gather the coins that bystanders have thrown them. There’s a lovely lighthearted atmosphere, Sudh is brimming with positive energy.
Cas goes off on her own to make some inquiries about the guild, while Hadall, Trick and Lara go to the magic item shop called the Torch & Tinder, filled to the brim with magical items that have something to do with fire in some sense. Trick gets a circlet of blasting and also buys Cassandra a magical dagger that can light on fire, and Hadall gets a bag of holding.
Lynnae has snuck into an alley in the meantime, there she takes out her Walkie Crystalkie and asks Kara to meet her. Since the rest can easily hear this, Trick, Hadall, and Lara also promise to join (and Rei will join too but they can’t talk sooo).
Cassandra, in the meantime, has found the temple board and is looking at two wanted posters: one for herself, and one for Trick. This confirms her fear about not being out of rough water yet, and she starts heading towards an old, abandoned warehouse in the lower district of Sudh: her division of the assassin’s guild used to be stationed there. She checks for people, and if there’s anything of worth to her there, but she can’t find anything or anyone. In another hideout she finds some thieves’ cant etched into the wall, which says “abandon base”.
Trick and Rei head to the Blacksmith, which is called Fortress Fire. Rei etches the words “short sword” into their Crayola slate to show to the half-orc blacksmith, and they buy two.
After a little while, the entire group except for Cassandra (who’s still on her personal mission to find clues about the whereabouts of the remaining guildmembers) converges at the Roaring Flame, a cozy tavern in the city center.
Kara is the last to come through the door: she looks a lot like Lyn but has darker and curlier hair, and the left side of her face and neck is completely covered by a massive burn scar. Lyn carefully asks how the scar is, but Kara knows how to treat it and she says it’s fine. The two sisters hug and Kara seats herself next to Lyn. Lynnae happily introduces the rest of the group to her (Blatrenn is still with them, manacled and all, and Kara looks at him strange but says she won’t question it).
Kara asks where Lynnae has been during the 6 years she was missing, and Lynnae actually spent most of her time in Sudh before she met Hadall. Kara’s pretty angry that Lyn hasn’t shown a single sign of life during those 6 years, and Lynnae explains that she was too scared, that she didn’t know what would happen if she returned.
Lyn tells of her surges and magic, how she’s been growing more and more out of control, and that she cast a Fireball on accident again. It might have been in a safer place this time around but that doesn’t change her fears at all. Kara tries to assure her that she has been reading, researching and studying to find a cure and a way to stop it, and that she even found records on people like Lynnae with uncontrollable magic. Unfortunately, that’s where the trail ends. Kara says they can’t give up yet, and it’ll be easier to find a fix if Lyn doesn’t take off this time. Once again, Lyn retorts that it’s not that simple and that going home is not an option.
With a hushed voice Lynnae now asks what happened to the house, to which Kara answers the family rebuilt it. Hadall catches this, though, and asks if Lynnae perhaps burned it down. Kara insists it was just an accident – a bad one, but still. Elaborating, Lyn tells it was a lash of wild magic: the Fireball in the sewers wasn’t her first. The first Fireball she ever cast laid waste to her house and more. In fact, through cryptic wording it becomes clear Lynnae burned down a part of her hometown Parshyr, and subsequently faked her own death and fled.
But when Lynnae asks if anyone died during the fire, Kara refuses to answer. Trick notices she’s hiding something.
No matter how much Kara says it’s okay and it was simply an accident, and that her parents really want to see her again, Lynnae remains adamant about avoiding Parshyr, mostly because of her fear of the lawmaster’s reaction. Kara’s reassurances are not enough, and – frustrated – she asks why Lyn even contacted her in the first place if she had no plans of returning. Lynnae tells of the dreams she’s had and how Cassandra and Trick convinced her to send the letter.
Trick suggests Charming Lyn to coax her and when Lyn says with a scowl that Trick has threatened with that before, Kara says Trick’s a bad person. Upon taking a closer look at Trick, though, Kara suddenly recognizes Trick from the wanted posters in town. She’s worried about how safe the Conglomerate is for Lynnae, but her concerns are quickly dispersed when Lynnae explains how Trick saved her life multiple times.
Kara finally seems to give in a little, telling Lyn that she has to do what she has to do even if that means not returning to Parshyr a little longer. After Kara promises to take care of herself, she gives a small demonstration of her spellcasting abilities – much to Lyn’s excitement.
They promise to take care, and Kara leaves for the Seminary again because she has a class to attend.
Cassandra, still scouting the city high and low for clues, has made her way to the gallows – captured assassins are hanged, after all. Still in disguise she asks a rather scrawny-looking guard if there are any executions scheduled but he has no idea. Cas then asks if anything happened here recently, any hangings – two weeks back there was indeed an execution and the guard thinks the prisoner in question was a murderer. He’s not quite sure, though.
With no leads, Cassandra heads for the place where she used to hang out. It used to be a tavern until the owner died and there was no one to take over, so it has fallen in disrepair. Cas’s hangout was in the basement of that tavern. It doesn’t look like anyone has been here recently: there is a layer of dust on the floor and it seems undisturbed. Now, Cassandra walks to another hangout, but this is one that her formed girlfriend (who was also with the guild) used to frequent. This building is in an even worse state than the old tavern.
There’s no one there and Cassandra’s worried. After Ana’s betrayal the surviving guild members must have followed the one protocol they had: Leave. No. Trace.
She briefly contemplates returning to the guard from before but asking where the dead bodies are being disposed of is a rather suspicious question. She therefore decides to continue her search elsewhere. For now, she reconvenes with the rest of the Conglomerate. Cassandra shows Trick her wanted poster and laughing, they compare their posters for a little until Trick gives Cassandra the magical dagger that she bought at the Torch & Tinder.
Cas tells the group of her findings: aka there was nothing and she could do with some suggestions. Lara proposes the idea that Cas tries to contact someone from the guild to “carry out services”. With nothing else to go on, Trick and Cassandra together head off to the shiftiest tavern in town: the Sand Rose.
As the Trouble Tieflings leave, Hadall quickly speaks to Kara through the crystal and asks her if he has seen a half-orc from Fass at the academy, named Kham. Kara knows him, he studies there as well but she mentions not having talked to him much before. Hadall asks if she can tell him that his brother’s in town.
The Sand Rose has a beautiful exterior but the second Cas and Trick step in it becomes clear that this is a place for scum and only scum. The tieflings head up to the bar and order something to drink. Trick says they might have an assignment to get rid of someone, and she slides the elven barmaid some gold. The barmaid says she’ll pass the message along to the right people and tells the tieflings to be there tomorrow at 11 in the evening.
That night, at the Roaring Flame, Lynnae waits until everyone’s asleep and then proceeds to sneak out of her room. The two elves in another room, who don’t need to sleep and have good senses, pick up on her awful footwork and catch her right in the act (Rei kicks open the door as Lynnae passes it and they almost give her a fucking heart attack). Lyn says that she’s not feeling well and that she wants to get some fresh air outside. When Lara tells her to just open a window Lyn retorts that she’s not going to barf out of a window. She then walks down the stairs, and Laraëssil follows while Rei stays in the elves’ room.
Lyn assures Lara she’ll be fine on her own but Lara still stays with her (though giving her some space as Lynnae very obviously fake-pukes outside). Lynnae insists on taking a walk outside, alone, but Lara is not about to just let her go on her own, especially if she’s “not feeling well”. Suspicious, Lara casts Detect Thoughts to see what Lynnae’s surface thoughts are geared towards, and to her great shock Lynnae is thinking about Kauthrien.
Lara calls out in the crystal that Lyn’s not feeling well, alerting Rei and waking up Hadall and Trick, and they come outside to see what the ruckus is about. Laraëssil probes deeper into Lyn’s mind, and – although Lyn now takes notice of this and tells her to get out of her head – finds out that Lyn is worrying about Kauthrien. As soon as the group (except for Auk and Cas because they’re still sleeping like rocks) reconvenes just outside the tavern, Lara breaks to them Lynnae was worrying about Kauthrien. She tells Lyn that if she’s worried about something she needs to communicate this better. Finally, Cassandra also joins up with the rest. Lyn lights her hands for a moment, but soon puts out her fire again – she doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
Lynnae implies she was planning on contacting Kauthrien on her own, in order to get her to slip up about her location. Of course Hadall’s disappointed: he wants to keep her safe yet she keeps putting herself in danger, on her own. Lyn would rather have it just be her than the entire group, but Rei disagrees, signing that as a group, the Conglomerate is so much stronger.
Lyn insists that Kauthrien doesn’t know Aerith is her but Rei and Hadall remind her that she can’t be sure of that. When Cas asks her how Lynnae even wanted to contact Kauthrien in the first place: Lyn wanted to do so with the code words she had learned from Blatrenn back in Tyressil.
Hadall and Rei are done with Lynnae’s bullshit. After a bit of a struggle Hadall seizes her and Cassandra swaps crystals with her, so that the tiefling now has both Blatrenn’s and Hykaril’s leader crystals and Lynnae only has a regular one. The scene we’ve caused has drawn the attention of a guardess, who walks up to us and asks if everything’s okay. Not wanting to mess up the situation any further, Lynnae tells the guardess she was hella drunk and promises to sober up. She’s dragged back inside and doesn’t make any more efforts to escape. Lara minor illusions the twerking will-o-the-wisps as a sign of goodwill, and the Conglomerate goes to sleep.
The next morning Lynnae heads into town (dragging Blatrenn along bc it’s her turn to babysit him). She heads to the herbalist, a store named Moondew which is owned by a moonelf man. She buys three sets of ingredients for potions of healing and one set for an ointment of sunscreen to protect herself from the hot Sualdian sun.
Trick heads to one of the temples in town, she first casts Disguise Self to make herself look like a halfling and on the side of a wall she carves the symbol of Leira, her deity. She prays to the symbol and then goes back on her way to think.
Evening rolls around, and after dinner, Trick and Cassandra head out to the Sand Rose to meet with the contact. The elven woman at the bar takes them to a back door immediately and there’s a poorly lit backroom. In the far back there’s a table with a hooded figure sitting in the corner. Cassandra recognizes the person as someone from the former assassin’s guild. She never spoke to him much but she has seen him around. Trick and Cas come clean about that they’re looking for the guild, and that they wonder what happened.
The assassin is a bit pissy that the two don’t require his services. Cas tells him she’s trying to find out what happened to a friend. The assassin tells us that the guild is no more, that they were involuntarily disbanded, but he doesn’t let go of anything else. Cassandra loses her cool, grabs his cloak and casts Thaumaturgy to make her voice sound demonic. Again she asks her question, and – scared shitless by this sudden development – he says that someone from the inside betrayed them, they knew their faces, their names, many were arrested and killed. Cas now asks about someone named Ruven, but the assassin doesn’t know where he’s at. He wasn’t captured, in any case.
Cas asks if there were wanted posters for someone with hair dyed to match the color of a watermelon, but he didn’t see any of those. Cas lets go of him, Cas and Trick slide him some gold for his trouble. They return to the Roaring Flame and settle in for the night.
Lynnae approaches Cas in the morning and asks her, rather urgently, to come to her immediately if Kauthrien starts speaking to her. She’s afraid that if anyone else than Aerith answers the call, Kauthrien will be suspicious. Cas snaps that she’ll at least inform the rest of the group if Kauthrien calls, unlike a certain someone. She does promise to tell Lyn as well, though, and the two separate.
Hadall and Cassandra head to the blacksmith for some new armor. Luckily Cassandra is swimming in gold, because Hadall needs to borrow a metric fuckton in order to be able to afford a good set of half-plate. Cassandra buys herself studded leather armor and with that, they’re all geared up.
Lynnae, Lara and Rei go to the library, each with different goals in mind. It’s a rather small library because the big library in town belongs to the Soot Seminary, and we’re not allowed in there. Lynnae roams the place for books on Wild Magic, but the books about magic are most likely in the Seminary and she can’t find anything. Lynnae then joins Rei in their search for some Good Smut™, but every single time they think they’ve found something neat it just says “Fade to black” and they get so frustrated after a while that they give up.
Lara looks for books on will-o-the-wisps, and there’s some information but it’s rather generic, that they’re lost spirits who draw in travelers who are then never seen again. Fed up with the fruitless search Lynnae speaks into her crystal and reaches out for Kara. Kara has already gone through the library for stuff on Wild Magic before and she didn’t find anything of special interest. She can give Lara a little more information on will-o-the-wisps, though. They’re a type of undead, tricking people into following them so they can drown them. They feed on desperate emotions, so that’s why they lure people into the swamps: once their victims are panicking they feast on the energy and let them die. Lyn looks at Lara a bit oddly upon hearing this since Lara conjures the wisps when Lyn’s stressed, and when she asks the moonelf why she wanted info on them in the first place Lara gets uncomfortable and doesn’t answer.
Lynnae finally asks about Hadall’s brother and if he’s there, at which Kara gets extremely uncomfortable, saying “Yeah he’s here?... as in—as in the Seminary, he’s in the Seminary yep that’s what I meant”. Thanks to a Nat1 on insight Lynnae notices absolutely nothing strange about her sister’s behavior, and as Kara quickly bullshits that she needs to get back to class, Lynnae happily wishes her good luck and ends the call.
With our preparations for the journey ahead done, we head out to the north west to Trestyr. The five-day-journey is remarkably calm and the road is quiet, which is to be expected in the middle of the goddamn desert but hey it’s convenient not to be battling bandits all the time. The second we step in we see a quiet port town with only one tavern, but the day is young and we’re feeling all right, so we decide to head to the ruins just outside of town to search for Vurryl’s division of Followers of the Many Eyed.
The temple, which is devoted to Mystra, lies in total ruins. Upon entering there’s a tunnel that heads downward and since we know we might soon be fighting cultists, we sneak onward. Suddenly we come across an open space with a narrow hallway, with cells hewn into the walls. Upon closer inspection we find no children locked up in there, which is a plus, but instead a skeletal hand juts through the bars and several undead skeletons start crawling towards us. To make matters worse, in runs a bear that’s literally on fire but it looks like it’s supposed to be that way. Get rekt. Roll initiative.
As soon as Lynnae sends a Fireball flying at the monsters she notices they have full fire-immunity and she retreats a little while the rest takes care of things. Hadall beheads the fire bear with a swift swing of his axe, while Lara (with an unbelievable 3 Nat20s, 2 in a row) totally fucks the skeletons back to hell with a series of sweet Eldritch Blasts. Hadall cleaves the last skeleton in half, and with that the passageway is safe once more.
Silence falls, and we advance to a bigger room we can reach from the hallway. As we enter, however, the first three people in the marching order (Rei, Cassandra and Lynnae) are hit with a small Fireball trap when Rei and Cas snag a tripwire, but they make it through without major injuries.
We head into the next room, a large, open chamber with a door to the left and an open space in the back with a stone slab altar and a destroyed relief in the wall to the back. There’s dried blood on the altar-table-thing and the floor around it looks terribly unstable. We want to head through to door on the left but Cas notices it’s trapped. She disarms the trap and picks the lock, and Rei kicks right on through.
In the chamber, along with two hooded figures, stands a tiefling woman with flaming red skin, long, black, braided hair, tattered ears and piercings and earrings lining them. With a shock, Cassandra realizes this is Ana, the woman who betrayed the assassin’s guild.
“Well, you’ve come at last,” she says.
Cassandra asks her why she betrayed the guild, Ana just laughs and shakes her head, saying it was nothing personal. The two cultists by her side move forward with drawn daggers and we roll initiative.
It’s a very long battle. Cas gets some use out of her latest additions to her dagger collection, Lynnae manages to not misdirect her spells for once in her life, Rei goes out a few times but when they get back up they dexterously move out of the way of every single attack and we dub this move the “macareina” (geddit geddit). Cultists keep pouring in from holes in the wall and tunnels beyond the unstable floor but eventually we manage to kill them all.
All except for one.
Ana is still standing. She sees the shitty situation she’s in and turns herself invisible, only for her to run off immediately. Her footsteps aren’t silent though, so we manage to figure out where she’s going and chase her down.
THIS GIRL IS FAST YO. Rei and Hadall, the two fastest party members, have actual trouble keeping up with her but at last they tackle her and pin her to the ground and she once again becomes visible. To prevent her from escaping again Rei ties her up.
Cas gets cocky right away but Ana is entirely unfazed, even mocking Cassandra for tripping over her words. Cas asks what happened to Kathy, but Ana’s just staring, not answering. Lara casts Detect Thoughts to see how she’s feeling right now, and she’s feeling cornered but not really threatened. We ask her why she was in the temple, to which she answers it’s her base – Ana is actually Vurryl. Lara uses her spell to probe deeper into her mind, catching some stray memories. Shortly before leaving the guild Ana recalls seeing a red-haired elven woman that she talked to a lot. Lara catches that this woman is Kauthrien, and she relays this to the rest of the party immediately.
Ana notices Lara’s going through her mind and tells her to back off but Lara doesn’t let go. The second Rei steals Ana’s crystal, the moonelven warlock notices panic rushing through Ana’s mind. We ask if this was the complete group that she had here, but she tells us that another part is in Parwyn, together with Blatrenn’s hunting party. When asked more about Parwyn Ana refuses to say anything else.
Done with Ana’s bullshit, Trick casts Charm Person and places Ana under her spell. Cassandra asks where Kathy is right now but Ana doesn’t know, Kathy ran off and hasn’t been found yet. She does mention that Cassandra’s “interesting” but doesn’t elaborate, even with the charm on her.
She’s asked about Parwyn again and says that her people and the hunting party decided to stay in Parwyn and spread a little, lay low, after getting word of Blatrenn’s betrayal.
Cassandra asks her why. Why she betrayed the guild, why she ratted everyone out. She says she has her reasons and – despite the charm – doesn’t tell us any more about that. Cas then kicks her face in, Lynnae tries to burn her (which does like….. not work at all) and Trick tries offing her with her axe and misses. Three murder attempts later we decide that maybe we can still get some info out of her. Trick charms her once again.
We ask why she joined the cult and by means of the Detect Thoughts spell, Lara sees that Ana witnessed the eruption of Tymmyr Volcano (one of the four natural disasters written down on the slips of paper in the offices). She’s disgusted with elemental affairs, clearly, and when Kauthrien approached her she couldn’t say no to such an opportunity.
Ana has outlived her usefulness. Cassandra is allowed the honors, and after Ana threatens that Kauthrien will inevitably find us, the traitor to the assassin’s guild is executed.
We find some loot on her: a metric fuckton of gold, some platinum pieces, 2 regular potions of healing and 1 of greater healing. There’s also a Ring of Protection, which Lynnae happily confiscates because her AC is abysmal and she Suffers™.
We head back into the temple in the hopes of finding more. It’s already very empty, and apart from a list with the same disasters as mentioned in Hykaril’s and Blatrenn’s bases, there’s nothing really there.
Lynnae’s interest is piqued by the destroyed relief in the back of the altar room and she wants to investigate, but that’s when we find out the floor is trapped. If there’s enough pressure on the floor, it gives way into a pit of spikes. Lynnae therefore leaps onto the altar table to at least get a closer look at the relief. It’s definitely a relief of Mystra, the Goddess of Magic. Lyn writes down some observations and theories in her journal, says a prayer to the goddess (also asking why she’s not answering) and then jumps back to safe ground.
We find a tunnel that leads out of the ruins and towards the edge of the land, the ocean. Since there’s nothing else left there, we decide to leave the place be and go back to Trestyr.
We’re tired as all hell so we head to the only tavern in town, and the second we enter Blatrenn stops dead in his tracks, staring at the bard, an elven woman with red hair, facial tattoos and the markings of scales lining her neck, who’s playing a beautiful song on a lute with clawed fingers. With a shock, we realize this is the woman Lara saw while digging through Ana’s brain – it’s Kauthrien.
Hadall, Lynnae and Blatrenn flee the tavern immediately but the rest plays it cool and heads to the bar. At this point, the three leader crystals in our possession crackle with Kauthrien’s voice coming through: “Darling, why are you running?” she asks, implying she’s talking to Blatrenn or Lyn. Only Rei (who’s got Vurryl’s crystal), and Cas (who has Hykaril’s and Blatrenn’s) hear this, though. While she’s communicating to the crystals she never stops singing, however, singing in the Ignan dialect which is frequently spoken in Suald.
Laraëssil, Rei, Cassandra, Auk and Trick now sit at the bar, scared to death but trying to play it cool. They ask the barkeep if Kauthrien plays here often and she indeed does.
Hadall, Lynnae and Blatrenn, in the meantime, RUN back to the Temple of Mystra to hide Blatrenn. Blatrenn sits in the room we found Ana in and promises to stay, after which Hadall and Lynnae collect the crystals of the dead cultists – if they have those they can listen in on Ana’s people in Parwyn. They then start running back to the tavern.
After a while the music stops and Kauthrien puts her instruments away, moving over to the bar and sitting down next to Trick. With a rather hushed but threatening voice she asks Trick “So, who killed her?” Trick again plays it cool, buying her a drink and playing dumb, basically. Kauthrien’s voice lowers now. “I do not like games, Trick,” she says – she somehow knows our names and faces.
Trick then takes the blame for Vurryl’s death.
Kauthrien’s irises dilate, and in an instant, Trick feels the ability to speak leave her, she forgets who she is, where she is, what’s going on, as the Feeblemind spell takes hold. Trick squeaks, almost falls off her chair and sprints out of the tavern in a blind panic. Kauthrien turns to the rest, telling them that she’ll see them again soon.
At this point, Hadall and Lynnae reach the tavern again. Lyn sees Trick sprint off and she follows immediately, while Hadall enters the tavern like everything’s fine just as Kauthrien takes her leave. To the others it just looked like Kauthrien and Trick had a strange talk, after which Trick just sprinted off. There’s a lot of stress and confusion and a lot of sweating.
Lynnae catches up to Trick, but the tiefling’s horribly confused and curled up against Trouble, her fox, on the middle of the road. Lyn notices something’s wrong but doesn’t know what, takes Trick into an embrace and holds her protectively as Trick keeps whimpering.
Kauthrien disappears into the night, leaving us all with a whole lot of shit and panic.
