Demons of Port Valor

Session 50
We wake up the next morning, a little nervous about our meeting with Orrin Stormshield! Although a trip to the library is still on the table, we figure that should wait until after the meeting, so we can try to get a read on Orrin first. We also don’t want to be late! Ashara also considers using Sending to update Kain on what’s happening, but decides to wait until after the meeting just in case anything significant happens there. Kilwin thinks we should maybe come clean with Orrin fairly easily, since everyone working with the Burning Knight presumably already knows about the Crests and where they are, although the rest of the party thinks that could draw unwanted attention to us. They might not know we’re trying to interfere! Ashara also reflects on what she knows about Seaton from her travels, since it was also on the list of cities with Abyssal Crests. It’s the largest port city in Lyvernus and trades with every other port city on the eastern seaboard, sending many goods to the northern part of the continent. The city itself is built into the slope of a small hill that goes into the sea, and people travel via canals that flow downhill. The water from the canals reenters the hill through portals that send the water back to the top of the hill.
 * Google Document (3-11-22)

We decide to leave the Paragon’s Rest at 8 AM so we can take the scenic route to the Stormshield estate and still show up a little early. Our walk is fairly uneventful. We pass some dwarves who are going about their business, expressing a similar mix of attitudes about current events that we observed yesterday. We also notice that there’s grates in the middle of the road with lava visibly flowing beneath them. However, they’re not actually hot for whatever reason. Kilwin has some totally unfounded anxiety about accidentally dropping something important into one of the grates.

We arrived at the gates of the Stormshield estate in the Diamond Ward at 10:45 AM, exactly as planned. The building is three stories tall and surrounded by low outer walls. Inside the walls, there’s a small garden with actual grass, which is a little surprising. The main building is quite wide and has tall stone doors in the center, adorned with a large metal knocker. We knock and wait a while, and eventually a finely dressed dwarven butler with a cloth over his arm answers the door. He recognizes us as the expected adventurers and looks us over, raising an eyebrow at Jorah (since he’s the scruffiest of us currently). We are allowed in and escorted through an entrance hall adorned with ornate tiles to a sitting room, similar in setup to Mayor Irwin’s in Vila’s Watch but nicer. The chairs and tables are made of stone and set into the ground. After we sit down in the smaller chairs, the butler steps out for a moment and returns with another dwarf. This dwarf has medium length gray hair tied in a ponytail and a neat gray beard. He’s wearing an intricately patterned dark blue robe, white pants, and dark boots. He gives us a tight smile and welcomes us before sitting in the room’s largest chair. The butler stands behind him. Orrin thanks us for bringing him the arcane focus, taking it from Reides. He admits that he’s lucky we came along, as he’s been staying out of the political sphere recently and has fallen out of favor with King Khaduum. After being prompted by Kilwin, Orrin clarifies that the king’s full name is King Thoros Khaduum. Orrin thinks that the gift of the arcane focus of a mad wizard who created a metal dragon will at least get him enough favor with the king to get back on the guest list for the Bequeathing Ceremony. We ask what that is! Orrin explains that every year, the ruling monarch of the Underempire chooses a loyal subject and rewards them for their service by bequeathing them with an item of their choosing from the royal armory. Orrin isn’t that interested in the Bequeathing itself since being selected involves a lot of grandstanding and flattery, and he’s not that interested in the arms to begin with, but he usually enjoys the accompanying party. Reides agrees that court is a big pain in the butt. Orrin seems to relax a little at this. Orrin thinks that King Thoros has a good heart, but is kind of a sucker for flattery. He really hates the whole atmosphere of it. Orrin does, however, really enjoy the food at the king’s banquets, so each year, he tries to make a good enough gift to be invited so he can eat. Ashara is a bit outraged that we asked to undertake such a dangerous task for such a frivolous reason, but Jorah and Kilwin think it was something that someone needed to take care of anyway, and Reides can respect the ulterior motive. He suggests taking a bag of holding or something like it to take home as much food as he can. Orrin enjoys the idea, but he’s pretty sure he’d get uninvited from all future banquets and doesn’t want to risk that.

Jorah asks who’s most in favor with the king. Orrin admits he’s not a very good source since he stays out of court as much as he can, but he would guess Warden Dunan Slagmeld. Orrin has only met Dunan in passing, but he’s getting the item, so he was the most successful bootlicker of the year. Orrin really doesn’t know much about Dunan’s character though: At court, he meets people, forgets them, and then hopes he never has to see them ever again. Reides gets it! Jorah then changes the topic of conversation. He says that’s been trying to figure out people’s opinions on what happened in Port Valor. Orrin thinks it’s a terrible tragedy, but hadn’t heard any of the details that Jorah mentions, like the presence of raiders or the fact that they were looking for something. He’s very sincerely saddened by what he’s heard from merchants who just avoided the blast. Orrin asks us for news from outside, and we tell him that there’s a rebuilding effort, although it will take quite some time. Reides asks how the Exeter is doing in terms of safety, but Orrin thinks the only thing we should worry about is some possible xenophobia, although he thinks we could probably blend in and avoid most of it. Reides thinks he kind of inherently sticks out, which Orrin concedes.

Ashara telepathically asks us if she should try to read Orrin’s thoughts. Reides is opposed to this, Jorah thinks trying wouldn’t be a bad idea so long as she can avoid tipping him off to doing it, and Kilwin thinks Ashara would be the best judge of it. Ashara decides against reading Orrin’s thoughts, since it’s not something she’s very comfortable doing anyway. Jorah decides to stop beating around the bush, apologizing to the party since he didn’t really talk it over with them. He explains that we traveled here from Port Valor and are trying to stop anything similar from happening in the Exeter by looking for powerful artifacts that the forces behind the tragedy in Port Valor are also looking for, to ensure their security. In each case, the item was in possession of high-ranking nobility and targeted by a threat from within. Currently, Jorah thinks that trying to learn everything we can from Orrin is our best option. Orrin is willing to believe this, and tells us that, if we’re correct, the Plate of the Ancestors is probably the artifact we’re looking for, since that’s what Dunan has selected for the Bequeathing. Kilwin asks if the plate has some kind of design emblazoned on it, perhaps a crest. Orrin has never seen the Plate, though, since it doesn’t come out of the armory normally. It was actually outside of the Exeter for a long time, but it was returned about ten years ago. Kilwin explains the objects we’re looking for are called Abyssal Crests, and Jorah mentions that people searching for them have caused mass death in Port Valor and Malino’re. Orrin is very concerned because he hadn’t heard anything about Malino’re, but Kilwin explains what happened there and assures him that it’s as safe as anywhere else currently.

Jorah thinks that Orrin is pretty trustworthy, and the worst things we’ve heard about him have come from Orrin’s own mouth. They weren’t even particularly bad! Orrin admits that he just wants the Exeter to be safe. He’s not entirely sure about these Crests, but if they are a thing, he thinks they would be in the king’s armory. Kilwin asks if the armory is well-guarded during the Bequeathment Ceremony. Orrin says it has to be opened to get the desired artifact, but it’s not like it’s open to the public. Orrin is a little concerned about Kilwin’s intentions, but Kilwin swears he’s just asking in case the Bequeathing is actually providing an opportunity for someone other than Dunan to steal the real Abyssal Crest. He doesn’t even want an Abyssal Crest with him! Orrin admits there’s a lot of other artifacts in the armory which may or may not be important to our quest, but he doesn’t know many of them. He does mention an item called the Earthbreaker Maul, though. Reides tells Orrin that he needs to start kissing ass immediately to try to get the Bequeathment instead of Dunan, but Orrin says it’s a bit late for that, since the ceremony is in a week’s time. He’s also unlikely to be able to get us invitations, since the atmosphere in the city is a little more hostile than usual, and he barely had the pull to get us into the city in the first place. We realize that we might need to investigate the jail and Jorah suspects that the easiest way in would be in chains, but none of us really want to do that, especially Reides. Kilwin thinks Dunan’s prison is probably much worse than the cages in Vila’s Watch and that experience made him want to avoid imprisonment at all costs. He clarifies that he did not actually commit a crime, he was just bitten by a werewolf, and also he is not actually a werewolf. Jorah comments that Kilwin has an alarming habit of oversharing! Kilwin also asks how insular the Exeter is- if a dwarf were to just suddenly appear in the city without being known to people, would anyone think it was unusual? Orrin is a little confused by this line of questioning, and Kilwin is just on the verge of letting the beans spill about the Hat of Disguise when Jorah slaps him on the back. This interrupts Kilwin, who apologizes for talking too much. He promises it’s fine that Jorah hit them because they’re friends! Orrin is still confused! He’s sorry he can’t do more to help us, but we assure him that he’s helped us a lot, even just by getting us into the city. We do ask, though, that if he learns anything new or finds anyone who might be able to get us into the Bequeathing Ceremony, he should let us know. He knows where to find us! Before we leave, Orrin assures us that King Thoros has a good heart, and his first decree as king was that no one would go hungry again. We also ask where we might be able to find Dunan Slagmeld. Orrin can only think of Magmaslag Rock, the prison that Dunan runs. It’s about a mile north of the city, on an island in the center of a lake of lava. Orrin isn’t really sure how people get back and forth from the prison. We thank Orrin for his help again, and take our leave.

After we leave, Jorah pulls us aside and apologizes for sharing so much with Orrin without asking us. Generally, we’re pretty sure that Orrin is trustworthy and we’re not overly worried about it. We do think that we should try to research Dunan Slagmeld instead of Orrin when we hit the library, though. We make that our next destination and spend about an hour getting directions to the library in the Sapphire District. Jorah keeps an eye for anyone following us, but doesn’t notice anyone suspicious. The library is smaller than some of the ones we’ve seen, only a single storey tall, but as wide as the Stormshield estate and a bit deeper. Although Kilwin and Jorah are the only ones able to read the books that are in Dwarvish, they show Reides and Ashara the runes they should keep an eye out for. Ashara attempts to research Dunan Slagmeld, but quickly realizes that no books have been written about him, so she shifts her focus to the Bequeathing Ceremony. Reides looks for information on Magmaslag Rock, and Kilwin and Jorah work together to find what they can about the Plate of the Ancestors.

Jorah and Kilwin find decent information, mostly confirming what Orrin told them about the Plate. There’s no information about its origins, whereabouts before ten years ago, or any powers it might have, but they do find a physical description of it: A set of armor with a golden hue, emblazoned with the image of a shield with a flame across the chest. Reides finds a lot of information about the prison, confirming that it really is in the middle of a lake of lava. He learns that the prison is accessed by placing a pair of special amulets on pedestals at the same time, which summons a bridge from within the lava. Cooling runes on the bridge quickly negate the hazard of walking across it. Magmaslag Rock has existed for about 400 years, and the book goes into detail about a former head warden named Bervo Gemmgarl, who was likely Dunan’s predecessor. The position of head warden isn’t hereditary, but is given to a noble and it’s a life position. Reides can’t find any information on the qualifications or selection process for the position beyond that. Magmaslag Rock houses the worst criminals in the Underempire and conditions inside are generally pretty horrid. Strict rationing is fairly common, since the lake of lava sometimes prevents shipments from arriving. Ashara reads that the Bequeathing takes place once a year and rewards one person the king deems to have been the most helpful. The bequeathment is generally temporary, and the items are returned once the reigning king dies in order to continue the tradition. However, in rare cases, the royal family allows someone to keep an item permanently, and occasionally items become lost. However, it’s considered an important tradition, so the royal family continues it despite the risks.

Jorah points out that Dunan might not even be involved with our quest at all, but Reides thinks all that flattery is suspicious. We don’t have many leads to go on yet, though. Jorah also doesn’t like this idea, but points out that we’re four obvious outsiders to the city, so it might be wise for us to split up into smaller groups if we decide to investigate the palace or the prison. Kilwin sees what Jorah is saying, but also agrees that he hates the idea. Reides is pretty sure he’s going to be clockable no matter what, though, and desperately needs some water. Kilwin offers him his waterskin. Kilwin thinks we could ask Ragni if there’s some way for commoners to interact with the Bequeathing Ceremony, which the party generally thinks is a good idea.

We head back to the Paragon’s Rest to talk to Ragni. They ask what we’ll be drinking, so Kilwin orders an ale, but everyone else just wants water. We ask if they’ve heard of the Bequeathing Ceremony, and they describe it as “some noble gets some cool shit.” We act very interested in seeing it as a cultural ceremony and ask if there’s a way for commoners or outsiders to get in. Ragni assures us there isn’t. Jorah asks if they might be looking to hire help for it, but Ragni knows that the royal palace is very well staffed currently. They say we could try, though! They also say we could just try to sneak in, although the consequences would be steep and we might get sent to Magmaslag Rock. Reides pretends to have never heard of Magmaslag Rock, as does Jorah, and they manage to fool Ragni. They explains the basics of what we already know and tell us it’s a terrible place where people only get two meals a day. A few former inmates have come to the Paragon’s Rest, and none of them were happy about their time there. It’s a rough place, and from what Ragni’s heard, the main problems isn’t necessarily the guards, but they do allow it. They’ve heard word of terrible violences, including some kind of tournaments. Reides asks if Ragni has seen any of their ex-con friends around lately, although Ragni says that once people leave Magmaslag Rock, they usually leave the Exeter all together so they never have to go back. The main ones they know left for Falas. Reides admits he’s had his prison experience, so he can’t blame them at all. Ragni is a little surprised, but Reides’s coin is good, so they don’t mind. They say his names are good too, and point out the addition of Pog Coffee to the official menu, available for 1 silver. Someone arrives at the door, and Ragni leaves the bar to see who it is.

We take a moment to talk among ourselves. Kilwin remarks that this information has lowered his opinion of Dunan Slagmeld even more. None of us want to go to jail. As for the palace, Jorah is unsure if Kilwin’s idea of using the Hat of Disguise to infiltrate the palace is a good idea though. He’s probably the best party member to go on a subterfuge mission alone and let the rest of us in, but he doesn’t think he could pull it off. Reides is extremely charming and thinks confidence could get one of us a long way, but doesn’t speak Dwarvish. Despite floating the idea of using Ashara’s telepathy to ferry translations between Reides and one of the two Dwarvish speakers, Kilwin thinks that might be too complicated to actually work. Jorah is also unsure if Reides would be able to convincingly portray a servant as a (former?) noble, although Reides doesn’t think he has enough actual court experience to actually blend in with the nobles anyway.

Ragni comes back holding some papers and asks which direction we came from. We tell them we came from Quadroad! They ask where we came from before that. Jorah carefully says we came from the north. Ragni spreads out the four papers they’re holding so we can see them. Each one has an illustration of one of us and text explaining that we are to be apprehended dead or alive by the order of Dunan Slagmeld for our role in the destruction of Port Valor. Ashara tries to telepathically tell Ragni that Dunan is going to cause the apocalypse, while Reides examines the wanted posters. The illustrations are decent likenesses, definitely recognizable, and our attire matches what we were wearing when we first arrived in the Exeter proper. The posters don’t have our names on them, since we didn’t actually identify ourselves to the city guards. Kilwin, unaware that Ashara is talking to Ragni in their mind, takes out the emperor’s writ and tries to explain that we actually did what we could to save Port Valor. Ragni signals to one of their coworkers and asks them to take the counter for them for a while, and they escort us to a back room, lined with kegs of various alcohols.

Ragni asks us what the fuck is going on! They don’t think we seem like a bad sort and doubt that Dunan’s accusations are true, but they want an explanation. Ashara explains again that Dunan is up to evil and wants us out of the picture before we can stop him, but Jorah provides them with the full context. Ragni asks if this is why we were asking about the Bequeathing Ceremony and Magmaslag Rock. Reides admits it was and apologizes for lying to them. The arrest warrant is really a pretty major point against Dunan not being involved with the Burning Knight! Ragni speculates that, if everything we’re saying is true, Dunan probably contacted the Knight as soon as he learned outside adventurers entered the city. We realize that he would also know that Orrin let us into the city, so Ashara casts Sending to tell him that he could be in danger. He wants to know what on earth we did, but thanks her for the warning and will try to get safe. Jorah points out that we can’t keep staying at the Paragon’s Rest and should leave Ragni out of this. We check the posters again and realize there’s a bounty of 1000 gold each on us. We all urge Reides to use the Hat of Disguise to have a chance at blending in, so he takes on the appearance of a tall dwarf with flaming red hair and jewels in his beard. Ragni says that’s both flattering and useful! Reides admits they’re his fashion inspiration. Jorah apologizes for getting them involved in this, but Ragni says that, as a barkeep, they actually love being involved with things. This is a bit above their pay grade, but hey! Ashara attempts to give them 20 gold as thanks for not ratting us out, but they refuse, saying that we’ll need it more than they will, since we’ll probably have to bribe some people to stay safe.

Ragni suggests that those of us without a Hat of Disguise try to use mundane methods to disguise ourselves. Anything we could do to change up our appearances could help! Reides admits that he’s imagining Kilwin without a beard and freaking out about it. Kilwin admits that he really doesn’t want to shave off his beard, but it is on the table! Ashara is freaking out because the last time she was wanted, she lost her arm. She takes her prosthetic off, but quickly realizes that she can’t cast spells without it, so she reattaches it and wraps it in her robe (since she’s wearing her new dress). Jorah starts by undoing his bandana and putting his hair up in a bun. He also rubs some of his clothes on the floor to dirty them up. He thinks our best move would be to go to a part of town where no one really wants to go. Ragni suggests the Topaz District, which is the Exeter’s slums. Ashara doesn’t think that sounds that bad, and Ragni admits it’s not as bad as Falas’s slums. Still, Reides remakes his glamour without the beard jewels, just to be a less tempting target. Reides worries about what Pepega will do. Although Jorah thinks that she might be useful if she runs away and will likely have an easy time keeping away from danger, Reides is worried about how there’s no way she won’t stand out wherever she goes. He temporarily dismisses Pepega to a pocket dimension, although he can easily resummon her if he needs her help. Jorah admits he’s worried about Gin, but Ragni promises to take care of our carriage for us. Jorah also realizes that he is never going to get his hand crossbow back. Ragni offers to try to get that to him too, but Jorah doesn’t think it’s worth the risk to them. Jorah tries to stow away his remaining crossbows, giving one to Ashara to hide. Kilwin changes out of his vestments into his commoner clothes along with a set of studded leather armor that Jorah loans him. He’s not sure what else to do! Ragni recommends changing up our hairstyles. Jorah takes Quickbrand and starts cutting his hair off. It’s chin length instead of mid-back when he’s done. Ashara and Reides are pretty distressed by this! Kilwin assures Jorah that it looks nice, though, especially considering he did that himself with a sword! Jorah points out it will grow back. Ashara is horrified by the thought of cutting her hair. Kilwin says she doesn’t have to and undoes his own ponytail. He offers her the hair tie, so that they can trade hairstyles, but Ashara’s braids are still the ones that her mother did for her, and she never wants to undo them. We suggest using wine or charcoal to dye her hair without messing with the style. In the end, she accepts Ragni’s offer of using wine to dye her hair red. She also takes off her sunglasses, and fortunately she can see since we’re underground. Kilwin asks if he can use Reides’s charcoal to dye his hair black, and Reides helps him do it. Ashara wraps herself in a bedroll. Kilwin offers to take anything valuable in the bag of holding, and Jorah gives him Quickbrand. Kilwin is surprised, but Jorah thinks it could make him a target.

Jorah asks Ragni if there’s a back exit we could use, and Ragni leads us toward a ladder to the cellar doors. They suggest we get moving, but we know where to find them if there’s something else we need. We decide that it’s best if we split up, since people know we’re a group of four. Since Ashara has the weakest disguise and Jorah has stealth-enhancing magic, they’ll go in one group. Kilwin and Reides will take another, longer route to the Topaz District, since their disguises will hold up to a bit more scrutiny. This way, we’ve also split up our more muscular companions, as well as our spellcasters who have Sending prepared in case things go south for one of our groups. Reides says that Kilwin can pretend to be his husband! Kilwin agrees to this! We decide to make some fake names for ourselves, even though our names weren’t on the poster. Jorah decides to be Keras and Reides’s dwarfsona is named Ragnar Stormborn. Kilwin dithers a bit, but decides on Len because he knows he’ll react to hearing that name. Ashara takes the name Rhaella. We say our goodbyes and tell each other to stay safe before splitting up, hoping to find sanctuary in the Topaz District.

Session 51

 * Google Document (3-19-22)

Reides redoes Ashara’s hair in a bun, while Kilwin casts Death Ward on Jorah. The two groups then go their separate ways, planning to coordinate a meetup once they reach the Topaz District.

Kilwin and Reides, in the guise of Len and Ragnar, take a leisurely stroll along the scenic route to the Topaz District. They hold hands, since they’re pretending to be married. Both of them keep an eye out for anyone who seems to be paying too close attention to them, but most people don’t seem particularly interested or suspicious of them. However, they do notice a massively increased guard presence that wasn’t around earlier in the day. The guards seem to be questioning people that they pass. One group of guards starts walking in Kilwin and Reides’s general direction and, after a moment of deliberation, Reides pulls Kilwin into an alleyway. He seems to have a plan, but Kilwin is confused! The alley has some barrels, some wooden planks strewn around, and trash in some of the corners. Kilwin hears the guards getting closer and hears them asking people specifically if they’ve seen the party. As they come closer to the alleyway’s entrance, Reides asks Kilwin to get against the wall, which he does. He asks if Kilwin would be okay pretending to be caught in an intimate moment. Kilwin turns red, but agrees. Reides pushes Kilwin against the wall, and Kilwin puts his hand on Reides’s shoulder. The guards’ footsteps get closer, and most pass the alley by. Kilwin hears him mutter “Odan’s beard, desperate times, I guess” in Dwarvish. After he’s gone, Kilwin tells this to Reides and wonders if it was possibly referring to him, but Reides encourages him to just not dwell on it. They leave the alleyway to a number of raised eyebrows from bystanders. Reides’s head is held high, but Kilwin is avoiding eye contact with everyone.

Jorah and Ashara, disguised as Keras and Rhaella, briefly discuss their approach before trying to take a more direct route. They’re going to try to blend in as much as they can. Jorah has Ashara lean on him, with her metal arm toward him to try to hide it from view a bit more. She’ll also walk with a limp to seem injured. Jorah tells her that if something happens, he plans to cast Pass Without Trace and thinks they should try to get to the roofs. Ashara plans to drag everyone to hell, herself along with them, but promises to give Jorah a head start on running. Jorah’s a little skeptical of this plan, but we’ll see how it goes! The direct route leads them to a bridge across a lava flow. A group of guards have set up a checkpoint on the other side of the bridge, and there’s no other way across the lava flow nearby. Jorah thinks they should try to find another way around. Ashara wants to attack, but Jorah just pulls her away. Jorah thinks he might be able to bluff his way through the checkpoint, but worries about Ashara. Since the bridge across the lava was the direct path, Jorah and Ashara essentially have to make their way to the path Kilwin and Reides were taking and go that way. They follow the lava flow northeast, keeping on the side of the road away from the lava in case they need to run. Eventually, they encounter a group of three guards who happen to be coming from the other direction. They decide to try to just act natural and walk past, but Jorah says he’ll do the talking and that he wants Ashara to run and hide if he pushes her away from him. He’ll try to run and hide too, but he’ll go through them instead. Ashara agrees and asks if it’s okay if she pretends to be deaf. Jorah thinks he can go with that. As they approach the guards, one stops them and tells them they’re on the search for suspicious characters. Jorah assumes the role of a citizen of the Exeter and says he thought they locked up! The guard tells him that a noble let them into the city, but will be standing trial for that soon. Jorah swears about nobles and technically isn’t lying! Jorah asks how they can help the guards. Another guard interrupts to ask why Ashara doesn’t speak. Jorah explains that’s Rhaella, who’s deaf and won’t respond unless you get her attention first. The guard starts waving his hands in front of Ashara’s face, and she turns away from Jorah and waves awkwardly at the guard. The guard seems to accept this. The first guard says that there are checkpoints set up all over the city, so it won’t be difficult to find a place to report the outsiders. He tells Jorah and Ashara to be on their way and stay safe. As they start to go, the third guard stops them again and asks where they’re going. Jorah says they’re meeting some friends up north- he can’t quite remember the name of the place but say it’s just along this flow. The guard then asks how long they’ve lived in the Exeter. Jorah explains that he and Rhaella have lived in the Exeter for about four years at this point. They came through with a group of bounty hunters and decided to stick around. After a tense moment, the guard allows them to go on their way.

As Reides and Kilwin continue on their way, Reides spots an elderly dwarf pushing a cart filled with small, colorful things. He realizes it’s candy. He points it out to Kilwin and looks at him pleadingly. Kilwin deliberates for a moment before deciding that life is for living! He agrees to handle the talking. He greets the candy seller and has Reides pick out what he wants. Kilwin is about to pay for it when there’s a flash of recognition. The candy seller stutters and screams “Port Valor!” in fear. Kilwin and Reides are scared and unsure what to do, but ultimately decide to keep going and see if they can talk their way out of it if the candy seller successfully gets a guard who believes him. Reides considers changing his disguise, but Kilwin points out that he’s the one who’s suspicious and can’t really quickly change. He does think he should maybe ditch the beard next time if they ever have to do something like this again, though. Reides collects some of the candy that fell off the cart, and they continue on their way.

As Ashara and Jorah continue, there’s fewer and fewer alleyways for them to duck into. Ashara thinks Jorah will have some ideas, but he’s more used to being the hunter than the hunted. Soon, he hears the movement of a lot of plate armor approaching them. While Jorah and Ashara look for somewhere to get out of the way, they hear a voice telling them to come over quickly. A door to a nearby house has opened and a dwarven woman is beckoning to them. Without a better option, Jorah and Ashara duck inside. The woman closes the door and says that she’s not sure why the guards are like this now, but it’s best to not let them harass anyone clearly not from the city. The woman introduces herself as Denja. Jorah thanks her, and Ashara decides to drop her deaf act and thanks her too. They both admit it’s a little obvious they’re not from around there. Jorah tells Denja to stay safe and pretend she never saw either of them, and Ashara gives her a gold coin. Denja agrees and sends them on their way, telling them to go in shadow. Ashara and Jorah agree that that was a really weird turn of phrase, but neither of them recognize it and they don’t really have time to dwell on it.

Both groups successfully make it to the Topaz District and look for a safe place to hide out. Ashara finds a rundown inn called the Smoldering Ingot, with lots of dark corners to hide in. Reides finds an abandoned park, with overgrown grass and a large tree that curls upward. There’s also some lamps that are focused on the tree, which seem to be providing some false sunlight, but some of them have gone out. The Smoldering Ingot is emptier than one might expect, which makes Ashara wonder if the guards have already swept through. They sit down at a booth, drawing little attention from the other patrons. Jorah gets two ales from the bartender, a gruff dwarf with a scraggly beard, who’s polishing glasses with a dirty cloth. He also learns that there’s rooms for a silver per night. Kilwin uses Sending to contact Ashara, and they decide to meet at the Smoldering Ingot. That way, Reides can recast Disguise Self in a room and not worry about the spell while sleeping. Reides refreshes his disguise, and Kilwin puts his component pouch and journal into the bag of holding and gives it to Reides for safekeeping. Just in case! Reides takes it but doesn’t think it’s necessary. Kilwin admits it will just put his mind at ease. Reides also offers Kilwin some floor candy, which he accepts.

The buildings in the Topaz District are weathered, and there’s large cracks in the pavement and walls. It takes Reides and Kilwin a while to find the inn, especially since it’s not on the path they expected Jorah and Ashara to take, but they find it after about an hour of searching. Ashara uses her telepathy to tell Kilwin that he and Reides can sit with them or pick a different table if they’d like. We decide to all sit together. Reides offers Ashara and Jorah some floor candy; Ashara takes a handful, but Jorah passes on it. Kilwin tells Ashara and Jorah he was recognized once but no one seemed to follow them after that. We start planning our next moves. Kilwin looks around and sees that no one seems to be specifically listening to them, but since there’s not a lot of other conversations occurring and fire is low, we keep our voices quiet. Kilwin sees our two main goals as clearing our names and interfering with Dunan getting the Plate of the Ancestors, especially since we won’t be able to leave until the blockade is lifted and/or we’re known to be innocent. Doing either one would more or less resolve the other, probably, but Kilwin’s not sure where to start with either of them. Jorah and Ashara recount their encounter with Denja, and Reides and Kilwin agree that the phrase “walk in shadow” probably means something significant, possibly an affiliation with a thieves guild? No one recognizes it, though. Kilwin asks if there’s rooms, and then asks Reides if they want to keep up the act. They have a brief understanding where Reides thinks Kilwin is asking if they want to keep pretending to be a married couple. They decide to share a room for the night.

Jorah has dealt with the bounty hunters guild in the Exeter, but he doesn’t have strong ties to them and doesn’t know anything about local thieves guilds. He thinks we have three options: Infiltrate Magmaslag Rock and try to get evidence against Dunan there, wait a week and infiltrate the Bequeathing Ceremony, or wait until after the Bequeathing Ceremony and try to confront Dunan once he gets the Plate. Dunan possibly also has an estate, but we don’t know where it is and going there is probably as risky as the prison. Jorah also thinks that if he had something big to hide, he’d do it in the maximum security prison where he works, not his house. Kilwin doesn’t want to go to prison, but definitely doesn’t want to wait a week without doing anything! Ashara suggests ditching the whole place and letting what happens to the Exeter happens. She doesn’t care about this city that wants her dead! Kilwin isn’t willing to just leave, though, even if we physically could. He argues that Ashara didn’t see the Burning Knight and Kilwin’s not willing to let him get any closer to his goals if there’s anything he could possibly do about it. In that case, Ashara would like to murder Dunan. Kilwin isn’t sure that’s the best idea either, at least not without a lot of research, since he could come back like Tyrian and we could have two revenants to worry about. Ashara thinks destroying him utterly could avert that, but Kilwin is pretty sure that’s beyond our capabilities right now. Reides thinks they are maybe both getting a little bit ahead of themselves here. He thinks he could probably chat some people up, like the barkeep, and learn a bit more about the general opinion of Dunan Slagmeld here (probably bad) and who might be able to help us. Jorah thinks Reides will mess this up. Kilwin objects to this assessment of Reides’s small talk skills, as does Reides! Ashara considers using Sending to tell Ragni safe and where we are, but the rest of the party thinks we shouldn’t give them too much info that they’ll need to lie about, she decides not to contact them. Reides and Kilwin obtain their room key. The barkeep, still polishing glasses with the same dirty rag, barely looks at them, so Reides leaves him alone. Jorah gets a room key for himself and Ashara as well. As Kilwin suggests that Jorah take point on trying to track down the thieves guild and see if they’ll help us, Ashara takes some time to update Kain on the current situation. Kilwin offers to go with Jorah as backup if he’s willing! Jorah isn’t enthused about this idea, since he hasn’t been on that side of the law for a long time and isn’t sure if leaving the Topaz District at all is a good idea. Kilwin is surprised to hear that Jorah actually was once involved in this kind of thing, but Jorah doesn’t want to talk about it and calls it the legacy of a misspent youth. That doesn’t make Kilwin any less curious, but he lets it go for now.

Unsure of our next steps, we contemplate trying to sleep on it. Four people then enter the Smoldering Ingot- a dwarf with splintmail, two swords, and a crossbow; a heavily armored dwarf with a crossbow and greatsword; a robed dwarf; and an elf with a bow slung across her shoulders, who crosses her arms and leans against the bar. Kilwin starts eavesdropping and overhears the elf suggesting that they head back to the inn we were staying at to look for clues. She mentions that the robed dwarf, Kieran, has a spell that could track us if they find something of ours. They get their drinks as we think over our next moves and eventually start debating which group of us is going to try sneaking upstairs first. Eventually, Jorah and Ashara make the attempt. No one moves to stop them, but Kilwin notices the elven woman’s eyes follow them up and just barely makes out her telling her companions that they found their marks. Jorah and Ashara make it to their room and lock the door. Jorah starts stringing his crossbow as Ashara uses her telepathy to ask Kilwin what’s happening downstairs. He tells her the bad news. There’s a window in the inn room, so Jorah attempts to open it, but it’s locked. Ashara casts Darkness to impede the other group of adventurers. He asks Ashara to ask Kilwin to get Quickbrand out. Ashara tries to break the glass with her hands, but doesn’t have much success until she gets her mace out. Jorah puts on his darkvision goggles and jumps down, catching Ashara at the bottom. As the other adventurers head upstairs, Kilwin and Reides leave the tavern. Kilwin asks for the bag of holding and gets Quickbrand out, but then gives the bag back to Reides. Reides thinks this is getting a little silly! Jorah casts Pass Without Trace as he gets Quickbrand back and we all head for the park. The elf curses from above and looks out the broken window, but doesn’t spot us.

We make it to the park without incident, but as we pass through the archway, we spot a cloaked dwarven figure standing under the tree. After some deliberation, Reides approaches him. He says it’s a nice tree! The dwarven man agrees. He has a black beard tied in a thick braid and the rest of his hair is slicked back. He’s wearing leather armor emblazoned with the symbol of an eye surrounded by a cave. He says he knows we’re in a tight situation, and Reides asks if he’s planning to make it tighter. He knows we’re not behind the destruction of Port Valor (and is aware of the rest of the situation), though, and is willing to help clear our names if we do something for him. As he talks, he mostly looks at the rest of the party, and seems a little confused by Reides’s Ragnar disguise. The dwarf wants us to turn ourselves in and be taken to Magmaslag Rock. Kilwin is unable to discern if he’s trying to stop us or not. The dwarf continues, telling us that there’s a job for us inside. If we complete it, he can guarantee that we’ll be released, we’ll be publicly pardoned, and we’ll have access to Dunan’s office when he returns from the Bequeathing with the Plate of the Ancestors. Ashara asks permission to cast Detect Thoughts on him to see if he’s lying. He says he keeps many secrets, so he gives her permission to look at his surface thoughts. Kilwin asks if our things will be taken from us in the prison. The dwarf says they will, but assures us that they’ll be given back to us. He has no proof that he’s not working with Dunan other than the thoughts Ashara is reading, and Ashara can see from his thoughts that he thinks Dunan is a slimy coward. When asked about the phrase “walk in shadow,” he says he walks in shadow every day, and apparently so do we. Kilwin objects that he doesn’t do this kind of thing very often! The dwarf also says that he’s not part of a thievery organization, Ashara catches the phrase “Deep Watchers” from his thoughts. Kilwin asks him if he knows why the Plate is important, and he says he does. Ashara detects that he knows about the demon. Apparently, he tracked us using Jorah’s hair from the Paragon’s Rest’s cellar. If we take him up on his offer, we’ll have to be in the prison for a week, but he can arrange it so we’re housed near each other. He thinks we’ll find it Interesting inside. We really don’t have any better options, so we agree to take him up on it. Ashara suggests that Kilwin take the time to contact Glasny, since she used subtle casting to update Kain again, and he might not get another chance. Kilwin decides not to worry him so soon after telling him everything was okay. Reides contemplates telling Viglis about this to give him a heart attack, but doesn’t have the spell prepared. Reides asks if they’ll cut his hair, but the dwarf assures him that they only care about causing suffering in Magmaslag Rock, not what his hair looks like. Reides isn’t super reassured, but admits that he’ll be suffering anyway if he has to keep pretending to be Ragnar Stormborn. He assures Kilwin that he enjoyed their fake marriage, though. Kilwin admits he had fun with it too! The dwarf also tells us what he knows about Alzrius. He knows it’s the demon lord of flames and served by an army of armor knights and babaus. Ashara does not enjoy the image this conjures in his thoughts. When finally asked what we should call him, the dwarf says his name is Soruza Blackmines. Soruza will leave it up to us if we kill Dunan or what we do with the Plate of the Ancestors, assuming we can get it. He does say that if Dunan survives, he could face trial for his crimes. Reides asks about the tournaments we’ve heard about, but Soruza just says we’ll find out in due time. Apparently, that’s the job! Without any more questions from us, Soruza says he has other business to attend to. Reides offers him some floor candy, which he gladly accepts, having already stolen a single piece out of Reides’s bag.

Session 52

 * Google Document (4-1-22)

With Soruza gone and their minds made up, the party discusses letting someone else bring them to the guards to collect the bounty on them. 4000 gold is a lifechanging amount! Ashara suggests giving it to Ragni as a thank you and additional cover for them. Kilwin and Reides like this idea, but aren’t sure if we’d successfully be able to get back to them. Reides thinks the bounty hunters from the Smoldering Ingot might be Very Cool People, but they might be a bit rougher with us than we’re hoping, even if we instantly surrender. Kilwin suggests the candy seller he accidentally scared, but admits he has no idea how to find him. Jorah thinks this is all a bad idea. He thinks that going directly to the guards is our best bet at being captured alive, since (he acknowledges the irony in him saying this) bounty hunters tend not to be the safest people or have a lot of scruples. We sadly agree that Jorah has a good point and that we should go directly to the guards.

Reides casts Mage Armor on himself just to be safe! He plans to leave his disguise up until we’re ready to approach some guards, although he thinks he should drop it before they can see, since knowing one of the fugitives can mask his appearance at will might put everyone even more on edge. We also realize we have a collection of items that would be very very bad to deliver to Dunan Slagmeld, primarily the Everburning Longsword. Kilwin also doesn’t like the idea of his journal being read by someone with ill intentions, and Jorah has been holding onto the list of cities targeted by the Burning Knight (with Port Valor crossed off) and maps of some of those cities. Would look pretty bad! We decide to put these items in the bag of holding and hide it somewhere, although Kilwin points out that it’s really important that we come back for this stuff if we do this. Kilwin adds in the letter he got from Father Glasny in Quadroad and Keras’s journal, while Ashara places the bracelets she’s been making for herself and Kain in the bag as well. Reides has a variety of sentimental items, like the glass bow he got from Wyrran, that he doesn’t think should go in the bag of holding. He holds onto them, but really hopes they don’t get broken in the arrest and release process. He does put his personal journal in, as well as the Kahzdurga wizard’s spellbook, for safekeeping. Kilwin takes out the mithral chainmail and starts putting it back on, since we’re not as worried about our disguises working anymore. We bury the bag of holding by the tree in the park, and Reides does a good job covering it up. Ashara casts Sending to tell Ragni where the bag is and asks them to get it and hold it for us. Ragni responds that they’re heading over now. Ashara is about to leave on her own to get arrested, but Kilwin and Reides stop her, thinking it’ll be best if we go through this together. Ashara agrees. Reides drops his disguise and mourns the departure of Ragnar Stormborn. Kilwin laughs a bit at this and, upon observing that he’s been Jorah’s fake wife and Kilwin’s fake husband, Reides thinks he should pretend to be married to Ashara the next time he needs to craft a new identity. Ashara loves the idea! Reides wears the scraps of Ashara’s robe as a cloak to pretend he had a shitty disguise the whole time.

We make our way to the guard checkpoint that Jorah and Ashara avoided on their way to the Topaz District. The guards start to eye us suspiciously as we approach and begin whispering to each other. Ashara loudly asks if she matches her wanted poster and strikes an adequate Jojo pose. One guard, whose armor has some embellishments that the others lack, orders the rest to surround the party, and soon we’re encircled by heavily armored dwarves wielding spears at us. We all put our hands up. Reides wiggles his fingers and finds several more spears pointed at him, in case he’s casting some kind of spell. As we’re being handcuffed, the guard captain asks if there’s any spellcasters. Kilwin says he’s a cleric, so the guard captain orders him gagged. Reides says it should be obvious who’s a spellcaster and who’s not, so the guard captain orders him gagged too. Reides admits this is fair, but also says it’s kinky as he’s gagged. Ashara enjoys the joke, while Kilwin blushes. The guard captain leaves for a while and returns with a dark iron carriage with two flat metal doors in the back and two small windows with bars. The party is pushed inside. We hear the reins crack outside and the carriage starts moving.

Kilwin prays into his gag, Ashara struggles against her handcuffs in vain, and Reides just keeps his eyes closed. The party’s irons start to chafe their wrists raw, while the windows are difficult to see out of, so there’s little to see or hear. Eventually, though, the houses start to thin out and we enter a tunnel, vaguely similar to the Rune Road without the runes. After about an hour of travel, it suddenly gets hotter and the carriage turns to the side, showing us a lake of lava with an island in the center. There's a large mound of black stone on the island, presumably the prison. The carriage shakes a bit as the dwarf driver jumps off and walks over to a pedestal next to the lake. He looks through a spyglass for a moment before pulling out a pendant and placing it on the pedestal. There’s a loud rumbling as a dark slate bridge to the island rises from the island. We get the sense that this is being shown to us intentionally. Blue runes begin to glow on the bridge and steam rises from them. The dwarf gets back on the carriage and we travel across the bridge. When we stop, the dwarf dismounts again and opens the doors. Light from the lava pours in, and the dwarf announces our last stop. Reides rolls his eyes. We’re all attached to a longer chain as we’re escorted inside. We’ve already been disarmed, and our packs are taken from us. We’re all taken to a staging room, where we’re made to change into prisoner’s linens (which are quite itchy). Kilwin hides his amulet with the symbol of Alethus inside his shirt and seems to get away with it, and the guards haven’t noticed anything unusual about Ashara’s arm yet. Otherwise, we’re stripped of all possessions. Reides loses his piercings and other jewelry, and clearly isn’t happy, but gives them over. He does give his shark tooth necklace a squeeze and thinks about Erak for a moment, though. He prays to Persana and asks for some of Erak’s strength before handing it over.

We’re split into two pairs- Ashara with Kilwin and Reides with Jorah. Jorah is trying to maintain his usual gruff exterior, but is clearly shaken right now. Both pairs are led in a similar direction to the same large cell block. There’s a flight of stairs that we take up. Cells line the walls, and there’s a gap in the middle of the walkway with a railing around it. We’re led to cells facing each other on opposite sides of the gap. Kilwin and Ashara are placed in Cell 403, and Reides and Jorah are placed in Cell 408. We’re unshackled, and Kilwin and Reides have been ungagged. The guards escorting us announce lights out and slam our cell doors shut.

Our cells are close enough that Ashara can contact Reides and Jorah with her telepathic speech. After confirming that Kilwin is okay (for a certain value of okay that we’re all using right now), she asks Reides if he and Jorah are also okay. Reides confirms that they both are, more or less. Jorah takes a look around the cell, but there’s not much to see in either one. Each cell has a bunk bed with a ladder, a bucket in the corner, and a small table with a chair. Kilwin examines the bucket and fortunately discovers that it is currently empty. Jorah calls dibs on the top bunk, which Reides is happy with because he prefers the bottom anyway (: In their cell, Kilwin doesn’t have a strong preference about top or bottom, so he lets Ashara choose what she wants. Since Ashara can just enter a trance instead of actually sleeping, she thinks she should take the bottom so she can react more quickly if someone enters the cell. Kilwin will take the top then!

Ashara thinks we should set up a watch order, just in case. She offers to go first and take a double shift, since she only needs four hours of trance rest, and she can use her telepathy to wake up the next watch and facilitate conversations. Jorah takes the second watch, and Reides takes the third one. The night is uneventful until 4 AM, as Jorah finishes his watch, when a guard appears at each of our cell doors and starts rattling them. We’re told to wake up because the warden wants to see us. Reides groans as he realizes this wasn’t a terrible nightmare. The guards handcuff us again and go to gag Kilwin and Reides. Everyone complies, except Ashara, who says the guard has to buy her dinner first. He threatens to drag her out by the hair, and she imitates Reides, saying that’s kinky. She challenges the guard to try her, so he grabs her by the front of her shirt and shoves her against the cell door to handcuff her. She manages to slip free, but the guard hits her with his baton. Ashara screams, and Reides visibly reacts on the other side of the cell block. Kilwin is also very visibly upset, but can’t really do anything. Someone else in the cell block yells at Ashara to be quiet because he’s trying to sleep. She yells back, he insults her mother, she yells that her mother is dead, he yells back that so is his, but that’s because he killed her. As Ashara yells back again, the guard hits her with the baton again. Reides calls out to her that it’s okay and she’s going to be okay. Ashara calms down enough to avoid further brutality for now and is handcuffed.

We’re escorted back through the staging area where our things were taken and through a side door. We go up a spiral staircase to a door made of dark wood (not dark oak though) and iron fittings. The guards open the doors and beckon us inside. Behind a desk, there’s a dwarf clad in black plate. His hair is also black, worn in three braids on each side, and his beard has a braid as well. Dunan sneers at us and welcomes us to his prison, and his voice is incredibly unpleasant. He says the empire is lucky we came in so quietly, considering our crimes, although he acknowledges Ashara has caused some trouble. Ashara spits blood on the floor as Kilwin attempts to claim we’re innocent through his gag. Dunan doesn’t care if Ashara makes a mess, since he’s not the one who has to clean it up. She immediately threatens to make it so they’ll have to clean him up off the floor soon. Dunan snaps and one of the guards bludgeons her with his baton again. Dunan considers himself very lucky, all things considered! He wishes us luck in his prison, and the guards escort us back to our cells again. Kilwin offers to heal some of Ashara’s wounds, but she’s sure she just needs some extra rest. Using the mind link, Reides tries to assure Ashara that this situation is really scary and isn’t about to get less scary, and he’s been in a situation like this before, so he understands her reaction. He also kicked and screamed and protested however he could! But this time is different, because the rest of the party is here and we have a plan. He encourages her to hold back her rage for a bit and save it for later when we get our chance. Reides really doesn’t want to lose Ashara like this! Ashara apologizes but explains that the last time something like this happened to her, she lost everything. Reides tells her she doesn’t have to apologize, since she’s right to be so angry, but reminds her that we’re essentially spies infiltrating the prison. We just need to bide our time and wait for our time to get back at this place! He points out that they wouldn’t even be able to talk like this if this were happening for real. Ashara is reassured by this and resolves to comply.

We all return to our rests, but guards come back and wake us up at 6 am for meal time. Kilwin offers to heal Ashara again since she wasn’t able to get her long rest, but she dismisses his concern. We make our way to the mess hall, passing by several cells. The other inmates seem to be watching us carefully. Many of the prisoners have noticeable scars or fresh wounds. In one cell, there’s a human man clattering against the door. He yells at us that he had family in Port Valor. Kilwin stops to try to explain that we really didn’t do it. Jorah tells him there’s not really a point to that. The man spits at Kilwin, and Kilwin sighs and keeps walking. Ashara glares at the man, and the party moves on.

In the mess hall, there’s a line for food (slop with vegetables) and lots of tables. We all get some slop and try to find an empty table to sit at. Kilwin worries that we might be taking someone’s favorite table and wonders if we should maybe just sit on the floor instead, but Jorah says we probably shouldn’t make anyone think we’re weird or weak. Reides says we could just let them have the table if they ask! Kilwin is reassured, and we sit down at an open table. As we eat, someone approaches the table. He’s tall for a gnome, with gray skin and intricate tattoos of roots covering his bald head. He has a large beard and sideburns to compensate for his baldness, though, along with an especially impressive twirly mustache. He’s wearing some jewelry and some clearly non-regulation clothes, and seems to be living quite comfortably despite where he is. He refers to us as the demons of Port Valor and sits at our table, commenting on the bad food and it being our first day here. He gives us all a wink and says there’s unique opportunities for people with our skills. He assumes we don’t want to spend an extended period of time with the standard amenities here. As he’s talking, he pulls a piece of bread out of his beard and takes a bite, drawing the attention of a duergar woman. The gnome asks if we want to risk death for a touch of outside breeze. He says that if we’re interested, there’s a specific guard we should talk to- he’s very boring-looking, tubby and bald with ridiculous sideburns. If we do, we should mention Kumte. The gnome says it’s our choice and then leaves! Kilwin calls out after him asking what his name is. The gnome pauses, saying that a name in prison is an odd currency, both the cheapest and most expensive. In the end, he decides to tell us that his name is Torble Treecarver. As he starts to leave again, Kilwin calls out that his name is Kilwin. Torble stops again and notes that we’re not really what he expected. Reides asks if perhaps we don’t seem very demon-like! Torble’s not sure he’d go that far, but he’s afraid he might be starting to like us! He tosses a gold piece to Kilwin, gives a ridiculous bow, and goes on his way.

Session 53

 * Google Document (4-8-22)

Having received our instructions to visit Torble after dark, breakfast ends and we’re ushered out into the prison yard. It’s not really much of a yard- across from the prison is the cave wall, black stone with an orange tinge from the heat of the surrounding magma. The yard itself doesn’t have any grass or other signs of life, or recreational equipment for that matter. It’s just a flat expanse of stone tiles, surrounded by iron fences. There’s benches and some tables bolted into the ground, but all of them are currently taken. A lot of them are taken up by a group of duergar, one of whom is sitting on a table by himself, raised above the rest. There’s not many guards in the actual yard, but there’s some stationed on the walls with crossbows, keeping an eye on everyone. Kilwin tries to spot the guard Torble described, but can’t really make them out from down here. With no benches available, Jorah scouts out a nice corner for us to stand in and chooses an alcove on the opposite side of the yard from the entrance. Kilwin notices that there’s a lot of cracked tiles and flecks of dried blood in the corner and feels a bit queasy, but doesn’t say anything about it. From our corner, Jorah examines the duergar to see if they have any identifying tattoos. The leader does have a tattoo coiled around his arm, which appears to be some form of writing, but none of us can read it from this distance. Jorah has heard of one duergar gang in this region, called the Gedzervans. He doesn’t know that these dwarves are affiliated, but thinks that might be the case. Ashara considers approaching them, but we all end up agreeing that it might be best to not make the first move here.

Torble enters the yard and looks around for us. He spots us in our corner and runs to us in disbelief. He asks why we’re standing in the Shiving Corner!!!! Kilwin realizes that the dried blood is not simply a coincidence! Torble drags us out of the Shiving Corner and asks why we’re standing in a corner like that in the first place. We ask where else we’re gonna go in here! He admits this is a fair point. Torble calls the duergar leader a little man and says his group kind of runs the yard. He suggests we go somewhere quieter and tilts his head toward one of the guards on the wall, who seems to notice and disappears. As we wait, Torble gets some more bread out of his beard. Reides asks if Torble’s beard is a secret bread factory, but Torble refuses to reveal his secrets. He offers Reides half of the loaf, though, which Reides gladly accepts. A group of dwarves and a human begin to approach us. Kilwin asks Torble if they’re Torble’s friends! They do not appear very friendly, though, and the human seems to be concealing something. Torble casts Grease where they’re walking, and everyone except the human slips and falls. Ashara uses Detect Thoughts and hears that the human is determined to kill us. Ashara speaks to him in his mind and tells him that if he keeps coming, she’ll turn him inside out. Torble makes the grease flare up a little bit to try to support her. The man is frightened and drops what he’s holding (a shiv) into the grease. He turns to run but slips this time and smashes his face into the ground. Torble tells him not to interrupt when adults are talking and that the rest of us are under Treecarver’s protection. Ashara asks Jorah to grab the shiv, and he manages to get it without tripping in the grease himself. Jorah manages to pocket it.

Torble leads us back to the yard’s entrance, where the doors swing up and the guard who responded to Torble’s signal appears. As we walk away, he tosses a loaf of bread to the prisoners lying in the grease. Before we make it to the doors, however, the head duergar gets up and approaches us. He strokes his chin and asks if we’re really under the protection of Torble Treecarver. Torble tells the dwarf, apparently named Gorrin, that yes, Gorrin can still hear and should get out of his way. Gorrin lets us know that a lot of people in here want us dead, especially since there’s a lot of people who had some kind of connection to Port Valor. Gorrin and his gang are just waiting for someone with the money. Ashara threatens to destroy him if he tries. Everyone else tells her to please tone it down a bit! Gorrin laughs her off and returns to his table throne, as Torble strokes his beard back at him. Reides gently touches Torble to get his attention and tells him that we really truly didn’t destroy Port Valor. Torble laughs and says nobody ever says they did what got them in here. Reides is telling the truth, though! He’s just saying! Torble thinks that all things considered, the rest of us should be pretty safe because Ashara will be targeted first, to Ashara’s indignation.

The guard pretends to lead us as we make our way to Torble’s cell. We get onto an elevator-like contraption that constantly moves up and down. It takes us up to the top floor of the cell block. The cells here are a lot nicer than the ones on our floor, although the layout of the floor is similar. We’re led to one cell that’s noticeably larger than the others. Torble opens the door and beckons us into his abode! It’s suspiciously well-furnished, with a table covered in wood-carving implements and a variety of unusual creations, some of which are clearly magical. The bed is a four-poster, and there’s a small bar filled with alcohol. Torble offers us drinks, as he was advised to do at the start of any negotiations. Kilwin’s not sure if he should right now, so Torble offers him some milk instead. Kilwin asks how Torble knows he likes milk, and Torble says that Kilwin is simply obviously a milk boy. Kilwin decides to take this as a value-neutral statement and gladly accepts the milk. Ashara also asks for milk, so Torble drinks her whiskey instead and pours her a glass. She’s not sure if drinking is a good idea for her considering she might just kill everyone in the whole prison if she decides that’s a good idea while drunk. Torble agrees, no booze for Ashara! She does let it slip that she expects to leave Magmaslag Rock at some point, which Torble notices! He says we obviously have a reputation in here, and it’s not a good one, so people will be trying to fight us. Reides counters that he’s so pretty though! Torble agrees that Reides is very pretty! Torble once again mentions that Ashara’s aggression will make her a more appealing first target than the rest of us. Ashara tries to defend herself by bringing up the events of 2000 years ago, including that they were 2000 years ago. Torble now thinks she’s a 2000-year-old horror! He does not seem to have heard of the Vrinian Empire. All that aside, Torble says he knows about our deal with Soruza. Kilwin figures that Torble and Soruza are friends! Torble can help us get out if we’ll let him be our guide. He tells us about the tournament again, officially called the Underbelly Bout. It’s win or die, so it’s not the safest option, but the winner of the tournament earns their freedom. The Underbelly Bout is a known thing and has enough of a reputation that the organizers can’t really renege on their offer of freedom. Nobility comes to watch the fights- This goes high up. Ashara asks what happens if we lose. Torble says we die. He does assure us that even though he’s just our contact, he can help us along a bit. He admits that we’re really not what he expected! He can’t just give us wins, but he can find ways to support us. He clarifies that he doesn’t run the tournament, helping us is just what he has to do to get protection and a nicer cell. He might be here on assignment! Reides points out that he’s a prisoner still and asks if Torble wants to be free. Torble asks if we really think he’s a prisoner before admitting that, yeah, he is literally in prison. He’ll do what he can for us and if we can get past the first bout on our own, he’ll see what else he can do. He admits that his current situation is a lot better than being dead on the street, although he doesn’t intend to stay here forever. He’s a bit evasive about what the words “walk in shadow” mean to him.

We ask for more information on the tournament. Torble says that teams are the typical format and given our Lore as the Demons of Port Valor, we’re almost certainly going to be entered as a team. Also, last year’s tournament was a split and the format wasn’t popular, so we’re probably fine. Reides suggests that Torble could help us a LOT if he just joined our team! And then he could be free! Torble says he’ll think about it, twirling his mustache in thought. Ashara asks if we HAVE to kill our opponents. Torble says it’s something we need to think about and that it might not be mercy to spare our opponents to just have them suffer Magmaslag Rock longer and get killed in the next tournament. Kilwin’s not so sure because at least then they’d have a chance! Ashara still has some reservations and points out that everyone who talks to Torble either leaves the prison or dies. Torble’s not the only recruiter though, so his death rate isn’t quite so high. He’s recruited for three previous tournaments and two of the three groups he’s sent in passed and were freed. He regrets the group who died, but he’s determined not to let that happen again and has confidence in us. Kilwin confirms with Torble that winning the tournament is the only job Soruza had in mind for us. Torble is sure that there’s some kind of machinations going on behind the scenes, but he doesn’t know any of the details and as far as we’re concerned, the fights are the whole job. Torble also doesn’t have our things, but he can talk to some guards and see if he can get something for us before the tournament. We all have our share of reservations about this, but we accept that this is our best option and agree to work with Torble. Jorah also asks Torble about the other thing he’d like to do while we’re in here, but Torble does not want to know a goddamn thing about this. The less he knows, the better! The party uses Ashara’s telepathy to discuss Soruza’s offer without Torble hearing more about our situation with Dunan (which suits Torble just fine). Kilwin is pretty sure that Soruza said that if Dunan survived our encounter with him, he’d stand trial for his crimes, which he took to mean that Soruza would dig up evidence against him. Jorah isn’t as sure but admits we don’t really have much time to figure out how to snoop around Dunan’s office for evidence, especially since Torble told us the tournament starts tomorrow. Reides tries to convince Torble to join our team again, since he thinks it would be nice for Torble to be free. Torble said he’d think about it!! He goes to his worktable and starts tinkering distractedly. He tells us we don’t really need to find that guard anymore, since this is the conversation he was trying to set up then. Ashara offers to make Torble a hairpiece out of Jorah’s cut hair, but he is slightly offended! His beard doesn’t need any assistance, and the rest of him is proudly hairless. He flashes his chest to demonstrate, and Kilwin looks away. Kilwin confirms that we’re not being watched by any guards and heals Ashara. He also shows his amulet of Alethus to Torble. Torble tells us to ask a guard to take him to us tomorrow. Then, Torble will take us to the arena. Reides brings up our taken possessions again, telling Torble that he’d really like his shell back. He also wants his jewelry back and also to not need to wear a shirt anymore. Torble agrees that shirts suck! While we’re waiting for tomorrow, Torble suggests sticking to where the guards are, even if it feels counterintuitive, since they’ll protect us from prisoners who want us dead. Anything that happens to us before the tournament is on them, and they don’t want to get in trouble with the tournament sponsors! We wonder if we should set up a trap in our cells. We don’t have much to work with, although Jorah says he can Try. Reides suggests using the buckets, but Torble warns him that they’re usually not cleaned very well. Reides asks if we should try to coordinate a look for our team. Torble is pleased to talk to the first person he’s met with a sense of style in a long time! We really don’t have much to work with though. Reides complains about how greasy his hair feels, though, and Torble insists that we clean up. He gets us some undisturbed time in the showers on the top floor, which are open but pretty spacious. We all manage to get clean before being called down for lunch.

At lunch, they serve mystery meat slop for some variety. Reides pokes at the meat a bit and thinks it jiggles back at him a little bit. He tells the rest of the party, and Kilwin stops eating the meat bits. Everyone else keeps eating it, though. Reides and Ashara feel some rumbling in their tummies, but are mostly fine. After lunch, we’re led back to our cells, but they’re left unlocked and we’re allowed to roam a little bit. We stick together, and Jorah and Kilwin keep an eye out for anyone who might have it out for us, especially Ashara. Jorah feels the weight of the shiv he pocketed by his waist. Time passes and eventually, we hear a commotion from the end of the cell block. There’s a dwarf and duergar getting ready to fistfight and yelling obscenities at each other. Kilwin and Jorah can tell that the dwarf is calling the duergar a Gevzervan dog and shite-eating garbage. A robed guard on a higher floor takes notice of the fight and sends down a fireball. The shouting immediately stops and there’s two singed figures on the floor where the dwarves were. Kilwin just sits down on his hands. No getting involved for him today! Our watch passes uneventfully otherwise, since every time someone seems to approach us with some kind of intent, they notice the guards and think better of it. We’re sent back to the mess hall for our corn slop dinner and then back to our cells for lights out.

Before they sleep, Kilwin strikes up a conversation with Ashara. He’s noticed she’s been on edge lately, to put it mildly, and he thinks that makes a lot of sense, but he was wondering if there’s anything he could do for her! Unfortunately, he cannot get them out of Magmaslag Rock any faster. She explains that the aggression is a reaction to her experience during the fall of the Vrinian Empire, and he’s understanding, but he’s worried that it’s going to make her a target for the other prisoners and doesn’t want anything to happen to her. Ashara is having a hard time caring about her own well-being and thinks if she dies it might be overdue, but Kilwin argues that it deeply matters to him and also years spent in stasis don’t really count! She’s also not very concerned about the well-being of most of the people inside Magmaslag Rock either. Ashara thinks Torble is probably a good person, but the guy who yelled at her last night and had killed his mother? Probably not so much, and while she feels a little weird appointing herself judge, jury, and executioner, she’s not going to be broken up about killing him if she needs to. Kilwin doesn’t necessarily think that anyone in here is irredeemable, but he’s willing to agree to disagree about that. It’s less the philosophy and more the possible consequences of the actions. They commiserate about how bad this place sucks. Kilwin tells Ashara about when he was imprisoned in Vila’s Watch (in a cage (because they didn’t have a real prison) and not because he did a crime (he was bitten by a werewolf (not the werewolf’s fault, Kilwin cornered him) (also Kilwin suffered no lasting effects from the bite, so no harm, no foul))). Ashara is a little shocked by the full story. Kilwin’s point, though, is that the cage in the rain was a LOT less miserable than this! Ashara promises to be more careful and says that she’ll try not to make Kilwin waste magic on her. Kilwin objects to calling it a waste if she’s hurt! Still, Ashara and Kilwin agree to watch each other’s backs. Ashara says she’ll turn anyone who hurts Kilwin inside out. Kilwin will take it as long as she doesn’t tell them that before they hurt him! While there’s nothing he can really do to improve the situation, Ashara asks Kilwin to find her some plant-based milk when they’re out. He agrees, even though he’s heard the dairy farmers of Cowersby call oat milk the work of demons.

As a group, we decide to skip the watch order tonight. Reides places the bucket in front of his and Jorah’s cell door, so it might get knocked over and make some noise if someone enters without paying attention. Jorah approves. We go to sleep and the night passes uneventfully.

In the morning, we find a guard on our way to the mess hall and ask to be taken to Torble. He leads us to Torble’s cell, where Torble is sleeping. The guard wakes him up by hitting the bars with his baton. Torble mocks the guard but gets up. He offers the guard coffee (maybe with some whiskey!) if he takes us down to the pantry, which he does. We all head back down the elevator and toward the mess hall, but we go to a side door that we’ve been guided away from previously. Inside is the kitchen, where prison employees are dutifully pouring mysterious ingredients into a large vat. Since this kitchen is exclusively for prisoners’ food, nothing in here is very good, which also keeps it from being an enticing burglary target. Torble leads us to the pantry and beckons us inside, but the door is locked. He rummages in his beard for the key and fumbles with it for a bit before successfully unlocking the pantry and beckoning us inside for real. This pantry is in obvious disuse, with lots of dust and cobwebs. Torble feels around the walls for a while until he finds a switch, which reveals a secret passage behind a cupboard, which leads to another elevator going down. We go really far down before we reach an opening that leads to an open room with several doors that lead to staging areas. Torble leads us to one, where there’s a bench and four sacks of equipment. Torble talked to the guards and got our stuff back for the tournament! We thank him and Reides gives him a hug. There’s also metal boxes in the wall to store things we don’t want to take into the arena. Torble also has some additional help he can offer. He asks to see Jorah’s crossbow and compliments the wood. He begins casting something and his tattoos glow. Torble hands back the crossbow, which is now enchanted with a repeating shot infusion. Torble also enhances Reides’s shell, Kilwin’s shield (which can now also repel anyone who hits him), and Ashara’s arm (which can now light up and possibly blind attackers). Torble tells us we’re the first group, opening up the whole tournament. This is actually a good thing, since it’s kind of a sign of approval from the tournament’s sponsors. We’re the main attraction! Torble then very seriously tells us to walk in shadow and leaves us to our preparations. The doors out lock behind him.

As we finish putting our equipment on and casting our pre-combat spells, a rune etched into a plate on the wall lights up and a voice emanates from it, telling us to enter the next room because the matches are about to begin. We go through the other door and down some stairs to another room with a large bench. There’s a large window with bars, giving us a view of a large metal grate lowering over a pit of lava. Each corner of the grate has a huge statue of a dwarf with a chain coming out of its back, holding up the structure. There’s a stone platform in the center of the grate with two platforms leading up to it. There are no railings! A rune in this room glows and a voice tells us to enter the arena. Jorah leads the charge. As we go, Reides lets his hair down again.

We pass through a long hallway and across a drawbridge to the platform, which is swaying slightly on its chains. There’s spectator seats all around the cavern walls above us. The seats are full, and the spectators are dressed extremely fancily and wearing masks that conceal their identities. Closer to our level, there’s a lot of barred windows where the other teams are waiting and watching us. As the drawbridge pulls up behind us, Jorah takes a swig out of his waterskin. We spot Torble in the stands, who appears to be exchanging coin with someone and gesturing at us excitedly. Jorah thinks he’s betting against us, but the rest of the party is a little more optimistic. A dwarf with flowing red hair descends on a chained harness and announces the commencement of the Underbelly Bout here in the Deepfloe Arena, where prisoners face off against each other, as well as horrors from the Underdark. He introduces us as the Demons of Port Valor, although turns his microphone rune to us so the crowd can hear it from us. He asks if we’d like to be the Demons of Port Valor or something else! As swaggy as our assigned name is, Kilwin doesn’t really want to be called a demon of anything, so Reides suggests calling ourselves the Champions. The announcer accepts our new name and then announces our opponents, the Horrors of the Dark. A cage rapidly descends and smashes into the platform. It quickly rises back up, but leaves behind three large creatures with large hooked claws and beaks. The Underbelly Bout has begun!

Jorah warns us not to get surrounded and runs up to the hook horrors, with Kilwin close behind him. They lay into the horrors and Jorah manages to stay away from the hook horrors’ claws for a little bit, but eventually gets hurt pretty badly. They also lay into Kilwin, although Torble’s enchantment on his shield does protect him from some of the attacks. Reides shelters behind a rock and fires off some spells from behind it, while Ashara stays near the stairs to the platform as she casts. Jorah, injured, takes a few steps back from the hook horrors, but they still strike out at him with their elongated arms. Reides blows a kiss to Torble in the stands before firing off a Ray of Frost that kills one of the hook horrors and disperses on the force field between the arena and the stands, frightening some of the spectators. Jorah tries to put some more distance between himself and the horrors and just narrowly dodges a swipe at his eye. Reides comes out from behind his rock and goes next to Ashara. He casts Fireball between the two remaining hook horrors, scorching them. Kilwin casts Inflict Wounds on one of them, channeling some dark anti-life magic, but it still decides to target the source of the fireball. Reides is hurt pretty badly, but Jorah shoots that hook horror in the eye soon after, killing it. The last one badly injures Jorah again, but Jorah waits for it to roar and shoots it in the mouth, killing it. The announcer descends again, declaring the Demons, the Champions, the winners of this bout. We’ll move onto the next round! We realize he’s been calling the match the entire time from above. The drawbridge on our side of the arena lowers again and we’re given a chance to rest and watch the matches after ours.

Session 54

 * Google Document (4-15-22)

With the Horrors of the Dark vanquished, we’re shepherded back to the waiting room we came from to watch the next few matches. Once we’re back, the arena begins to tilt and the corpses of the hook horrors slide into the lava. We hate to see it! Torble enters our waiting room and congratulates us on our victory. He warns us that there’s more coming, but encourages us to keep up the good work. He also reveals that he made a lot of money by betting on us. Torble’s not sure how many competitors there are, which affects how many rounds there are. Apparently four to six per day is the average. Ashara asks Torble if the hook horrors volunteered to be in the tournament. He says they’re actually quite intelligent (this is apparently untrue), but they didn’t exactly sign waivers. Apparently, the rounds with the so-called monsters are mostly considered filler and the creatures themselves were captured while raiding merchants in the Underdark and things like that. Torble says that surface dwellers aren’t really familiar with some of the things down here, but then looks at Ashara unsure if she’s a surface dweller, and then at Reides. Torble admits that he has no idea what Reides’s whole deal is. Reides tells him that he is not a surface dweller! Torble is very excited and says that surface dwellers stink in Gnomish. Kilwin is slightly offended, and Torble is glad to meet a fellow Gnomish speaker.

The next round starts, and the announcer descends on his chained harness again. On one side is a team of dwarves, who name themselves Cock and Stone (the announcer asks if they’re absolutely sure first). On the other side, a cage descends and releases a cyclops, dubbed the Great Eye. The Great Eye’s club is noticeably bigger than anything the dwarves have, but they rush him and are quickly smashed. Reides refuses to watch this. At that point, there’s a knock at the door and a guard comes in to talk to Torble. Torble asks about the betting pool, and apparently people are a bit more enthusiastic about us after our first round. Torble decides he’ll go all in, and he means all in. He tells the guard that he’s joining us and to tell his organization that he wants out. Torble gives Reides a little wink! The guard asks if he’s really sure, and Torble insists that we’re clearly ferocious, pointing to Kilwin. Ashara tells the guard that Kilwin was in a cage because he was a werewolf and that’s why he’s so hairy. The guard is a little freaked out and Kilwin tries to set the record straight, but Reides advises him to just allow the rumor to spread here. Torble asks if we’ve picked up any sponsors yet, but we haven’t. Apparently the nobles usually don’t start getting invested until after the second round. Torble offers the guard a 50-50 split if he’ll start pushing us to potential sponsors. Ashara asks the guard why he’s doing this. He says it’s just about the money. Ashara says okay!

The guard leaves, and Ashara calls him an asshole. Torble defends him as an extremely sweet man. He also lets us know that the guards who mistreated us earlier have since received consequences. They sound pretty brutal, but we’re assets to be protected right now! Ashara asks why that courtesy isn’t extended to prisoners who aren’t useful to the Deep Watchers, and Torble admits it’s hard to convince them to intervene for people who aren’t useful to them. Torble also thinks we’re probably the only actually innocent people in here. Reides is excited that Torble has come around on us! Torble insists that he obviously already knew and wouldn’t have joined us otherwise. He responds to Reides’s accusations of being shy and demure about it by being shy and demure. Torble tells Jorah it was a rough break when he didn’t quite get out of the hook horrors’ range. Despite Torble and Ashara’s reassurances, Jorah thinks he’s fought enough monsters for long enough that he really should’ve known better. The arena turns once again as the Great Eye’s cage ascends again and the remains of Cock and Stone fall into the lava. A guard comes in to tell us that we’ll be in the round after this next one. In the arena, the drawbridges descend again. For the most part, both teams are a group of fairly ordinary-looking prisoners wearing leather armor or chainmail. However, one team has a human-sized man with long black hair and black armor who’s holding a glaive. The other team is called the Rabblerousers, and the man’s teammates call themselves the Duskwall Brigade. The man in black doesn’t seem to be reacting to anything around him and just stares forward. When the match starts, though, he walks to the other side of the arena and the Rabblerousers fall. The rest of the Duskwall Brigade cheer him on. Reides takes a look and spots no sign of emotion in the man. His gaze shifts toward us and he makes eye contact with Reides, spooking him a bit. He heads back to the drawbridge as the Duskwall Brigade is declared the winners and the nobles in the audience whisper to each other. Kilwin asks Torble if he knows who this guy is. Torble actually has heard of a disgraced paladin kept in solitary confinement. His name is Kievan Duskwall, which happens to be a gnomish name. Huh, weird!!

It’s our turn again, and we re-enter a noticeably bloodier arena. A cage descends and we are confronted by our next opponent, the Great Eye. Ashara asks the announcer when we fight the Duskwall Brigade because she wants to see Kievan more, but he tells her to just wait and see! Ashara casts Hunger of Hadar, enveloping the Great Eye in darkness that none of us can see through. As Jorah gets closer, he realizes it’s extremely cold inside and hears the cyclops howling. Unfortunately, none of us can see it, so we have a hard time hitting it. Fortunately, it also can’t see us! Torble gets to work on some scrap with such potential and creates an eldritch cannon. He fires it into the void and apparently connects, since we hear a skidding sound and the arena shakes. Torble calls it a thing of beauty! Reides throws a fireball into the darkness, which seems to work quite well, and hides behind the same rock as before. We hear thudding footsteps from the darkness and a boulder comes flying out at Ashara. However, it smashes into a statue behind her. Kilwin manages to hit it with Spiritual Weapon in the darkness. Ashara decides it is time for her to hide too. Torble runs up to the darkness to cast Thunderwave, which seems to hurt! Torble scurries back behind the boulder with Reides, but his cannon misses since the Great Eye was shoved back by Thunderwave. Reides creates three copies of himself before hiding back behind the rock. Another rock flies past Jorah. We have a bit of difficulty find the Great Eye’s location, and Ashara wonders if she should dispel the Hunger. Jorah appreciates the cover and wants it to stay, but doesn’t manage to find the cyclops. Torble lays a sticky Web on the floor in the darkness and hears snapping and ripping sounds from within, followed by some thudding. Ashara decides to dispel Hunger of Hadar, revealing that the Great Eye walked out of it on the opposite side. Jorah finally gets in some good hits now that he can see, and Torble scorches off some of its chest hair. It’s too hot for it! The Great Eye takes a boulder out of his satchel of boulders and hurls it at Jorah, finally connecting. Ashara casts Mind Sliver, putting in all her frustration about her current situation and how she can’t go to the library with Kain. The Great Eye groans and clasps its head before a stream of psychic energy shoots out of its eye, along with some of its brains. The arena shakes as the Great Eye falls, and the Champions are declared the winners. Torble calls out for Cock and Stone, to some cheers from people who bet on them. Most people are cheering for us, but there’s a few audience members who are clearly unhappy because they bet against us.

Jorah questions his life choices and bemoans the departure of the big people in armor. Kilwin’s sorry he’s not enough! He offers to look at Jorah’s wounds, but Jorah will just walk it off. Torble gives him a tiny gnome-sized bandaid, but Jorah asks him to not, because he is very bruised and touching hurts. As the next match gets set up, a guard enters our waiting room and tells us we have a sponsor! He hands us a small vial of red liquid, which Jorah takes. Apparently, it was very expensive to get it to us, so someone must have a lot of money riding on us. Two new teams take the stage. One is a group of duergar led by Gorrin, the man who confronted us in the yard, armed with a big hammer. The other is a group of prisoners in studded leather armor carrying spears. They are announced as the Gedzervan and the Phalanx respectively. As the Gedzervan ready their weapons, they begin to enlarge. The Phalanx gets into the appropriate formation, but the Gedzervan rushing at them are like a wall of stone and the match doesn’t last long. On their way out, the Gedzervan high-five and chest bump each other, and Gorrin spits on the corpse of one of the Phalanx before leading the way.

The next round is the Duskwall Brigade (which seems to have a few extra hangers-on) against a creature called the Cloaking Abyss. The Cloaking Abyss is a creature that resembles a manta ray, dark blue on top and tan on the bottom. It has a thorny tail with a spike on the end and a tan face with orange burning eyes. Also it has fangs. Along with the creature is what appears to be a large rock. Kievan turns his attention toward the rock, while the other prisoners rush the creature. It creates three copies of itself, much like Reides just did, and attaches itself to a prisoner’s head and stabs him with its tail, killing him. Kievan slices at the rock with his glaive, drawing blood and revealing a second creature. The second creature rushes Kievan, but he just slices it in two. Kilwin and Ashara notice a flash of darkness outlined in white from his blade. It looks like he’s either an oathbreaker or a paladin in service to an evil god. Kilwin thought he might not actually be a fallen paladin before, like how he’s still a regular cleric, but guesses that’s not the case now! The first creature takes out two more prisoners before Kievan spears it in the gut and tosses it into the lava. Kievan doesn’t seem to respond to his success emotionally, although his surviving teammates seem happy, with a few mourning their fallen comrades. Reides really wishes he could get a chance to study the Cloaking Abyss. As the Duskwall Brigade leaves the arena, one prisoner mourning one of his dead teammates lags behind. He realizes and tries to scramble for the drawbridge, but it rises without him and the arena flips with him on it, to the crowd’s cheers. We hate it! Jorah has an idea and says that we should try to group up around him if the arena starts turning with us on it. Reides also knows how to cast Fly, but hasn’t gotten a chance to sit with his spellbook to prepare it.

The guard comes back to fetch us for the next round. Reides thinks we should name Torble’s cannon Richie. Once we arrive, we learn that our opponents are the Gedzervan. Kilwin finally takes a closer look at Gorrin’s arm tattoo and makes out the words “Gods guide my hammer” before the text goes into a bracer and he can’t make it out. Gorrin says he got his commission to kill us after all, and he’ll get freedom in the process. Torble blows him a kiss, but Gorrin swats it away and says he’s wanted to kill Torble since the first time he laid eyes on him. Ashara would like to get to the killing Gorrin part! Jorah runs in (to the announcer’s delight) and immediately decapitates one of the duergar. He asks who’s next! One of the other duergar vanishes, while another rushes Jorah to avenge the fallen Karl, but doesn’t have much success. Gorrin strikes Jorah three times with his hammer, which seems to reverberate psychically in Jorah’s mind. As Jorah falls unconscious, Gorrin grows in size and asks who’s next. A duergar almost misses Kilwin, but Gorrin points at him and seems to guide his strike true. Torble places a Sanctuary on Kilwin (and fires a spell from his arcane pistol), and Kilwin heals Jorah back to consciousness. The invisible duergar reemerges from behind Reides and knocks out one of his duplicates. Reides makes a big fireball, but it’s not as successful as he was hoping. Gorrin notes that Kilwin is a healer before turning his hammer on him. Unfortunately, the Sanctuary ends up deflecting one of Gorrin’s swings to Jorah, knocking him out again. He then orders his men to get us, and they all get a chance to attack. Reides’s second duplicate is dispersed. A guy tries to throw a javelin at Jorah’s body and we all hate it. Another duergar runs at Reides, surrounding him and eliminating his last duplicate. Ashara sends some eerie whispers into Gorrin’s mind, forcing him to run away. The duergar who launched a spear at Jorah disappears, but soon pops out again to attack Ashara. Jorah, revived again, manages to shoot down one of the duergar menacing Reides, as well as the one attacking Ashara. Reides takes out Gorrin’s last teammate with Chill Touch, sending him off nightmarishly. Gorrin manages to knock out Kilwin before walking up to the rest of the group. Torble fires off some arcane shots at him. Reides takes a hit from Gorrin’s hammer while rushing to get a potion to Kilwin. Gorrin knocks out Jorah yet again before turning to Ashara and attacking her. Kilwin manages to heal everyone up (more or less). Ashara manages to weather Gorrin’s blows, finally realizing what Jorah and Kilwin were dealing with the whole time. Torble domes Gorrin with a Fire Bolt fired from his gun, burning him to a crisp. Torble waits for him to shrink again before grabbing him by his horned helmet and tossing him over the side in the lava. As the announcer proclaims that the Gedzervan fall and the Champions rise, we hurry off the stage back to our waiting room.

Session 55

 * Google Document (4-22-22)

As we start settling for our between-match rest, the door opens and a guard enters, telling us we have another gift from a sponsor. He wheels in a cart with a huge feast on it, with a full turkey, stuffed mushrooms, and many side dishes, as well as three fancy-looking healing potions. Torble wants to dig in immediately, and Reides is tempted, but we ask Jorah to check the food for poison first. Fortunately, it’s clean, and we dig in. Torble asks if our food is usually poisoned, but we tell him that nothing about what’s going on right now is normal for us. The food feels especially good though. Reides has never seen turkey before, so he eyes it suspiciously and sticks to the fungus. Jorah goes to drink some of his whiskey, but realizes that the guards who took our things seem to have partaken in it. He’s furious. He says he was going to offer to share but apparently already has! Ashara’s not sure this is a good idea. Torble thinks it’s a wonderful idea, though, and produces a flask of strong alcohol from his beard and takes a swig. He asks if we’ve heard of someone named Julius Caesar. Ashara and Reides have not! Ashara argues that she was in a pod and it’s not like she could read in there. Torble asks if they have books underwater. Reides confirms they do! They have waterproof inks and lots of engravings. Reides used to copy over lots of surfacer books so he could bring them home and read them there. Torble thinks he could sell those for some decent money. Reides never thought about that, but he’s pretty sure they’re not around anymore. Ashara says we can check when we visit Reides’s home! Reides realizes that Torble doesn’t know anything about his background, but decides to  just not talk about it right now. Torble goads Reides into trying the turkey and eating some more of it. Reides decides he likes turkey! The food turns out to be a magical Heroes’ Feast, which boosts the party’s HP, gives them advantage on wisdom saves, and makes them immune to fear and poison for the next 24 hours.

We hear a spout of cheering from the stands and look out to see Kievan and a (now smaller) group of prisoners leaving the arena. Kilwin has a bad feeling about this guy! He thinks we should strategize. He offers to try to use magic to hold him in place, and says that Ashara and Reides could help the spell keep hold with Mind Sliver. Kilwin is more worried about Kievan than his teammates, who he hopes will just kind of give up if Kievan is out of commission. It’s worth a try! The guard returns to fetch us for our next match. He hopes the feast hasn’t made us too appetizing! Jorah still looks awful even after resting, so he drinks one of the fancy potions now and holds on to another. Kilwin takes the other one with him. Ashara requests a back massage and Reides gives her one with Mage Hand. We return to the arena where the announcer proclaims this the first match of the semifinals- the Champions against the Slathering Maws. A cage descends and unleashes five dwarf-sized creatures with bodies that almost entirely consist of their mouths. They fan out and eye the party hungrily. Most of them swarm around Jorah and Kilwin and try to bite at them, although one dashes past them to Torble, leaving a trail of drool behind it as it crawls, and another goes around the boulder to try to chomp on Reides. Fish is not on the menu, though! Torble manages to stun the one who went after him with Shocking Grasp and runs back to the rest of the group. The maw demons start focusing on Jorah, smelling more of his blood with each bite they manage to land on him. Torble tries to shield Jorah and skedaddle, but is bitten by one of the demons on his way out. Fortunately, the maw demons don’t last too long. Reides sends a creepy, wet hand into one’s mouth, decaying it from the inside out. Jorah drives Quickbrand into another one’s throat, and another is burned to dust by Sacred Flame. Reides manages to drown another one with Chill Touch, sending it into convulsions before it dies, spilling black blood. Kilwin attempts to shoo the last one, hurling another Sacred Flame at it, which ignites in the center of its mouth, burning it away from within. The announcer returns, saying that the Champions will proceed to the finals, where they will face the winner of the next match.

As we leave, Torble and Reides wonder how they clean the arena, if they just dunk it in the lava when this is all over. A guard visits us to tell us that there will be two hours before the final, to give our opponents time to rest as well. There will also be no more sponsors. He also tells us that the final match of the Underbelly Bout has a time limit, as it’s conducted while the platform is slowly lowered into the lava. After the guard leaves, Kilwin asks Torble why Soruza told us we would need a week to do the job if this is the job! Torble said this was the job!! Torble doesn’t know, but says time works differently here. We start discussing strategy, assuming we’ll be facing the Duskwall Brigade. Jorah doesn’t trust himself with the elemental-conjuring sapphire, given his luck with maintaining concentration, so he considers handing it to Kilwin before trading it with Reides for his Potion of Fire Breathing. We think summoning the elemental might be a good backup plan in case things start to go badly, but if Reides loses concentration on the spell, we’ll also have a water elemental to fight. Reides thinks the elemental should have a name. Jorah suggests Get Them Motherfucker. Kilwin has the repulsion shield and Reides can cast Gust of Wind, which could be used to push someone off the stage, if it comes to that. We also pay attention to the other semifinal match, to see if we can glean anything from it. It’s the Duskwall Brigade against another group of prisoners, who seem relatively well-equipped. The battle quickly begins, although Kievan hangs back while the rest of the Brigade clashes with the other team. Although one or two members of the Brigade don’t survive, Kievan makes short work of the other team when he joins in. As his blade flashes and each prisoner falls, he reaches down to place his hand on their faces. Kievan seems to be closing their eyes for them. As the Duskwall Brigade is declared the other finalist, Kievan looks around at the stands, the empty boxes where the fallen teams rested, and then directly at us. He then steps back toward his side of the arena to rest. He doesn’t show any emotion during any of this. While this is happening, Kilwin spots Soruza in the stands, watching the fight. Soruza gets up and leaves. Kilwin tells everyone else about it. None of us know what this means!

Our second hour of rest passes and Kilwin says a prayer to heal everyone up, since we’ve been pushing ourselves to our limits. Then we proceed to the arena. The announcer hypes us up, saying that neither team has even broken a sweat reaching the finals. On the ground, we murmur some disagreements, but he probably doesn’t pick them up. The Duskwall Brigade is down to seven members now- Kievan himself, two burly goliath twins, and four battle-hardened other prisoners. Kievan is about six feet tall and wields a long glaive. He gazes coldly at us as we say that it’s nice to finally meet him and we would’ve preferred better circumstances. He’s also sorry it has to be this way, but he has to leave this prison. Unfortunately, so do we! The announcer says that the prize for winning this fight is freedom, as well as something from the tournament’s sponsors. We wonder if the announcer is stuck here too, although Torble’s never seen him outside of this context, so he doubts it. The announcer also tells us that we have one minute before the arena is submerged in lava. If the fight isn’t over by then or if the winning team can’t get out of the arena in time, there will be no survivors. The chains begin to lower the platform as the fight begins.

Torble fires a Fire Bolt at one of the ordinary prisoners, killing him immediately. One of the other ordinary prisoners runs up to Jorah, telling his companions that this one goes down like a sack of bricks, but fails to hit him. Kievan merely watches the battle unfold at first. Reides tosses a fireball in the middle of the Duskwall Brigade, killing two of the prisoners, but an aura seems to surround Kievan, reaching the goliaths, leaving the three of them unscathed. The goliath twins close in around Kilwin and Jorah, and Jorah lashes out at one of them about the sack of bricks comment. One of the prisoners hits Ashara with his crossbow. Kievan stares at Kilwin and rushes up to him. He’s not wearing any visible holy symbol. Energy starts surrounding Kievan’s glaive and darkness starts to creep over Kilwin’s vision, but Torble calls out to him and strengthens his resolve. The darkness falls away. Kievan gets in a bit closer to hit Jorah as well with his glaive’s reach. One of the goliaths tells his twin to take care of Jorah, and he’ll get Kilwin. Sadly, Jorah is taken care of, but Kilwin gets him up again. Torble fires again and makes one of the goliaths hit his head and die. Kievan’s glaive sears with light again and he tells Jorah that he should stay when he’s put down. He swipes right at Jorah’s heart, but he manages to parry it with Quickbrand. Another slash lands, though, and leaves a glowing cut in Jorah’s chest. Kilwin’s plan to paralyze Kievan fails immediately. The remaining goliath is devastated by his twin’s death and takes it out on Jorah. Kievan continues to insist that Jorah should stay down. Reides decides it’s time to break the gem! The water elemental emerges from a vortex and hammers the surviving goliath, who is soon burned to death by Ashara. Kievan comments that Jorah, who has passed out and been revived by Kilwin multiple times, is very persistent. He smashes his spear into the ground and darkness spills out, engulfing everyone but Reides. The rest of the party (and the water elemental) sees visions of ourselves on the ground lifeless and feel the urge to run, but we all manage to hold our ground. Kievan says we’re braver than the last group, but tells us that we’ve just seen our futures. Reides finishes off Kievan’s last ally. The water elemental attempts to whelm Kievan, but fails. Kilwin manages to hit Kievan with his mace and realizes that would probably be a lot easier than trying to connect with Sacred Flame. Torble gets in close to cast Shocking Grasp on Kievan, but faces a dire reprisal. Kilwin and Torble notice black wisps floating from the dead bodies toward Kievan’s back. Reides hits Kievan again, and the dark energy becomes more noticeable, eventually forming dark wings behind Kievan. Kilwin heals everyone before hitting Kievan, who can now retaliate immediately. He continues to attack Kilwin with legendary actions. Jorah is driven to defeat this man quickly and strikes him twice with Quickbrand before firing a crossbow bolt into his hand, forcing him to loosen his grip on his glaive. Kievan charges his glaive with magic again and warns Jorah that he may try to escape death, but it will come for him in the end. He lays into Jorah, and while Jorah is still standing in the end, darkness covers his vision, blinding him. Reides manages to wrap the creepy wet hand of Chill Touch around Kievan’s throat. It squeezes tight, strangling him. Reides calls out that he truly wishes we met Kievan under better circumstances! Kievan’s eyes glaze over and he reaches upward with his injured hand, grasping at something we can’t see, before falling to the ground. Jorah’s vision returns and he sees Kievan’s body. As the spectators cheer, we notice that the arena is still descending. Reides wants to close Kievan’s eyes for him, but the incline of the drawbridges is getting steeper, so he decides against it. Jorah suggests ordering the water elemental to take Kievan’s body with us, so we can try to give him a funeral. Reides likes this idea and does so. As the water elemental passes Jorah, he feels a slight pull on his arm. We make it across the drawbridge and out of the Deepfloe Arena.

Session 56

 * Google Document (5-6-22)

We leave the arena (and Kievan’s glaive) behind. As we sprint through the gates, we hear the announcer proclaim the Champions as the winners of the Underbelly Bout and have secured their freedom. He encourages us to get some rest, as we deserve it. We really truly do. We figure we’ll take a closer look at Kievan’s body and dismiss the water elemental when we get a chance to rest. On our way back to our locker room, we meet the tournament organizers. A shorter than average dwarf steps forward to greet us. He congratulates us and tells us that normally they have contestants leave the bodies behind, although if we really want to give Kievan a burial, we probably can find a spot in a little bit. He leads us down a hallway, telling us this is normal proceedings for tournament victors. At the end of the hall, there’s a large fancy door with oak fittings. The door leads to a large room filled with comfy furniture, like sofas and chairs with cushions. There’s also a very nice rug. There’s also shelves with things like playing cards and various stationery. There’s three doors on each side of the main room and another door across from the entrance. The tournament organizer tells us we can stay here for the night, and that the side rooms are bedrooms. The door opposite us leads deeper into the earth, where we’d potentially be able to bury Kievan. He recommends resting up a bit before trying that, though. Reides just sticks his hands into the rug because it looks so soft. The organizer seems to think that’s kind of weird, but tells us that there’s a servant outside if we need anything.

Alone again, Reides has the water elemental place Kievan’s body on the sofa and closes Kievan’s eyes for him. Before Reides dismisses it, Kilwin thanks it for saving our lives and Jorah tells it he’s glad he stole it. Reides gives it a hug, but decides against Kilwin’s idea of going for a little swim. He does stick his face in it though. As Reides dismisses the water elemental, it gives a little sloshing sound before it loses its shape and collapses into a puddle on the carpet. Kilwin takes a look at Kievan’s body and he seems to truly be dead. He seems like a normal person also. There’s also no signs of unnaturalness, like there were with Tyrian’s corpse. Jorah notices his wrist is burning. Jorah and Kilwin are both feeling Extremely paranoid. Jorah starts checking around for secret passages, but finds none. Kilwin begins casting Detect Magic as a ritual. There is an eye slot on the door we entered from. Reides takes a peek through it and sees a human on the smaller side, who notices him and asks if we need anything. Reides says he was just saying hi! The human says hi back and Reides closes the slot again. Jorah feels pretty awful, so he casts Cure Wounds on himself. He gets some relief, but his wrist still hurts badly. He pulls off his bracer and takes a look. There’s a pretty nasty welt there. Jorah assumes he got hit harder there than he thought and doesn’t bother covering it back up. Reides wants to try playing cards, and Jorah offers to join him. Torble and Ashara just head straight for bed. They’re the first to see that the bedrooms are lavishly decorated, with four-poster beds, desks with writing implements, wardrobes, coffers, and racks filled with bottles of alcohol. Torble and Ashara just collapse once they get into bed, sore from the trials of the day.

Kilwin finishes casting the spell and takes a walk through the rooms. Most of the magical things present are ours, including a lot of things in Torble’s pack, but Kievan also seems to have an item with a magical item on him. Kilwin searches him and finds a plain talisman and an aura similar to Kilwin’s own holy symbol. Jorah’s wrist hurts more just looking at it, but he asks Kilwin if he can take a closer look at it. Once he takes it, the pain in his wrist goes away. Kilwin figures this means that Kievan was sworn to the service of the Nameless God. He thinks this more or less settles that Kievan wasn’t a bad person, even if they were philosophically opposed to each other on that front. Kilwin also notices Jorah’s welt, but assumes something just jammed Jorah’s bracer into his arm while he was blocking an attack during the day. It looks bad, but unfortunately, Jorah simply looks bad after the day he had! We decide to hold off on burying Kievan until the whole party is awake, and also because the organizer warned us about going through the other door without resting. The awake group also decides against trying to use Speak with Dead to try to learn anything from Kievan. Kilwin also mentions that there was alcohol in the bedrooms, if Jorah or Reides would like to indulge a little. They would! Reides also talks Kilwin into having a little, although he’s still feeling a little paranoid. Reides takes a look through the racks, which have general human fare like wine and ale, magma wine, firewhiskey, stone brew ale, forge whiskey, Gold Vein (which is a type of vodka), and one that Reides recognizes, deepcoral wine. Reides is shocked to see it! He wants some, and Jorah and Kilwin decide to try some too. Reides leads a toast to surviving the day, leaving this place, and the fallen. Apparently, deepcoral wine is very bitter, an acquired taste that Reides has acquired. Jorah and Kilwin have not! They both sputter on it and immediately start to feel buzzed. Kilwin apologizes to Reides for not liking it. Reides is very offended that they don’t like it! Kilwin lets Reides drink the rest of his glass. Jorah emptied his in one go. It works out for Reides, though, because now he gets the whole bottle to himself. Jorah decides it’s time for him to sleep, and Reides and Kilwin decide to go to bed soon after. Someone has some dreams!

In the morning, Jorah wakes up and checks Kievan’s medallion, which he’s still holding onto. Nothing about it has changed. His wrist still hurts when he lets go of it, but it continues to block the pain otherwise. However, the welt has turned into a large black mark, which Jorah has never seen anything like. He lets out a bit of a yell before covering it up before meeting up with the rest of the party in the main room. Most of the party just passed out during the night, but Jorah admits he had nightmares for the first time in years. He doesn’t want to go into details, though. Kilwin and Jorah take hold of Kievan’s body and we all go into the caves behind our rooms. It’s very dark, so Kilwin casts Light. There’s a path to the left and another that leads upward. We try the path to the left, but it quickly leads to a small cul-de-sac blocked off by boulders. The ground is fairly solid rock, so we wouldn’t be able to dig a grave there. Torble attempts to use his svirfneblin stone sense to find some softer ground. He detects some higher up in the caves, so we go back up the other path. Soon, though, Torble spots some movement out of the corner of his eye. On the ceiling above us, there’s a large worm-like creature with a dozen tentacles and bulbous eyes. Torble has encountered these creatures before and recognizes them as carrion crawlers. There’s actually several of them on the ceiling, and they do not seem friendly. Reides hits one, which crawls down to attack Kilwin with its tentacles. The tentacles seem to be coated in poison with some kind of slowing effect, but Kilwin fights it off. It also tries to bite him, but is unsuccessful. Another crawls across the ceiling to reach where Reides had backed up to, while a third just approaches us from the higher section of the caves. Torble shocks the one by him and Reides with Shocking Grasp, giving the two of them an opening to get some distance from the stinky worms. A fourth one falls off the ceiling in front of Jorah, attacking him but not finding much success. Kilwin notices they seem to be eyeing Kievan hungrily and does not care for that one bit! He looks at Kievan’s body and attempts to cast a new cantrip on the crawler who attacked Jorah, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. Ashara is also struck by the tentacles of the one that first attacked Kilwin, and the one that Torble stunned pursues him, hitting him as well. However, Torble has experience dealing with drow and their paralytic poisons, so he’s well-prepared. Jorah stabs one to death. Reides decides it’s a good time to just throw a fireball at these gross things, sculpting it around his friends as well as Kievan’s body. The flames kill one carrion crawler and severely injure the other two. Ashara has no luck landing hits with her dagger and Kilwin doesn’t get to successfully show off his new cantrip today (or his old one). Jorah almost falls prey to the crawler’s poison, but Torble calls out to him to tense his muscles, pushing the poison back out. Jorah guts one of the remaining worms, while Torble sends a Fire Bolt through the last one’s eye, too disgusted to try to kill it with any special flair. The crawler’s eye spurts out some goop at Jorah, but he expertly dodges out of the splash zone.

With that over with, we manage to take Kievan’s body to the upper part of the cavern and dig a grave (with our hands, because none of us own a shovel). It takes about three hours. As we start to bury Kievan, Kilwin notices that he doesn’t have his holy symbol with him. Jorah admits to holding onto it and says he wants to find where Kievan came from and give it to someone who knew him. Kilwin thinks that’s a great idea! Closure is important! We don’t have Kievan’s glaive to use as a grave marker, so Kilwin makes a little cairn for him and, unsure if that’s enough, also places one of his candles in front of it. Reides wants to light the candle to do Something, but thinks that could just be a triton thing. Kilwin agrees though, and hopes that if Kievan has any awareness of what we’re doing from the afterlife, he appreciates and enjoys the symbolism of the candle burning down. We all hope that Kievan has found some kind of peace in death.

With the burial complete, Ashara asks if we can talk a bit before returning to the rooms. She wants to kill Dunan Slagmeld and doesn’t care if she has to do it by herself. Kilwin and Reides get where she’s coming from and aren't going to let her rush into anything alone, but aren’t so sure that’s the best move! They explain the details of the situation with Tyrian, and Kilwin expresses concerns about Dunan returning as a revenant to hunt Ashara for as long as he still exists. We’re honestly not sure if Tyrian is a traditional revenant or what at this point though! Jorah is also concerned about the consequences of murdering a public figure immediately after being released from the maximum security prison. He’d prefer to not end back up here! Ashara thinks she will be fine because she can teleport relatively short distances and has nothing to lose in this new world, so it doesn’t matter if she has some demon chasing her. Torble admits he’s an outsider to all this (and has NO clue what we’re talking about), but thinks it sounds like Ashara is about to prioritize revenge over the well-being of her companions, which might not be the wisest move. We have a few days to figure out our actual approach, though, so we table the discussion for now and return to the rooms.

Back in the main room, we find the familiar dark figure of Soruza Blackmines waiting for us in one of the chairs. He comments that we made quick work of the tournament, but Kilwin thinks it almost made quick work of us. Ashara asks Soruza what kind of punishment Dunan will receive. He says that whatever happens in his office when we’re there is our business and he won’t interfere, but if it gets out that he was cavorting with a demon, that will go to the courts. There’s a small chance he could get away with it, especially since the final decision is King Thoros’s. He could always give Dunan a royal pardon for his service. That just makes Ashara want to kill him more! Soruza says we can stay here while things like our pardon are in motion. After a few days, we’ll be escorted to Dunan’s office, but in the meantime, we can hopefully enjoy ourselves here. Soruza recommends that we take the Plate of the Ancestors and leave the Exeter as soon as we can. He thinks taking it with us is the best way to keep it safe, since the king would just put it back in the vault for next year’s Bequeathing Ceremony. We talk about saying goodbye to Ragni and picking up Jorah’s crossbow from Fluxtwist’s Forge, and Soruza says he can’t force us to leave immediately, but he thinks it’s the best course of action. We’re not sure if the theft of the Plate will easily be tracked back to us, but Soruza assures us that if we can expose Dunan somehow, the Plate’s disappearance will be very far down everyone’s list of concerns. Soruza tells us that if he’s found guilty, Dunan will probably return to Magmaslag Rock as a prisoner, where none of the rest of the population is particularly fond of him. The Deep Watchers would attempt to install one of their own as the new warden and make sure that things weren’t easy for him. Kilwin asks if the new warden would improve conditions for the rest of the prisoners, since even if they’ve done awful things, he doesn’t think they deserve this. Soruza says that’s their choice!

Soruza turns his attention to Torble, asking if he’s planning on leaving the Deep Watchers. Torble admits that he is and has his own path to follow, although he’s grateful for what the Deep Watchers have done for him. Soruza asks if he’s going back to the smugglers. Torble thinks it’s been too long and wants to avoid groups for a while anyway. Reides says Torble is a Champion now! Torble blushes. Kilwin invites Torble to leave the Exeter with the rest of the party, since we go lots of places and meet lots of different people, which might help Torble figure things out! Also we like him and would love to have him along! He admits it’s dangerous but is pretty sure Torble would be fine. Torble thinks he needs to figure himself out before committing to anything like that though. He does promise to stay with us until it’s time for us to leave, though. He also admits he’ll miss his comfy bed in Magmaslag Rock. We’ll also miss him, though! Reides tells him that once a Demon, always a Demon. Ashara tells Torble it’s been an honor fighting beside him and she’ll always remember him. The rest of us are pretty sure it’s not time for goodbyes just yet! Ashara doesn’t think she’ll have a chance to fight at Torble’s side again though. Torble nervously eats a cracker from his beard. Kilwin asks just how gullible King Thoros is, if he’d be likely to be swayed by convincing evidence of Dunan’s crimes. Soruza doubts it and says that if the king would take evidence into account, the Deep Watchers would’ve forged something to get Dunan ousted a long time ago. Ashara wonders if she could use Dimension Door and Mask of Many Faces to break into the royal armory and steal the Plate of the Ancestors before Dunan can get it. Soruza tells her that royal armories are some of the most heavily guarded locations in Alethustria, so her plan is probably unfeasible. However, he enjoys her enthusiasm and offers to hire her for a heist sometime. The court proceedings are closed, so we can’t rely on the judgment of the masses to come through. Soruza seems to be in favor of us taking justice into our own hands, since he thinks the king is pretty dumb and doesn’t like him or trust him enough to make a good decision here. Ashara agrees with Soruza’s assessment, saying she only cares for one royal, eyeing Reides. Reides pretends this comment has nothing to do with him! Torble is very confused! We wonder if we should try to turn over Dunan to the general population of Magmaslag Rock, who would all love to kill him. It would at least place us farther down on a hypothetical revenant Dunan’s kill list and also has an element of poetic justice to it! Kilwin explains the whole revenant thing to Soruza, which Soruza thinks is another reason we should just leave the Exeter as soon as we can.

Kilwin asks what happened to Orrin. Soruza says he was arrested for circumventing the lockdown. Right now, he’s in a much nicer prison than Magmaslag Rock. Ultimately, he might need to pay some hefty fines, but he should be okay. Kilwin and Reides feel pretty bad for getting him into this mess, but Soruza says they shouldn’t- he’s a noble with his own ways out and kind of deserves his fate. Orrin’s situation wasn’t part of our agreement with Soruza, though, which we accept. Ashara asks if there’s some way for us to get out of the Exeter faster than we got there, but unfortunately there is not. We should be able to get our carriage back before leaving, though. Kilwin tells Soruza that it wasn’t Nice working for him, but that wasn’t his fault at all. Soruza admits that it’s easier to get people without other options to take jobs like this before taking his leave of us.

Kilwin is a little disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to open a prison clinic, but not so disappointed that he’s going to return to gen pop by himself to try to do that. The guards might not even let him cast spells. He can try to help the rest of the party if they’ve got anything bothering them, though! Ashara admits her prosthetic is chafing a bit, and Kilwin tries to heal that up a little bit. She asks if he can regrow her arm while he’s at it. He admits he can’t, but is pretty sure restoring lost limbs is a thing some clerics can do. If he ever becomes that powerful, though, he offers to come back to that topic. The choice is ultimately Ashara’s! Reides decides he wants to learn some card games, and Jorah offers to teach him. Jorah also goes to visit Kievan’s grave every so often. Kilwin offers to go with him the first time for safety, but Jorah feels pretty safe going by himself. Reides gives Ashara her robe back and she decides to fix it again. Kilwin offers to spare her the sewing by casting Mending if she’d like, and she agrees. Ashara offers to spend some of the time teaching Kilwin Celestial, but he decides he’d rather wait for Slumberjack and learn it from them. Instead, Ashara spends time practicing with her dagger, which Jorah assists with. She also spends some time reading Revenants: A Dark Oath. Reides spends a lot of time pacing restlessly, really not liking the confinement or waiting.

One night, when the party is up late playing cards and everyone has had a number of drinks, Kilwin admits he’s had something on his mind for a while, but it’s a little silly so it hasn’t felt like a good time to bring it up before. We’re stuck here now though! He doesn’t really know what to do and is pretty sure that everyone here (especially Reides) has more experience with this kind of thing than he does. He admits that he has “caught feelings” for someone he’s met on the road and has no idea what to do about it. He’s not sure how it would work now, since he’s on the move so much, and the guy doesn’t live in Cowersby, so Kilwin’s not sure how to work it out even after things have settled down. Jorah is worried that it’s him because he doesn’t feel that  way about Kilwin. Kilwin assures him that his feelings about Jorah are purely platonic. Jorah, quite drunk, starts trying to let Reides down easy. The lads eventually all convince each other that none of them have romantic feelings for each other. Reides asks if it’s someone he’s met and Kilwin says it is, realizing he kind of has to say who it is now. He asks his friends to only make fun of him a little bit. He admits it’s Grinlief! Jorah needs a moment to process this. Reides immediately starts teasing Kilwin about how much he wanted to go back to Vila’s Watch for drinks with Grinlief and writing love notes to him. Kilwin tries to say it wasn’t Really a love letter! Jorah teases Kilwin about how he’s growing up. Kilwin says it’s not the first time he’s had romantic feelings for someone! However, his social skills were somehow even worse as a teenager and he basically never talked to the guy. Reides not sure if that’s for the best or really sad, but Kilwin thinks it is what it is now. As for his current feelings, he admits that Grinlief is a character and has his flaws, but Kilwin thinks he’s cute and actually very sweet and admires his confidence! Reides tells Torble all about the time Grinlief assumed that he was a drowned man because he was blue, which he’s still quite upset about. Kilwin also suspects there’s at least a little more to Grinlief based on what he said about the memory plague, although even if there’s not, he’s still cute. Ashara is listening, but fiddling with a loose string on her robes, which are already starting to come apart again. Torble has no idea what we’re talking about. Jorah’s mood is understandably soured by the reference to the memory plague. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but Kilwin is pretty sure he’s pieced together most of the story. Jorah is curious what Kilwin actually knows. Kilwin just remembers the conversation he and Reides had with Jorah on their first trip to Falas’s library where he mentioned having some experience with the memory plague and Jorah telling him about being from Hommlin when he got drunk after the confrontation with the Burning Knight. Knowing about the outbreak in Hommlin some time ago and also that Jorah spent at least some of his life in an orphanage in Atemcester, Kilwin just kind of connected the dots. Jorah admits that pretty much sums it up! He’s the man who doesn’t know if he’s an orphan or not! He left Hommlin before his parents actually died, although they were in the final stages, so they probably didn’t make it. He left trying to get help for the village and, considering how young he was, he made it a very good distance. Jorah also shares that his mother was a ranger like him. The rest of the party offers Jorah their condolences and asks if he’ll be okay when we pass through Hommlin after this. He’s pretty sure he’ll be fine- it’s been a very long time since he was last there and he’s basically a different person now. Kilwin offers him a hug, but Jorah declines. Kilwin says the offer stands if Jorah changes his mind, then admits that he might be drunker than he thought. Reides decides he’s not going to ask though and goes in for it. Jorah almost escapes his grasp, but Torble calls out Jorah’s movements and Reides gives Jorah a big ol hug. Jorah tells him to get off, and Reides eventually does after Jorah tells him that a particularly strong goblin could probably grab him in this state.

The party encourages Kilwin to use Sending to try to contact Grinlief. Jorah points out that life is short, especially in their situation! Reides thinks that’s very grim, but Kilwin admits that it’s a factor in him deciding to try acting on his feelings. He spends a bit of time counting out words and casts Sending to tell Grinlief that he can contact him with magic and Grinlief can respond, but not super often. He asks if Grinlief would like that! Kilwin then realizes that it’s one in the morning and starts worrying that he messed up. The party reassures him he didn’t and it’s romantic! Soon, Kilwin gets a response. Grinlief gives him the go ahead and comments on the hour, but doesn’t seem too bothered about it. He mentions that he’s been made mayor of Vila’s Watch and asks if they’re still on for drinks. Kilwin is VERY excited that Grinlief has positive memories of him, although he admits it hasn’t been that long so he probably shouldn’t be surprised. He also tells everyone that he’s the new mayor apparently. Jorah and Reides congratulate Kilwin on taking that first step, although Jorah says Kilwin would be a catch for Grinlief and Reides thinks Kilwin is a bit out of Grinlief’s league. Kilwin doesn’t agree, but nevertheless! Reides says Grinlief better like Kilwin back and if he doesn’t, Reides will break his ankle. Kilwin says not to be mean to Grinlief! Jorah wonders why the ankle.

Jorah asks Ashara if she can use Dimension Door to get Kilwin to Vila’s Watch. Ashara says it can only teleport someone up to 400 meters and asks if that’s long or short. Kilwin says it can be long, but in the context, it is sadly short. Jorah and Reides make some dick jokes, which Kilwin doesn’t get. Kilwin starts counting out the words for another Sending message to answer Grinlief’s question, but gets distracted when Ashara asks what Grinlief looks like. He gives her a vague description, with help from Jorah and Reides, and she uses Mask of Many Faces to turn into a vague (shorter) approximation of him. The party decides they believe Grinlief about his monocle being enchanted with darkvision now. Reides uses the Hat of Disguise to show her a Reides-sized version of what he actually looks like, and Ashara adjusts. Torble, who’s still not really following, casts Disguise Self and becomes a gnome-sized Grinlief. Kilwin is a bit overwhelmed! Ashara offers to pretend to be Grinlief so Kilwin can get some practice talking to him, since he mentioned being awkward, so he can get used to it. Kilwin appreciates it! She decides to start him off with the best-case scenario. Ashara-Grinlief says it’s good to see Kilwin again. Kilwin asks him how he’s been and if anything interesting has been going on since they last saw each other. He quickly apologizes for asking Ashara questions she couldn’t possibly know the answers to. Ashara-Grinlief says he’s been doing mayor things like signing stuff and detective things very poorly. He sees something interesting right in front of him! Kilwin looks behind him. The rest of the party groans. Ashara-Grinlief asks why Kilwin was so interested in getting drinks with him. Kilwin just says that he’d like to get to know him better and that he thinks they got along well the first time they met! Ashara asks Reides if this is true. Reides gestures back that yeah, sort of! Ashara then presents the worst-case scenario. Ashara-Grinlief asks Kilwin if he’s still friends with that weird blue person. Kilwin says he is and also his name is Reides and Grinlief should be nicer to him! Ashara-Grinlief asks if he has any other friends, and Kilwin names them! Jorah realizes that the real Grinlief probably will remember that he got arrested in Vila’s Watch and that might actually come up, finally admitting that he did break into the village. Ashara-Grinlief asks about Kilwin’s time in jail, and Kilwin fumbles but says he was actually falsely accused. Ashara-Grinlief tells Kilwin that he has a sense for danger… but he likes that. Kilwin is flustered and thanks him. He asks how that was and admits it probably needs some work. Ashara assures him it was a good start! Reides thinks it was a big improvement over the Malino’re table incident, which Kilwin will never live down. Ashara reverts back to her regular self and lies down for a nap.

Kilwin finally figures out his Sending message, congratulating Grinlief on becoming mayor and assuring him they’re still on for drinks. He also tells him it might be hard for him to reply sometimes. Reides asks Torble if he has anyone on the outside, but Torble says that’s not really his thing. Grinlief responds, excited about drinks and crediting his incredible deductive skills for making him such a good candidate. Kilwin updates the party that Grinlief still thinks he is a very good detective. Kilwin admits he’s not, but thinks he’d be a good mystery novelist, since he’s very creative! He also mentions that he worries about Grinlief because he’s under the impression that he doesn’t have a lot of friends, although now that he’s mayor, maybe he has more! Kilwin hopes so! Reides asks Ashara how things are going with Kain. She makes a face, surprising the rest of the party. She told him we’re alive, but doesn’t think there’s much else to say. She goes on to say that elves live so much longer than humans and she’s already lost so much that she’s not sure it’s worth getting involved with someone who only has 50 years left to live. She confides in us that she was almost married once, since people used to get married much younger than they do now. Reides asks if it was an arranged marriage or if she had feelings for them. Ashara says it was a bit of both. Her name was Tinariel Hzlan and she died in the fall of the Vrinian Empire. Ashara is pretty sure she’s the only one who speaks her name anymore. Reides starts a toast to Tinariel, though. Ashara says she would have liked Reides. She thinks that things have somehow worked out, though, and there’s bright spots in a dark world. Ashara tells Kilwin she wants to give her Sending bead project to Kilwin so he can give one to Grinlief. She thinks he’ll use it more. Ashara does advise him to not start by bringing up Grinlief’s flaws, which Kilwin agrees with. Kain sends a message back to Ashara, wishing her dreams of a bright tomorrow.

While Ashara starts sending messages to Kain, deciding to confront him about the nature of their relationship, Jorah and Torble doze off. Kilwin asks Reides if he has anyone he’s interested in, just out of curiosity. Reides pauses a suspiciously long time before saying there’s not, crossing his arms and avoiding eye contact. Kilwin says it’s fine if he doesn’t want to talk about it and apologizes for prying! Reides insists there’s nothing to pry about, so Kilwin is fine!! He’s just confused! He also doesn’t know the guy’s name, so it will never work! Kilwin’s not so sure that Reides won’t learn this guy’s name in the future. Reides admits it’s the guy who fished him up, his surfacer friend he contacted after the attack on Port Valor. He keeps insisting it’s nothing, that he’ll probably never meet him again, and that it’s actually a completely normal thing to meet someone who’s kind and funny and handsome and then not learn their name and never see them again. Kilwin apologizes for upsetting Reides, but Reides isn’t upset at all!! Kilwin is also a bit more optimistic about Reides’s chances of meeting this guy again. He also offers to help Reides however he can with this. He would have anyway, but after tonight, he kind of feels like he owes the party one romance help-wise! Kilwin asks if Reides needs a hug. Reides says he does not, because it’s fine!!! But he’ll take one anyway. He admits that might try to use Sending again at some point to talk to him, especially since his friend was in Atemcester when we were in Port Valor, but he doesn’t expect him to still be there and doesn’t expect anything to come of it.

By this point, Ashara has made Kain realize that she had actually invited him on a romantic date and told him to look into extending his lifespan. Kain has apologized for being dense about her feelings and offers to go on an intentional date when she’s next in Falas. He’s not making any promises about the lifespan thing yet, though. Ashara, however, is upset that he didn’t say he loved her too. She loudly wonders why humans are so prudish. Kilwin meekly apologizes and Jorah wakes up, somewhat belligerent about the comment. Ashara says she knew in less than a season that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Tinariel and this was only stopped by what happened with the warforged. Her parents’ engagement lasted only twenty days. She doesn’t get why Kain is dragging his feet so much when she could die out here! Kilwin thinks he would prefer to take things slowly with Grinlief though. Reides offers to kill Kain if he breaks Ashara’s heart, and Ashara seems into it for a bit. Reides wants that spellbook! Jorah would prefer to not kill any important people we don’t have to though, since we’d certainly end up with a bounty on us and he has some old bounty hunter co-workers he’d like to say hi to again. Reides points out that Ashara is also worried about dying too soon and dying too late at the same time. Kain tells Ashara through Sending that he loves her too. In the end, Ashara retracts her offer of giving Kilwin the beads, but offers to buy him his own set instead. Kilwin asks if she’s sure, but she doesn’t really need the money for anything else!

The day of the Bequeathing Ceremony arrives. In the late morning, one of the guards who escorted us in the arena arrives to take us to Dunan’s office. He asks if we have any business here. Kilwin asks if we’re allowed to take the alcohol, and the guard says it’s fine. Jorah has already refilled his waterskin with more firewhiskey and there’s sadly no more deepcoral wine for Reides. Kilwin didn’t actually want to take any with him, he was just asking for the others! The guard tells us that we’ll have Dunan’s office to ourselves for about an hour. Then the ceremony will finish and he should immediately go to his office with the Plate of the Ancestors. He also has no idea we’re free. The guard takes us up the elevators, through the kitchens, and back to Dunan’s office. He tells us to come get him when we’re done here and we’ll be escorted to a safehouse until our pardon is public. As before, there’s a desk in the middle of the office with a rug leading up to it. At the far end of the room, there’s a window with a view of the magma lake and two large metallic statues flanking it. We realize we have not seen a single golem in this place yet, and Korbo told us that Dunan has golems. Kilwin examines them and they do look somewhat similar in construction to the metal dragon in Kahzdurga, but something is off. Their joints almost seem melted. We brainstorm three possibilities: These are special fire golems that spew fire from their joints, they do work in the magma, or they’re just broken. We agree it’s best to stay away from them, just in case.

Kilwin starts casting Detect Magic again, and the rest of the party searches the room. Reides finds a journal in Dunan’s desk. Strangely, many of the pages are blank, especially toward the beginning of the journal. As the entries get closer to the present day, more of them are filled out, mostly talking about being excited about future plans. Even in the filled out entries, though, there’s blank lines where the text seems to just be missing. Jorah can’t find anything hooked up to the golems or any kind of switch that might activate them. He also finds a tiny hole under the main panel of the desk. Torble has thieves’ tools and manages to hit the switch inside. The top of the desk pops up, revealing a small sheathed blade and scorch marks inside. Jorah will be hiding That in his quiver! Reides also finds a bunch of file folders in the desk, which appear to be prisoner dossiers. Reides immediately starts looking for ours. He finds his own, which describes him as quiet and likely a wizard judging from his belongings. Dunan thought it important to keep the spellbook away from him, noting that the quiet ones are often the most dangerous. The section where Reides’s crime is listed is blank. Next, Reides finds Jorah’s. Dunan describes him as dangerous and versatile, with some prior knowledge of the region. While he knows Jorah was a bounty hunter, he couldn’t find any records of his recent work. Jorah admits he hasn’t exactly claimed many bounties since joining the party. Kilwin’s file names him as Kilwin of Cowersby and notes that he’s a cleric but they didn’t find a holy symbol on him when he was taken in. Dunan speculates that he might have stowed it somewhere before being taken in and that he’ll need to be watched carefully. Ashara is described as too aggressive. Dunan thought she needed to be broken and was considering giving her time in the hole. He also notes that her arm is unusual and should be examined when she’s indisposed. All of our crimes are unlisted like Reides’s. Torble’s file is completely blank. Reides is impressed! He wiggles the file at Torble, and Torble wiggles back. Kilwin manages to multitask just enough to ask Reides to look at Kievan’s file. He’s described as a paladin of the Nameless God and dangerous, especially now. Dunan wanted him confined to solitary until he broke. We hate that!

Kilwin finishes his ritual and discovers that there’s some kind of illusion magic affecting both the journal and the files. Kilwin casts Dispel Magic on the journal, revealing text in all the blank spaces. Eventually, most of the pages are absolutely filled with text. The hidden entries describe Dunan’s plans for further abusing prisoners and detail him being in contact with a demon. The demon is unnamed, but the description of his armor matches the Burning Knight’s. Reides flips through and finds no mentions of Aquos in the journal. Reides wants to take it with us so it can be studied in more detail, but Kilwin thinks it might be best to leave it behind as evidence of Dunan’s crimes. There’s the risk that Dunan will destroy the journal, though, if he survives our encounter. We decide to play it by ear! Kilwin offers to dispel the magic on the files too, but only if he still has the energy for it after our confrontation with Dunan. We decide that we definitely need to leave our files here though, so it’s not obvious that we were the ones here. Kilwin also detects some magic coming from the center of the statues, but there seems to be some kind of blockage preventing that magic from flowing to the limbs. We place everything back how we found it (except the blade) and try to find a good corner to crouch in for an ambush. Kilwin asks Torble to help us not pick the Shiving Corner again, but Torble does us all one better and casts Rope Trick. We all climb the rope and cram into the pocket dimension before Torble pulls the rope up. We’re able to see the room below us through some kind of window. We all bide our time, waiting for Dunan’s return. Kilwin prays to Alethus for guidance in how she’d like him to approach this situation.

When our hour is over, Dunan comes into his office alone, carrying a large crate. He’s wearing high-class robes instead of his usual armor. He does an evil laugh alone in his room, because he’s literally the worst. He places a wand from his pocket on the desk and opens the crate, revealing a set of golden plate armor. Dunan gloats to himself about how his plan is complete and Master will be very happy. Reides casts Featherfall so we can all have a graceful landing. Kilwin says hi! Dunan is shocked to see all of us, saying that we should be in solitary after the riot. Kilwin is surprised that there was a riot! Dunan mentions the grease in the courtyard, saying that fifty prisoners were involved in the fight. We realize he means the fight with like five dudes who ran away from us. Dunan realizes he’s been given bad information. He tells us we’ll be in solitary for real soon. Kilwin tells him that he has some things we want. Dunan says the Plate actually belongs to his master, not him. He pops open the desk’s secret compartment, only to find he is daggerless. He starts fumbling with the wand on the desk when Ashara blasts him, knocking him back into his chair and incapacitating him. Jorah decides to give him a clean death, slashing him twice with Quickbrand and firing a crossbow bolt right between his eyes. Dunan’s eyes focus at the last moment, giving Jorah one last look before he dies.

Ashara pulls out the crossbow bolt and hands it back to Jorah. With that over, Kilwin dispels the illusion magic on the files. The lines where crimes were unlisted are restored, and many of them simply say “Framed,” including all of ours. Torble’s file is still completely blank, though. Reides starts putting the files out on display on the desk for someone to find. Jorah decides it’s not really a good time to give Dunan a proper burial, so we’ll leave that to someone else. Reides gives Dunan’s body a slap, saying that’s for Kievan. We take a second look at Kievan’s file and see that he was also framed for his crime. We hate it!! Kilwin examines Dunan’s body, and his touch doesn’t make scorch marks, which he takes as a good sign. Jorah apologizes, saying that he agreed with Kilwin about possibly not killing Dunan until he read that journal and some of the things in the files. After that, he just couldn’t. Kilwin understands though and isn’t upset about how it happened. He just wants to try to figure out what we’re dealing with now and is currently optimistic about it. We take the Plate of the Ancestors, splitting it up between Kilwin and Jorah’s packs just to make sure it can all stay hidden until we have the bag of holding again. Kilwin asks Reides if he could cast Identify on it later, because he has an idea of what to do with it. We put the journal back in the desk and try to clean up the crime scene (and ourselves) as best we can, preparing to leave.