The Thirty-Third Session

October 17, 2020, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

Last session

We'll go to Quadroads Zelrathi and Moon.

The morning after the spiders

Eta'el has handed over the mask, and begins skipping away. Then he turns around and says, "Oh! I forgot. Beware whatever poison rolls out over her forked tongue. And her pets."

The town of Leen is in an uproar and clamor. People are packing up their houses, closing them up, preparing to evacuate the town. The town's folk are split between:

• Stubbornness: "I was born here and grew up here and aged here, and here is where I'll stay!"
• Go to the tiny town of Malcolm's Wharf: safe travel, not defensible
• Go to defensible Quadroads: safe once there, but dangerous travel
• Go to south to Quarary: safe travel, less defensible

Salris takes the form of Leon, hiding his horned self, and then we all go to the town to sell our services as escorts on the four-day trip to Quadroads. Zelrathi sells us and doesn't get far; Salris does much better.

Zelrathi pulls Salris/Leon aside to tell him that we won't accept sexual favours for payment if the people are out of money; as they discuss the propriety of this they overhear a clothier arguing with a suit of clothing, and watch it change form several times.

The families of the town, 25 of them, pool their resources, and offer to pay us a diamond and 350 gold. Zelrathi and Salris/Leon investigate the diamond and determine that it's a cut diamond, bringing total compensation to ~400 gold. We discuss the price and agree that it's acceptable; they're basically paying us not to leave them behind, since we're going the same direction.

Among the 20 carts and the 25 families, the local guard are coming with, but they're not really part of the defensive preparations.

A small child riding on the cart asks its parent why the cat-lady is tied up. The parent hushes the kid and pulls them into the front seat, away from the bed.

On the road to Quadroads

Day One

As we come out out of the town and clear the trees, we see once again the bigass mountain to the north-north-east, which marks Quadroads.

The people on the cart with Moon are still on edge, but are ignoring her. Everyone else is cool despite the loss of their town.

The day passes uneventfully.

At the end of the day, we circle the carts and Bugfood casts Hearth of Moonlight And Shadow. The guards share watches with the Party, and the night passes uneventfully.

Day Two

Bugfood finds an acorn and casts Nystal's Magic Aura to make it seem as if it's magical.

Zelrathi casts Druidcraft to receive a forecast of slightly overcast with a chance of storms.

This is the last day of travel with forest on one side and grassland on the other. But it passes uneventfully.

During Moon's daily feeding, she stops accepting food. "Not hungry anymore?" asks Ryltar, who has the spoon. Zelrathi prepares Hold Person.

Moon says, "This is not necessary. I'm not going to run, I'm not going to do anything else."

"Exactly. That's what someone who is going to run would say," says Zelrathi.

"For what it's worth, I believe you," says Ryltar.

Bugfood drops the white side of Eta'el's mask and rolls perception, giving him a 24 Perception. She does seem honest. They discuss the question of her, and Zelrathi and Bugfood go to fetch the rest of the party.

Bugfood continues his brainwashing patter speech, "You're doing fine, I believe in you," and so on.

The Party assembles. Jerry asks why Moon thinks we should trust her. "I have seen what I have done wrong," she says.

"But what did you do wrong?" Jerry asks her.

Moon turns to Zelrathi and says, "If I do wrong, kill me."

To Jerry, Moon says, in full honesty, "I was promised something under false pretenses." But that doesn't answer Jerry's question. Moon continues: She made the battle locusts, she aided the expedition, she betrayed the Party.

We know that Zelrathi's deal with his patron is similar to Moon's pact with Lolth, and Ryltar asks him whether his patron has ever driven him to do things. Zelrathi says that his patron has only ever directly controlled him once, early. Zelrathi thinks that a more-powerful god, like Lolth, might be able to exercise more control.

The Party is 4-2 for supervised release. Moon doesn't do anything.

Bugfood explains the terms of her release.

Day 3

Bugfood summons 8 horses for people to ride on, and takes the form of a Clydesdale to carry Moon.

As we travel along, Jerry becomes aware of a post of grass, which pops out of the ground and reveals itself as a spider, which spikes her for 44 damage and tries to drag her underground. She succeeds on her athletics save and jumps 5 feet away. A second trapdoor spider jumps up and tries to drag a horse into a pit, but fails because it's Large.

1. Round 1: Two trapdoor spiders attack, and a townsperson is dragged into a pit.
   1. Ryltar, next to Jerry, casts Mind Spike on the spider that attacked Jerry, dealing 11 psychic to it and preventing it from hiding.
   2. Zelrathi twins Haste on Salris and Vurguron. He hides between two horses.
   3. The fore spider attacks Ryltar, biting the shit out of him, but he passes the concentration check and is still aware where it is. It withdraws, and provokes an attack of opportunity from Jerry for 8 bludgeoning.
   4. The middle spider attacks a townsperson and drags it into its pit.
   5. The hasted Salris casts Armor of Agathys and prepares an attack on the middle trapdoor spider, standing outside its trapdoor.
   6. Vurguron tries to pry open that trapdoor with his crowbar, and succeeds in opening it. He sees the spider. It's 30 feet down a hole. He chucks a vial of acid down the hole. A pool of acid forms at the bottom of the tunnel. The townsperson is screaming and dying.
   7. Bugfood the horse, carrying Moon, moves forward 60 feet. He prepares a hoof attack.
   8. With the fore spider hiding in its hole, Jerry moves to the hole of the mid spider, pops hunter's Mark on it, then throws two darts at it, dealing 14 piercing.
2. Round 2: A spider kills a horse, and the spider that pulled a townsperson into its tunnel retreats. A third spider appears and is attacked.
   1. Ryltar shoots an ice spell at the middle spider in its hole.
   2. Zelrathi casts third-level Healing Word on Ryltar.
   3. The fore spider comes out of its hole a little.
   4. Zelrathi hits it with a prepared spell.
   5. The spider maims a horse, killing it.
   6. The down-hole spider burrows its caught townsperson into the hole a little, and retreats further down the hole.
   7. Salris moves over to the hole and casts Eldritch Blast on it, then moves to a third spider that has appeared from the treeline to cut it twice.
   8. Vurguron casts Eldritch Blade to attack the third spider, with attack and extra attack and Hasted extra attack he deals quite a bit of damage to it.
   9. Jerry leaves the downhole spider with itself, and attacks the third spider after moving Hunter's Mark to it.
   10. Bugfood does not much.
3. Round 3: Ryltar saves the kidnapped townsperson by teleporting. Two spiders die.
   1. Ryltar jumps down the spider hole, grabs the townsperson, and then teleports to Zelrathi to get the townsperson healed.
   2. Zelrathi uses a twinned spell to give Ryltar and the townsperson each 23 health.
   3. The third spider retreats.
   4. The first spider pops from its tunnel to attack Salris. It takes 40 damage from his spell atack.
   5. The second, downhole, trapdoor spider comes out of the hole in pursuit of Ryltar.
   6. Salris and Vurguron attack it.
   7. Bugfood passes his turn.
   8. Jerry moves over to the second spider and smashes it flat.
4. Round 4: The third and final spider is killed, and the Party heals up.
   1. Ryltar goes looking for more spider trapdoors.
   2. Zelrathi advances to do some healing, but can't get in range.
   3. Salris pries open the trapdoor of the third spider, gaining back some HP.
   4. Vurguron pries open the first spider's trapdoor to check if there's anything else down there. He sees nothing.
   5. Bugfood passes his turn.
   6. Zelrathi does some healing.

The townsperson we rescued is healed fully, and with some shuffling, the travel party breaks apart.

Vurguron and Jerry continue forward, scouting.

But it is the end of the day, and so we circle the wagons.

Only one horse lost!

We spend a night at the base of the mountain.

Bugfood spends his watch looking at the mountain, and sees a giant goat part of the way up.

The child looks on in horror as we chain and tie Moon up for the night.

The group becomes aware that there's one less Human in the group, and one more Tiefling.

Day Four: arriving at Quadroads

Druidcraft predicts breezes today.

Zelrathi says that if we don't return in two months' time, he'll learn a spell that will contact us to let us know where he'll be going and what his research will have found.

We travel along a rocky, bumpy road that starts smooth, eventually becoming cobbled. Salris uses the Mask of Many Faces to again become Leon.

Quadroads is an immense metropolis, with high walls and a tent city outside the walls. Immediately after exiting the forest, we encounter guards watching the forest from a spiked wooden fence, and the road leads us to doors in the wooden wall.

Our travel companions praise us and thank us; the person Zelrathi saved from death quite worships him.

Inside the stone walls, we are surrounded by people like those who we have met along the road. Three people call out asking if we want directions and tours:

• A tall, thin, dark-haired Human in a suit
• A small, attractive, blue Tiefling girl, quite forward
• A Halfing man on a box wearing a circus ringleader's outfit.

Zelrathi identifies the Human as a con artist, a known quantity within the town. He assumes the other two are the same. Zelrathi grew up in this town; he knows where to go.

Bugfood pulls out his acorn and casts Nystal's Magic Aura on it, and then goes to talk to the tall Human. The con artist pulls himself up, and gives us the spiel for nobles. But Bugfood cuts him off, saying he's humble and not the sort of person that the fine upstanding gentleman would normally transact with, but his family grew up in a town that had a tree that sprouts gold coins, except for one year when it gives off acorns, and you can take this to any magus. Bugfood doesn't really do a good job of selling it, so the Human says Bugfood should try to sell it to the Halfling.

Bugfood goes to the Halfling and starts to talk to him, before popping Invisibility and leaving the Halfling gawking. The Halfling is flabbergasted. Bugfood Wildshapes into an invisible cat. The Halfling, flustered, says something about wanting a drink for himself. Zelrathi sighs.

Salris does the same thing, going up to talk with the Halfling before turning invisible in his face. Salris hops around a corner and uses the Mask of Many Faces to take the shape of an elf.

Elf!Salris walks back around the corner to join the Party, asking Ryltar what this Halfling's deal is. "You look like you need a drink, my man," says Ryltar, and gives the man a silver.

Jerry has had enough to Pass Without Trace on the Party.

Salris casts Minor Illusion to make the silver coin look like a platinum.

The Halfling runs off into the city, screaming "I've got a platinum ticket!"

A minute later, the illusion wears off.

We go to find a bank. Zelrathi leads us to the Dwarf bank, and we exchange a total of 5000 gold for 500 platinum.

Then Zelrathi leads us to his favorite inn, which it turns out has been bought out and rebranded. As he walks in, a woman at the rear huffs and turns away from him. We spend some time milling around in the front, discussing if there's alternatives. Closer to the city centre is higher-class.

So we go three streets out and find a rowdy, packed tavern, the Coinflip Inn. But for a night they want 8 silver for shared beds.

We go looking for other places. The Regular Inn is a historical building that's middle-class, practically minimalist in the rich part of town. And we recognize someone when we walk in. It's the Halfling! He sees us and shouts, "You!"

The other place we had found was the Death's Door Inn. It was about the same, a little grungier. When we walked in, everyone stopped to stare at us.

The Halfling stops drinking to stare at us. He's working on his fourth beer. Salris whispers his deception to Ryltar, worried that the Halfling will be mad with us.

We take rooms at 5 silver per night; Jerry takes Moon as a roommate.

We pay 4 silver for everyone's evening meal, and get many tankers of fermented bread juice. Ryltar leaves to find a decent bottle of wine. For 5 gold he gets a bottle of second-bottom-shelf "Wet Mosquito". The Halfling collapses at the bar.

We go up to bed and collapse into them, with Jerry shackling.

Loot

• 58 gold, 3 silver per person, with Bugfood's deposited at Ryltar's First Bank of Bugfood.

Next session

• Deposit Moon and Zelrathi at the temple of Ioun in Quadroads
• Five days' travel to another town, eight days to Sky Diamond, then three more days overland to the tree