Session 5: The one where Elias and Rormir try to steal the governor’s ring off his hand (November 16, 2022)
Last session, the party returned to Potion Pitstop to be met by a contingent of the city guard led by Constable Haxa. She called them heroes and handed them bags with 10pp in each. She inquired after the rings and masks, and thought the party was still hiding something.
Nonetheless, she led them to the Literi family manor to be personally congratulated by Governor Literi himself. Elias followed the group at a distance, having ditched Frank, the guard who was supposed to be accompanying him.
Heph and Rormir were ushered into the Literi family manor, where they both signed NDAs forbidding them from speaking of the burglary, rings, or masks to anyone else. They were then led to the back servants’ entrance, with Elias joining them. Upon entering the long hallway of the servants’ quarters, Rormir escaped the hold of the guards and ran deeper in, encountering various filthy rooms and two servants drinking and talking at a table in one.
- We enter initiative
- We’re not strictly in combat, but we’re at a point of tension where timing and order matters
- Constable Haxa tells the party that she knows they were
hiding something about the items from the burglary, and she just wants to
recover them, not hurt the party
- The guards only brought the party here so that they could be contained while they were questioned and searched
- Rormir runs into the room with two servants talking after one of
them motions for him to enter
- Rormir closes the door behind him
- That servant, Gareth Brucks, says he noticed the guards are trying to get something from the party, and says that he’s noticed something weird has been going on recently
- Rormir decides the balance has been upset due to people being oppressed, and he must restore it
- Elias tries to convince Haxa that it was his
brother “Elias” at Potion Pitstop, not him, who is
presumably a different person from Elias
- She doesn’t buy it
- Gareth says Rormir should just do what the guards say, since it seems like they don’t want to hurt him
- Heph asks Haxa to search him, and after finding nothing illicit (she raises her eyebrows at his Thieves’ Tools) she tells the guard that’s holding him to put him down
- Rormir decides to attack a guard which entered the room to
restore balance
- He asks the guard to reveal the secrets that are being hidden from the party
- The guard says he has no idea what Rormir is talking about
- Rormir shoots him for 9 damage
- The guard is badly-hurt, confused, and swearing, saying he was just ordered to search him
- The guard yells out to Fantasy Jesus (of Fantasy Christianity)
- Rormir does an insight check to learn the guard in fact doesn’t know anything about information being hidden from the party, and is just doing his job to search him to help recover the burglary items
- Another guard runs into the room, and Gareth says “oh thank goodness you’re here to stop this man!” while slowly backing into the corner
- Elias and Heph are just chatting
- Heph casts Message to Rormir telling him to stop
attacking and let the guards search him
- Rormir says it’s a bit too late for that
- Haxa runs into the room and tells Rormir to
stand down
- At this point the two other guards are pinning Rormir in the corner, having missed one of them on a 15 attack roll
- Heph Messages Rormir again, trying to convince him to stand down and let them search him
- Rormir tries to find a better place on his person to hide the
ring, but can’t find one
- He does put his weapons away, though
- One of the guards asks if they can search Rormir, and he says yes
- They find the ring, but not the mask
- Rormir is upset, since they said they’d search him, not take
anything
- He tries to stab the guard with his dagger, but misses again on a 15
- The two guards and Haxa then quickly knock
Rormir unconscious
- Haxa starts yelling for a healer
- A guard searches Rormir again, but doesn’t find the ring on a nat 1
- Heph enters the room, but unfortunately doesn’t have a healing spell available anymore
- Elias also enters the room
- Haxa stabilizes Rormir
- They hear footsteps and the sound of fabric being laid out coming down the hallway
- Heph pretends to check on Rormir and barely manages to take the ring from his pocket
- A man shows up in business-like attire, a dark leather tunic with dark silk
pants
- He is being preceded by a number of servants rushing to lay fabric on the ground in front of him before he steps
- Heph recognizes this as Governor Literi, although he’s never seen the fabric thing before
- The guards, Haxa included, stand to attention
- He seems friendly and gregarious despite the clear tension of the situation
- He wants to congratulate the party for their heroic deeds
- He goes to shake Elias’s hand
- During the handshake, Elias tries to steal a plain gold wedding band from his finger
- He gets a nat 1, and ends up bumping the ring against his knuckle a few times while everyone watches awkwardly
- Literi tries to maintain his composure by bringing up his wife of many years, then quickly withdraws his hand and moves on to Heph, who does not try to steal a ring
- Literi looks at Rormir, then snaps his
fingers and a servant quickly runs in and pours a healing potion into
Rormir’s mouth
- Rormir comes to with 5hp, confused and disoriented
- He does try to steal a thin band with a small red gem off the governor’s other hand, though, getting it partly off before Literi says “Oops, sometimes this gets caught on things” and pulls his hand away, readjusting the ring
- Literi then smiles at the party, congratulates them
again, and shows them out
- Fabric is being laid in front of him as he walks again, but that stops once he’s outside
- The party heads back to Potion Pitstop
- Heph’s parents have prepared a large traditional gnomish meal for everyone
- This includes salad, rabbit stew, and a large carrot with a recess cut out where a dead rabbit is placed
- Heph pulls Rormir aside and tells him that if he’s going to stick around, he needs to be less violent and aggressive
- Meanwhile Elias is being shown all of Heph’s baby
portraits by Amble and Spraus, and he’s very cute
- Heph returns to the table and is surprisingly not embarrassed by this
- The party finishes eating and reads through the
letters Rormir was given
- They were clearly transcribed by someone who wasn’t literate, more copying the shape of the letters than the words themselves
- The party settles in for a long rest