Session 6: The one where Elias meets Ana Cardi (November 30, 2022)
Last session, the party managed to escape capture by the Ivalgo city guards. Rormir, in an effort to restore balance, fought the guards over what seemed to be an important secret being kept from him. While he could not get more information directly from guards who weren’t aware of the secret themselves, he did acquire some inexpertly-copied letters from Gareth Brucks, a servant. He also managed to avoid his ring being taken, although the mask he was holding did get confiscated. Also notably, Elias managed to get through this process without signing the NDA.
The party regrouped at Potion Pitstop, where Amble and Spraus had a nice dinner prepared. They then settled in for a well-deserved and much-needed rest. When the next day comes, they will need to consider their stolen correspondence and mysterious ring from Arkos to decide what to do next.
- Elias sleeps on the roof
- Rormir sleeps in the kitchen
- Heph stays up most of the night working in his room
- He still gets a long rest, though
- Everyone wakes up
- Elias tries to climb back in from the roof but falls onto the lawn
- He walks back around to the front door and Amble lets him in
- Elias and Rormir notice that Heph’s armor looks a bit shinier and his crossbow seems to be missing the string
- They all sit down to look at the letters Rormir got last session
- Heph tries to figure out who the senders might be
- He knows many people with “A.” names, and knows an “L.D.” from the Alchemist Guild (Larry Dormer), but doubts those are the people who sent the letters
- The party suspects that the “shop” in the letters refers to Potion
Pitstop
- They also think “A.” might be the trashcan with legs they encountered earlier
- The party asks Amble and Spraus why they think they
were robbed
- They think it was just a run-of-the-mill robbery
- Rormir asks if they have any enemies, and they say they do have a
rivalry with Margaret from the Alchemist Guild to see
who can make the most money from bake sales
- Heph remembers this person as a nice old lady
- Heph asks if they did an inventory after the burglary, and they say
they accounted for all items in the burglars’ bags and that were smashed
- They lost some headache potions and stuff of similar value
- They can’t account for a missing health potion however (this is the one that Elias stole)
- Heph tries putting on the hawk ring, but nothing seems to happen
- He inspects in and finds runes carved on the inside
- The runes are expertly carved with fine, delicate lines that are difficult to notice at first glance
- He learns from an arcana check that this is the kind of magical item that requires attunement to use
- He puts it on his thumb and decides to keep playing around with it throughout the day
- After breakfast, the party heads out to track down the trashcan with legs
- They track it to the alley where they lost it initially, where the tracks seem
to just disappear
- Rormir finds the same tracks continuing in a neighboring alley, but without the trash strewn along the path
- Elias climbs onto a building and then tries to follow the party on
the rooftops
- He makes one jump to a lower roof but on the next attempt falls into a dumpster
- Rormir asks if there’s any food in there, and on a nat 1 investigation Elias finds a sandwich that seems to have some “pesto” on top of the bread, and a fuzzy fruit he’s not familiar with
- He gives the food to Rormir, who saves it for later
- Heph decides not to say anything
- They follow the trail to the base of a fire escape in the warehouse district
- They follow the fire escape up to the roof
- Elias peeks over the edge
- He doesn’t see any people, but does see a trapdoor that leads back into the building and a rectangular structure with a glass roof and a door
- The roof is covered in bird shit, and small holes high in the walls of the structure seem to have a greater concentration of it
- Without hesitation Elias tries to open the door of the structure
- Heph follows from a distance and readies his weapons
- Rormir tries to see Potion Pitstop, but can’t since they’re on a lower tier of the city
- The door to the structure is locked
- The structure consists of a single large room
- Nests sit on shelves along the walls with pigeons roosting in them
- There’s a desk in the corner with some paper on it
- There’s also a human-sized cot against the wall
- Elias also notices, pressed against the wall opposite the cot, a person wearing a full white-sandstone-colored bodysuit trying to blend in
- Rormir and Heph enter next, Rormir
closing the door behind him
- Rormir notices the person against the wall, but Heph is completely oblivious
- Elias starts saying that “If there’s anyone in here, they should just surrender now”
- Rormir inspects the nests for eggs, but only finds shells, no
full eggs
- He also notices the nests are made of scraps of paper in addition to the usual sticks
- The person in the body suit starts inching towards the door
- They’re still a wall and a half away, though
- Heph rolls perception again and still doesn’t notice them
- Elias looks to see if the nests are labeled
- They aren’t, except for a large one high up on the wall which has a beautiful ribbon hanging beneath it reading “Salty”
- Heph looks at the papers on the desk
- There is one on top which has the beginning of a message: “Acknowledged, I’ll keep an eye on them”
- There are no other papers with visible writing or indentations of writing on them
- There is a trash bin with the ashes of burned paper in it, though
- Elias says he knows a way to get more information
- He turns and throws a dagger at the wall, landing an inch from the hiding person’s head
- Rormir also throws a javelin, which sticks between their legs
- The figure yelps and Elias says “Howdy friend!”
- They reply “How did you know it was me?”
- They pull the hood off their body suit
- She introduces herself as Ana and asks what the party wants
- Elias asks “Have you been in a trashcan recently? I certainly
have!”
- She nudges a candy wrapper away with her foot and says “Nope!”
- She does later admit to having invented the trashcan disguise (not the
trashcan itself)
- The party isn’t particularly impressed by the disguise and she says she takes notes
- Ana suggests they play a game
- They’ll all take turns asking questions of the other
- The party learns through this game that she was hired by the
Ivalgo government to observe the burglars
- Specifically Terrance Martinelli signs her checks
- She also isn’t a big fan of what the party are calling “zombies”, but she’s got to make a living!
- And, as indicated by the letter on her desk, she’s going to keep an eye on the party going forward
- Rormir gets to ask two questions in a row when he makes a bat come out of his Hat of Vermin and it lands on Ana’s finger
- Ana’s questions don’t seem to be especially focused on the
mystery the party is unraveling and more on points of curiosity
- Like she generally wants to know what Rormir’s deal is
- She does ask what Heph’s relation to the owners of Potion Pitstop is, though
- Once the party starts asking questions that get too specific, she says “Well,
that was fun! See ya!” and teleports away
- Rormir and Heph see her through the door running back to the fire escape, and pursue
- She then teleports into the building, but Rormir sees her
inside through a window and the party follows
- Rormir jumps through the window of course
- She disappears one more time and the party fails to track her this time
- Rormir and Elias notices a ring on her right hand
before she vanishes
- It’s a thin ring with two interwoven gold bands ending in a small white gem on top
- She flicks it slightly with her thumb before disappearing
- Elias describes the ring to Heph, who recognizes that
her teleportation looked a bit like when Elias did Misty Step
earlier
- He reasons that the ring must allow her to cast Misty Step
- He also recognizes that magical items like that typically have a limited number of charges that can be used per day, and that they saw her use three of the charges
- Heph sits down on his Seat Belt and looks closer at
the ring he’s wearing
- It suddenly occurs to him what it is
- He had one of those D.K. books as a kid which was about spies
- There was a ring in there which didn’t have the hawk but which had similar runes
- It’s a Band of Loyalty, which spies used so that they’d die immediately upon being knocked unconscious
- Heph quickly removes the ring from his finger
- After talking a bit more, they all head back to Potion Pitstop
- Elias still smells bad from the dumpster, so he goes out back of
the house
- He first drinks a potion which makes his pores excrete soapy water
- He then drinks another one which makes them excrete warm, clear water
- Finally he drinks one which blasts warm air out of his pores to dry him off
- Amble and Spraus are making lunch
- Rormir pulls out his sandwich from earlier and takes a bite
- He gets a nat 1 on his con save and takes 8 poison damage from
2d4
- They party debates next steps, considering:
- Breaking into the Literi family manor
- Kidnapping the guy who made them sign the NDAs as he comes home from work
- Asking border guards about the burglars
- Heading to Arkos to find out more about the Band of Loyalty
- Heph remembers Arkos is a haven for very shitty powerful people like defense contractors, sweatshop owners, and slumlords
- The party decides to head to Arkos
- Amble grabs this month’s port schedule and says that the next boat to head to Arkos leaves this evening
- Elias looks at the schedule and sees the ship’s name, the Bright
Horizon
- This is the boat he entered Ivalgo on
- Elias says “Well, shit”