Session 37 (January 25, 2024)
Last session, our heroes made a visit to Tap That Glass, a black smithery/glass blowing shop run by an old friend of Maho’s by the name of Barth. He said a representative of TK dropped by the shop earlier looking for someone. He asked if Maho was in trouble, and she said maybe, and that he could help her out by making her (and potentially her father) a new mask. A message came through on the TK Sending Stone, saying “You’ve been fairly busy. I’ve heard from my contacts what you’ve been up to. You should pay me a visit.”. Worried about the safety of her father, Maho and the others headed to her home, leaving Barth to begin work on the masks.
Upon arriving at her large, comfortable home, Maho immediately made her way to the front door. Attempting to exercise caution, Heph sent Karrl to scout, looking through his eyes to see a man sitting on a bed in an upstairs bedroom accompanied by an elf, and two other individuals sitting watchfully in the house. Maho used Giant’s Might to increase her size and swung through her bedroom window, smashing it and pinning the woman keeping guard behind it. Elias climbed in behind her, and Heph receded from Karrl’s eyes and slipped in through the front door. The individuals in the house seemed surprised but tough, and explained they were there to protect Maho’s father under orders from TK, and would only hurt her if they had to. The dwarf Gerde seemed especially protective of Lana, the woman Maho had tackled and was still holding. Maho released Lana, and went into the adjoining bedroom. Her father greeted her with a hug, explaining that representatives of TK said they were there to protect him and keep and eye out for Maho and for Central Command.
The party sent the elf guard out of the room, and decided to take Maho’s father Joerg (who Elias called Johann) to Tap That Glass for protection. After some convincing, the others in the house agreed to escort them there and keep watch over him. Karrl spotted a number of gray-cloaked individuals milling about keeping an eye on the front of the house, and so the party headed out the back, stealing their way back to Tuki. Unfortunately, they were led into a trap, as avoiding the cloaked individuals put them into an alley where they were alone. Two groups of people stepped out, flanking them on either end and cutting Elias off from the group.
- Robed individuals walk out from side alleys, whistling a tune
- Combat with the robed individuals begins
- Rod 1 takes a shot at Karrl but misses
- Elias ducks down an alley and hides
- Helir takes up a defensive position
- Maho notices the robed individuals are wearing swordfish pins on
their cloaks
- Dull, silver, and minimalist in design
- Heph shoots lightning at Rod 1
- Gerde stabs Rod 3
- Joerg asks Maho what is going on, and she says to get ready to run into the alley
- Rod 3 smacks Gerde with his mace, and steps forward to face up against Maho
- Blade 3 swings at Gerde, stabbing her with his dagger that has a glint of
green liquid on the end
- It sizzles in the wound, dealing poison damage
- Blade 2 runs up to Maho and swings at her, dealing a bit of damage with the same glint of green liquid
- Cloak, some sort of spellcaster, raises his hand and a glowing sickle appears in the air above Maho, swinging down at her, but misses
- Blade 1, who is glowing slightly, pulls out a light crossbow and shoots Heph, who takes some poison damage as well
- Lana, hearing what Maho suggested, moves closer to Gerde to provide and buffer, and hits Rod 3
- Maho swings at Rod 3, dealing damage, but also activating a rune that does additional force damage, but Rod 3 saves on a strength save and is not pushed around
- Maho swings again but misses, but uses action surge to hit Rod 3 again and absolutely decimate Rod 3
- Maho advances forward towards the alley, throwing a stone off the street at Blade 1, misses, swings at Blade 1 again, but is blocked
- Maho motions for Joerg to follow, and he runs a bit into the alley
- Rod 2 heads back towards Elias, but can’t quite catch up to him, but fires a crossbow bolt at Maho while he goes, hitting her
- Rod 1 moves in to attack Heph, and hits him once
- Elias sneaks up on Rod 2 and slices him up real good, then disengages and backs up a step
- Helir steps up to Blade 2 but misses
- Heph blasts Blade 1 and Rod 1 with thunderwave, pushing back Rod 1
- Gerde moves back from Blade 3, and runs up next to Blade 1, hitting him for a bit of damage
- Joerg asks Maho what do do, Heph tells him to go hide behind the barrels in the alley
- Blade 3 runs after Gerde, shooting a crossbow shot at Heph while running but misses
- Blade 2 runs past Helir to catch up to the group, Helir dealing nice damage on an opportunity attack, and swings with their knife at Maho, missing
- Cloak moves the floating sickle closer, but can’t get through the mess of people to get to Maho, Heph or Gerde, then he creates a cloud above Heph and blasts him with a light
- Blade 1 swings at Heph, but Maho redirects the attack with a cloud rune to Blade 2, which Heph thinks is a neat trick
- Lana runs up and swings at Blade 1, missing
- Maho swings at Blade 2 with her Maul, but misses, even with inspiration, then swings again and successfully lands a blow, tripping Blade 2 and knocking him prone
- Rod 2 doesn’t understand booming blade, and steps forward, taking some damage, but then swings at Elias with his mace, hitting once
- Rod 1 runs around the group, swinging at Heph, but he blocks one
and the second one hits his armor
- Elias tells Rod 2 that was rude, the pulls out Jarles and stabs him through the face, killing him pretty dead, Jarles does not seem to like being bloodied
- Elias runs out of the alley, heading towards the group, and throwing a dagger at Blade 2, and even with disadvantage hits Blade 2 pretty good
- Helir runs up and hits Blade 3 for a bit of damage
- Karrl flies to the other end of the alley to watch Joerg’s back, but weirdly sees no other cloaked figures nearby
- Heph casts Shatter on Rod 1, Blade 1 and Blade 2, killing Blade 2 and damaging Blade 1 and Rod 1 badly
- Heph retreats, taking some damage from Rod 1 in the process
- Gerde swings at Blade 3, dealing some damage, and backs up into the alley, taking a hit from Blade 3 in the process
- Joerg peeks up and asks Heph if it’s over, Heph says no, stay down
- Blade 3 moves up to Maho, taking a hit from Helir and Lana in the process, missing an attack on Maho in the process
- Cloak moves the glowing sickle into the alley and swings it at Maho, dealing a bunch of damage, but Maho reduces it with Stone’s Endurance
- Cloak then moves up a bit and casts the Command “betray” on Maho
- Blade 1 runs up to Heph, managing to stab him again but not quite taking him out
- Lana get between Blade 3 and Gerde, landing a stab on Blade 3
- Maho moves into the alley, taking a hit from Rod 1, and attempts to grapple Gerde, but isn’t able to get a solid grasp on her
- Maho locks eyes with the almost unconscious Heph, and then looks away in betrayal
- Rod 1 moves in and swings at Maho, missing one but landing a hit
- Elias runs into another alley, casting sleep on Rod 1 and Blade 3, and manages to put them both to sleep, then tries to hide, but trips forward
- Helir doesn’t know how sleep works, and stabs Blade 3 dealing a hefty amount of damage, but wakes Blade 3 back up
- Heph casts Mirror Image to make himself harder to hit, 3 little clockwork robots create holographic images of Heph
- Gerde runs toward Heph, Maho giving her the stink eye but choosing not to attack her, and misses Blade 1
- Joerg is still hiding super effectively
- Blade 3 slaps Rod 1 awake and stands up
- Cloak floats the sickle toward Elias and hits him with it, then moves forward and tries to Command Elias to “betray”, but Elias just says “fuck you”
- Blade 1 slashes at Heph and destroys an image, Heph sticks his tongue out at him in response
- Heph and Elias suddenly recognize the tune they have been whistling the entire time as the tune Bilbo the bartender was whistling after a failed attempt to intimidate him
- Lana swings at Blade 3 and misses
- Maho moves to help Heph, and Rod 1 and Blade 3 both miss opportunity attacks, and Maho smacks Blade 1, activating the fire rune and wrapping the guy up, then slams him into the wall, taking him out
- Maho runs back and slams into Rod 1, smacking him pretty hard, and uses second wind to heal herself for a bit
- Rod 1 stands up, looking quite beat up, and swings at Maho, dealing
a small amount of damage
- Elias, angry at Cloak, walks straight up to him angrily and pulls out Jarles, who is really not happy about this again, and stabs Cloak through the face really hard, exploding his head and dropping him instantly
- Jarles is very angry about being covered in blood and guts, he is not a normal sword and this is not what he does
- Helir, rather excited about that kill, and stabs Blade 3 pretty good
- Heph uses Magic Missile to finish off Blade 3 and Rod 1 into oblivion
- With that, the eerie whistling finally stops
- Maho runs over to Joerg and calls for him, he pops out and asks what all that was
- Gerde asks who they are, Elias is still kicking the body, and Heph runs over and tells him it’s okay, it’s over now
- Elias stops kicking Cloak and loots the body, finding a few
items
- A dagger, some jewelry made of small animal skulls, and a swordfish pin
- Elias, seeing the swordfish emblem, remembers a conversation with Peg Leg Steve where Steve mentioned a guy who went by “The Swordfish”
- Elias asks Heph about the rat skull, Elias is convinced it’s ancient magic on a nat 1 arcana, but Heph can tell it has no magic to it whatsoever
- Elias spends a bit of time cleaning up Jarles with a few prestidigitations
- Karrl flies up, circling around a bit, trying to see if there is
anything else
- He sees one more figure place a scroll down, he grabs it and brings it back to Heph
- Heph has wandered back to the group, and opens the scroll
- At the top is a name, Harris Kelner, underneath that it says assassinate at Hexicon, and underneath that it says 3000gp, and underneath that it has a sketch of a dwarf
- Nobody seems to recognize the dwarf
- Karrl, after dropping the scroll with Heph, flies back out to find the cloaked man, seeing him head towards The Acreage Heph asks him to trail the guy for a bit and see what he can learn
- Maho says we should finish up our journey, and get
Joerg to Barth’s
- Joerg asks if he’ll be safe there, but Maho is fairly certain the cloaks were not after Joerg
- Maho seems to think they were here on orders to test
Elias, Heph and Maho
- Nat 20 insight
- The assassination order seems to be for us, and Elias seems very tempted by it
- The group agrees to try to find more information about Harris Kelner, but probably best not to mention it to TK
- The party has no additional issues getting to Barth’s
- Barth greets the group and asks what happened to us, Maho and Heph explain a bit
- Maho explains she brought her father here to keep him safe, and Gerde, Helir and Lana are there to protect Joerg
- Heph asks about health potions, he doesn’t have any but offers to try to make a cool shield for Heph
- Barth didn’t make Maho’s armor, but enhanced it, and Heph compliments him a bit
- Elias asks him if he can repair a magic sword, and pulls out Jarles, who was napping and is unhappy to be awoken
- Barth is a little taken aback by the talking sword, but thinks the sword could be fixed by scraping off the fake sapphire, but it’s still not an amazing sword
- Elias asks if Jarles wants the sapphire coating off, and Jarles doesn’t really want it off but Elias decides the coating should be taken off regardless
- Elias suggests we ask Barth about Harris because he’s a dwarf, and Heph asks him but explains he asked because he’s well connected and not because he’s a dwarf, Elias thinks all small races know everyone in their race and Heph has been dealing with it for weeks
- The group decides to short rest, and Heph first calls his parents and says “In Eken, making our way to Bad Zamdorf. The trip is going smoothly. Please ask Mort to contact.”
- Heph receives a message back from his Dad: “Well, good to hear from you Heph, I’m looking for a way -- what are you doing, stop, stop --”, he hears Mort’s voice in the background speaking an incantation then a loud pop
- Elias hears a message in his head “I’m in the area, where are you staying?”
- Heph then takes the opportunity to try to repair Rormir’s ring, and with Barth’s help he manages to repair it to a point that it is technically wearable, although not yet fully repaired