Session 45: The one where Heph tests his diplomatic skills (April 24, 2024)
Last session, after shattering a Lucien Blind, our heroes were transported into the memories of the four goliaths they were locked in combat with. There they observed the moments before each individual was captured and fitted with a mask. Aoki Hikaru, who was painting in a scenic mountain glade when a cloaked individual snuck up on him from the bushes. Ando Kazuma, who was out celebrating his friend’s acceptance to a conservatory in Oda and convinced the group to continue the party with a suspicious troop of figures in a wagon. Tomatsu Kin, who responded to a bodyguard job posting in Wildeport at Fort Busch. And Suzuki Bond, who along with Izume Hojo was keeping watch at the edge of their small village for a group of humans Izume had seen, and who were laying in wait in the trees.
The party tried to interact with these memories, but despite pushing some against the fabric of the dream world they were unsuccessful. Heph, in one attempt, tried to make his reflection visible in a puddle. In doing so he tripped and his armor was struck by a metal blade, which Elias could see was wielded by a hand identical to Heph’s emerging from the puddle.
The memories concluded, the white light fizzled out and the party was returned to the Eken Institute library, where the mask smashed by Maho finished exploding, killing the wearer Aoki and injuring the surrounding people. The party then set about systematically removing the Bands of Loyalty from the remaining goliaths and defeating them, leaving them all alive (if partially faceless in the case of Ando Kazuma) and recovering.
The fight over, the party surveyed the destruction. Maho was badly injured from several exploding masks. Heph gave a health potion to her and Elias gave one to Ana. Ana opened up and offered to continue training Elias to be a Master of Disguise if he still wanted her around. He then expertly stole two Bands of Loyalty from her and gave her a hug. She hugged back, taking the opportunity to steal something back.
- Heph runs out into the hallway to see if Isabella is still there,
and seeing her he drags her back into the library
- Elias comes over and searches her, finding her pass for Hexicon, with the name Isariel Ilbareth but no picture
- Maho asks about Isabella, and Heph explains that we don’t actually know anything about her, she just started blindly following us
- Heph notes she seems to have been involved in Rormir disappearing as well
- Heph also searches Isabella, and finds that she is wearing fake ears to hide her pointy ears, and a sending stone
- Heph pockets the sending stone for now, waiting to see who reaches out to her through it
- Heph asks Maho to show him where she was casting the spell, and meanwhile Elias ties up and gags Isabella
- As Maho heads up the stairs, she notices that there is a group of people on the other side of the door, cautiously cracking the door open
- She points it out to Heph, and he shoots a message to Ana and Elias to let them know there is incoming
- After a brief exchange with Suzuki, who is very confused about what happened,
Heph and Maho convince the goliaths to head upstairs
with them and get out of sight
- Isabella is tied to a pole near the door, and in an illusory stack of books that Elias conjured
- Before the group comes in, Ana asks Elias if he wants to hide, and she quickly gives him lesson #1 in disguising himself, and when the dust clears Ana is standing next to a red fox, which runs into the bookshelves
- The door opens, and a woman in formal academic attire, similar to Frank, walks into the library flanked by 4 people in Central Command uniforms
- She first freaks out about the pile of books, then sees how much blood there is and freaks out about the bodies
- She asks what happened, and Ana says “oopsie, reading accident, terrible paper cut and other bad things that happen in a library”
- The woman seems a bit surprised and frightened to see a person standing there
- Heph comes downstairs and tries to explain the story, explaining
that Ana and him helped subdue the attacker
- Specifically, he says the dead Aoki on the ground floor was the only attacker
- Heph rolls a nat 1 to persuade the bystanders to not contradict his story, and Extra #3 pops her head out and mentions that there were more attackers
- The woman sends two of the Central Command upstairs, and Heph admits there are more individuals but they are “subdued”, and says it’s a long story, and asks her what she knows about enchantment magic
- The guards step past Heph, and Heph messages Maho telling her they are coming and that they might want to play dead or something up there
- Elias attempts to cast Sleep targeting only the goliaths, and although he can’t quite aim it accurately, it manages to knock out the goliaths but not Maho
- Maho is confused about the goliaths, and just sort of stands there a bit dumbfounded
- In response to Heph’s question about magic, she seems somewhat
interested, and the commander who seems to be in charge of the escort looks at
Heph with some recognition, and looks angry and confused when
looking at Aoki
- The woman responds that she has done some studies in that area, and asks if Heph is implying that the beast was enchanted
- Heph walks a mask fragment towards the woman, and hands it to one of the guards, asking her if she can detect the remnants of magic on it
- Her eyes glow briefly as she stares at it, and she says there is some enchantment
- Heph pulls out a full mask and explains that the porcelain fragment is part of a similar mask, and upon seeing the mask the commander gets noticeably mad
- The woman asks where Heph got the mask, and Heph explains a bit that they’ve had previous encounters with the masked individuals
- Reaching the top of the stairs, the guards see Maho dragging Ando
under the arms with the other two collapsed on the floor nearby
- Maho quickly pretends to be pinning Ando, and yells out “I got him!”
- Fails a deception check
- The guard yells out “There are 4 more up here!” and Heph calls out “The small one is with me, her mask is different”
- The woman calls for the guards to bring everyone down, and the guards point their swords at Maho and order her to take them down, Maho grabs Ando and Suzuki and carries them down
- One of the guards accompanies her, and when Maho puts them down she heads back up to get Tomatsu, and the guards accompany her downstairs
- The woman asks if anyone else is hiding, and Heph asks Elias to come out
- Heph explains that we had taken up a defensive stance because we didn’t know who was coming
- Elias runs up as a fox and rolls onto his belly, and Heph kneels down and gives him a belly rub
- She seems confused that the fox is named Elias, and Heph also mentions he has an octopus named Karrl
- The commander starts asking Heph questions about where he
encountered the masks, and Heph does his best to give answers that
are technically truthful but not revealing more than necessary
- The commander says they should confiscate the masks and detain the goliaths, and Heph agrees that they absolutely should
- The woman asks if Central Command has a detective unit, and the commander distractedly responds that they do
- Heph tells Maho to let them take the goliaths, we will get them back later, and tells Elias to try to make sure Isabella stays hidden
- Elias responds and tells Heph that the commander seems to know something about the masks
- Ana heads to Maho and whispers in her ear, asking if she wants to sneak one out, and Maho tries to indicate that she needs Suzuki out of there
- Ana slowly backs away and comes in as a member of Central Command, Head Inspector Jẽph
- She says she is going to do a bunch of stuff to investigate the scene, and heads towards Suzuki to start with him, so convincing that none of the other members of Central Command even question it
- She grabs Suzuki with the help of another guard and carries him to the book cart, dumping the books off and putting him on the cart, and Jẽph and the guard wheel Suzuki out the door
- The woman is freaking out about what a mess there is, and Heph tells her it was really nice before the mess happened
- The commander says he will need an exit interview from everyone
- The woman asks how to contact us, Heph says to give us a sending stone, and explains we are passing through on our way to Hexicon
- She seems very excited about Hexicon, and gives some pointers about what to check out, and she also offers Heph discount on tuition if we want to enroll here
- Maho asks her what her name is, and she says Headmistress Jom Barom and asks Maho if she’s been to school
- Maho goes “Huh??” and the woman says not everyone has to be smart, and says sometimes just being strong is helpful to the smart people
- Elias starts chasing his tail, and she apparently hates animals and Elias starts jumping on her, and she dashes out of the room hastily to get away from Elias, taking one of the guards with her
- The commander introduces himself as Edward, and says he needs our statements
- The other guard is still just staying put, keeping an eye on things
- Heph leads the commander to a table, sitting down such that he needs to have his back to the illusory stack of books while taking his statement
- Elias wanders to the back of the library, and disappearing from view, draws a card and sticks it in a dusty boring looking book really high on the shelf so it’s really hard to find, making a Kobold appear
- Elias runs out, mimicking a fox yipping, and commands the Kobold to chase him around screaming to draw their attention
- The other guard is distracted trying to chase down the Kobold, and Elias runs over and grabs Isabella, motioning for Maho to open the door, she does and Elias runs out the door, stealthily, running all the way out of the university and hunkers down in an alley
- Passing Chief Inspector Jẽph, he winks at Ana, and Elias manages to sneak past without the other guard noticing
- Getting hidden in an alley, Elias changes out of his costume and robes, and uses Minor Illusion again to hide in some barrels
- Back in the library, Heph finishes giving his statement, and he
calls over Maho
- Heph messages Maho and tells her to not lie, just omit info, hoping she’s done this enough to get the idea of it
- Maho sits down an sighs, explaining that it is a hassle to give a statement, and Edward starts by asking Maho why it’s such a pain
- Maho explains that Heph is so much better spoken and it seems silly for her to also give a statement, and Edward explains that it is a formality that they need to go through
- In background, Jẽph heads back out with another goliath
- Edward asks Maho is she was present for the previous encounters, and she explains that she wasn’t around when the previous encounters happened
- Maho explains she was recently laid off and is accompanying the gnome and fox to Hexicon
- Edward asks if she knows why they were there, and she responds she doesn’t know
- Edward seems angry when he explains that the action wasn’t authorized, and demands to know who sent them
- Maho questions the use of the word authorized, and he sits back and tries to pretend he didn’t say that and he is the one asking questions
- Maho doesn’t want to conjecture about what happened, and defers to Heph as one who might be better to conjecture
- Heph uses magical tinkering to make a piece of debris make a loud popping noise near the commander, and he jumps and seems very on edge
- Edward is insistent Maho is hiding something, Heph sends a message telling Maho to tell him she is hiding that she worked for TK, to throw him off the scent
- Maho reveals that the goliaths are related to her previous employer, and he asks who her previous employer is
- She reveals it is TK, and the guard seems a bit taken aback, like that was not the answer he was expecting
- Edward abruptly thanks Maho for her statement, says he needs to go, and runs out of the building, and Heph asks Karrl to tail him and figure out where he goes
- Karrl tails him to a Central Command building
- The one remaining guard is still chasing the Kobold, Heph steps up
to help and launches a Firebolt at it, revealing it to be an illusion
- The guard seems intent to solve the mystery of the illusion, and Maho asks if he’s going to be the next Chief Inspector
- He replies that he wants to be the General Inspector, and solving the illusion will be the stepping stone that launches his career
- Heph excuses himself and Maho, and they leave the library
- Elias is distracted by his book, and Heph starts casting Message in random directions to find him
- Meeting up, Elias points out he has Isabella, and Heph says they should get Isabella to drop the Geas
- Maho asks about Ana and the Goliaths, Heph doesn’t know that Ana was Jẽph but Elias pieced it together
- Elias spots Salty perched on a building overlooking everything, and sees Jẽph and the guard head back in to the library
- Elias runs up to the front of the building, and walks up to Jẽph and the guard and pretends to be the inspector’s scientist and asks him to point the scientist to the lab
- Jẽph says he will point the way later when all the specimens are there, and Elias runs off back to the alley, relaying to Maho and Heph that Ana will take us to the goliaths later
- Realizing that Isabella will probably wake up soon, they decide to find a place to hide out
- Heph spots a hearse cart parked in front of a café,
Elias runs over to it and peeks inside, spotting a coffin in the
back
- Opening the coffin, there is in fact a dead person in it
- Elias motions for Heph and Maho to bring her over, Heph tries to lift her and realizes that is dumb, and looks at Maho to carry her
- Maho picks her up like a cat, and carries her across the square, while Elias pulls out the casket and dumps it on the ground, instructing Maho to load Isabella into the cart
- Elias grabs the horse’s reins and sends it running off on a nat 20 animal handling, Heph and Maho hanging onto the back of the cart
- The horse is quite upset with its owners, and is more than happy to bolt off when prompted
- The hearse drivers are left standing with the coffin and no cart, and Elias uses Minor Illusion to make a laugh track from inside the café
- One of the drivers angrily runs back in yelling at the people seemingly laughing, ready to start a fight
- Pulling the hearse wagon up to the inn, Elias does an epic skid to
parallel park the horse in front of the inn
- Looking into the back, Isabella is contorted upside down against the wall, still unconscious
- Elias gives the horse some food from the rations, and the horse devours the food, nuzzling Elias a bit
- Maho pulls out the lollipop that Mort had given Maho, who chews and swallows it, and seems pleased about the sweet treat
- Elias grabs Isabella and walks into the inn, Heph and Maho following
- As people look at the party carrying a bound and unconscious woman, Elias just shrugs and says “Day drinking” and nobody seems to really care that much
- As Elias carries Isabella upstairs, Heph pays 1gp to
the innkeeper for a late checkout
- Well he paid him three silver, and Charvey stares at him until he ups it to one gold
- Getting to the room, Elias looks out the window, and no longer sees a horse, the horse seems to be invisible
- Elias turns to Maho and asks “What did you do??”, and Maho is confused
- After a few seconds the horse reappears
- Heph pulls out a hammer and some pitons, and getting
Maho to hammer them into the ceiling proceeds to hang her upside
down from the ceiling
- Elias closes the shades and lights the candelabra, creating a police interrogation style space
- Maho jams a chair under the door to block it, and then short rests while Elias and Heph interrogate her
- As soon as she wakes up, Elias casts charm person on her, which she fails to save from
- Elias takes her gag off, and apologizes for gagging her, and she says she is not used to seeing him from this angle, “fancy meeting you here like this”