Making a Name

Making a Name is the 9th session of the New Dawn Memories campaign. It is part of the Return to Sender story arc.
= Synopsis =
The party returns to the Penthouse and accepts Silis's plan to rob a shipment of wine.
= Development =
== Part 1 ==
The Lord of Neverwinter tells the party that he will continue to decipher the writings in the book. He tells them that he knows from one of the reports he managed to read the location of The Hungry, a sorrowsworn modeled with the help of the essence of Lorilon.
Lorkhan asks Neverember how the essences he wants them to retrieve are related to saving Neverwinter. Neverember informs him that, since Gambino was after them, they must probably hold great magical potential, but admits that his instinct tells him that they are the key to finding a way out of this mess.
Weneon shows concern regarding their ability to face such a creature, let alone what may surround its lair. Neverember retrieves two enchantment stones, the bloodstone and the featherstone from his chest and gives them to the party. He tells them that he will keep the teleportation circle open for them for when they are ready to help him in restoring Neverwinter.
The party decides to return to the penthouse and get supplies. Lorkhan is mainly concerned with resting, for he was tired for the last two days.
Since they cannot teleport all out of the ruins of Neverwinter, they decide to retrieve Marla‘s ring from John’s body in the dungeon they came through to Neverwinter.
As they make their way back upstairs, they realize that the oozes are gone. Lorkhan takes the mask from Adona’s body at the bottom of the stairs and pockets it.
The hallway where John fell is blackened by the fiery breath of the defeated red dragon Ostar. Weneon experiences a traumatic episode when entering the room he almost died in. He and Lorkhan search for John’s ring and find it in the ashes that once was John’s body. They give the ring to Manasa and continue down the hall to the dragon’s lair.
Lorkhan is keen on extracting a dragon tooth. He manages to get one, but in the process damages the jaw of the dragon, which shots close. They teleport out of the dungeon and back to the Penthouse, where they are greeted by Andre and a dark skinned human male in his 50s preparing scrambled eggs in the kitchen.
== Part 2 ==
The stranger introduces himself as Colin Tact, the father of Marla. They learn that Colin is visiting his daughter, and realize that Andre is not very keen on him.
Andre confronts the party, telling them that Marla has been waiting all night for them. When they ask where she is, Andre tells them that she is out working. When he says this, he smirks at Colin, who tries to answer his insinuation by saying that he is a private businessman. Andre continues and tells the party that Marla went out to find Silis, who was spotting a potential mark while waiting for the party.
Mycha doesn’t feel well and decides to rest in the guest room they’ve been staying in. Lorkhan asks Andre where the man from the box is. Andre points them to the basement door. Lorkhan runs down the stairs and arrives at a heavy iron door.
Andre steps next to him and takes out his keys. As he opens the door, a smokey smell fills the room and the party sees that the basement is used for keeping rations of meat hanging on strings on the ceiling of the basement.
The box Lorkhan wants to see is placed at the other end of the room. Andre opens it and takes out an iron maiden. He explains that he made this for the man so he could not hurt himself.
Andre then opens a latch on the face of the iron maiden, and the party sees the white face of the man, looking at them with his beady black eyes. His mouth sawn shut with wire. Lorkhan asks Andre if he can remove the shackles and the wiring, to which Andrea replies by showing them his broken pliers, telling them that he already tried.
He explained to them that the material is the same used for dimension shackles, and that normal tools cannot help in this endeavor. Lorkhan decides to talk to the man telepathically. He asks him a series of questions about his identity, and where he’s from; who his master was, and who his current master is.
The man in the box answers in fragments, giving just glimpses of what Lorkhan asks of him. After a couple of minutes, Lorkhan realizes that the man was lying the whole time and coming up with bogus answers. When Lorkhan confronts him about this, the man says to him to stop asking questions and just kill him already, presenting his neck to him.
Kilijan tries to interrogate him about how he can be freed from the shackles, while Manasa asks him if he knows about Neverwinter. The man in the box is intrigued by Manasa’s pin on his chest, and tells him that he is not answering to one of the puppets of the Lord of Neverwinter.
To Kilijan’s question about his possible freeing, the man in the box tells the party to seek scrolls that could help. He points them to the excavation sides of a project he heard about in the desert. The man in the box refuses to talk to them until he is freed, to which Mansa mentions the writings on his back, the others told Manasa about. He asks the man if he knew what the Leaves were and who Omihi was.
The man in the box opens his eyes for one last time and answers that they used to be friends. Lorkhan casts detect thoughts on him and realizes that out of all the information he gave to them about his personal life, this may be the first one that he was truthful about. 
Andre closes the latch on the iron maiden and the party returns to the upper floor of the penthouse. They try to rest and gather their thoughts while waiting for Marla and Silis.
== Part 3 ==
Kilijan takes Andre up on his offer to help them with equipment, and Andre gifts him a shield. Lorkhan shows Andre the dragon tooth and asks him about its worth. Andre, looking at it, tells him that he cannot approximate what the tooth may be worth, but that it would be a great boost for certain weapons when fusing. He then explains to them that, in exchange for gold for material, he can upgrade their equipment. Weneon then shows Andre the bloodstone they received from Neverember.
Andre tells them that it is worth anywhere from 800 to 1000 gold pieces. The party decides to give Andre the blood stone in order to clear their debt towards Marla. Andrea excepts and the debt is forgiven.
As they spent their day waiting for Marla, Colin approaches them with an job offer. He shares with them that he knows of a shipment of historical scrolls from Kara-Tur on their way to Oeble. He goes to Silis’s corner, drags one of the curtains to the side (Silis’s room has no door nor walls) and points on the map of the Border Kingdoms on a tavern named House of Hammers. He has a contact there and the delegation with the scrolls should arrive in two days there to rest.
The scrolls were stolen from Kara-Tur a few years back, and resurfaced in the Border Kingdoms. The lord of Oeble Endolynn Redstream wants to sell them back to the Kara-Tur embassy in Oeble.
As the party is considering his offer, they are interrupted by Marla and Silis arriving in the Penthouse.
Silis is covered in bird shit and mud, yelling at Marla for leaving him all night to wait in the bushes. When they notice the party has returned, Marla tells them that the planned score is no longer viable. Noticing that her father Colin is talking to them, she warns them not to agree to any mischief he offers to them. 
Marla is introduced to Manasa, while Andre is informing her that the “elephant” died. Marla then asks for Mycha, to which Andre points her to the guest room. He has a severe fewer and Marla rushes to try to help him. She joins him in the room and starts taking care of him, while the rest of the party understands not to disturb him.
The party refuses Colin’s offer, and Colin leaves slightly disappointed, but not angry. Silis asks Andre to clean his armor. Andre starts cleaning it, and Lorkhan offers to do it with magic. Andre warns him not to cast anything, to which Lorkhan starts casting the prestidigitation spell. Andre throws a brush at Lorkhan. He catches it and cleans the brush with his spell. Andre is furious and starts chasing Lorkhan across the room, trying to shove the brush up his throat.
While this is happening, Silis changes into something more comfortable and catches up with the party. They tell him about Neverwinter and what they’ve found underneath the Underways.
Silis does not seem too interested in that when he finds out that no treasure has been retrieved. He, however, tells them that he overheard about a shipment of fine wine that is supposed to be shipped at 10 o’clock later that night at the “Most Pravde” bridge. He tells them that the shipment is for a party lord Endolynn is organizing. The party accepts the job and they start planning the heist.
== Part 4 ==
At ten o'clock, the party arrives at the bridge “Most Pravde” in Oeble. Their plan is to deceive the guards into handing the shipment over to them by telling them that Endolynn sent them for enhanced protection.
Lorkhan disguises himself to be a mountain of a doumir in an official Oeble uniform. He and Weneon approach the guards at the bridge, who are waiting for the shipment of three barrels of wine.
Weneon and Lorkhan manage to convince one of the two guards to leave his post, while the second guard, nicknamed Loptica, stays put.
As they wait for the shipment, they are approached by two other guards patrolling, checking if everything is fine. Loptica greets one of the guards by the name Shecky. They also leave, but not before Lorkhan realizes that a disguise self spell is cast on Shecky.
The gates open, and the carriage loaded with three barrels of wine passes through. The individuals guarding the carriage are led by a young enthusiastic guard called Maklyn, who stops the horses and asks Weneon and Lorkhan about what’s going on. As they explain that they are the guards who will transport the wine directly to the party, the young guard gets a bit flabbergasted. His ego obviously cannot fathom this humiliation, but falls for the deception.
Earlier that day, Kilijan managed to figure out that the wine was from a city called Calimport and a thousand-year-old winery run by Arwel Ruivaul. He also obtained information about a local winery run by Lorenz Magin, who refused the invitation to the Endolynn’s party out of pettiness for not ordering his wine.
The young guard Malkyn is finally convinced by Weneon to hand over the carriage. However, before doing that, he asks for the transportation papers. Earlier that day, Lorkhan spent a bit of money on constructing a forged signature and seal of Oeble with the help of one of Silis’s contacts.
Lorkhan takes out his falsified papers and gives them to Malkyn. The guard, however, notices that the seal is not an original based on the slightly lighter color. Weneon notices the guards’ suspicion, but before he could say anything, the guard gives them his transportation papers with the original seal. As he hands-down the real papers, Malkyn says: ”No hard feelings”, but in actuality, he uses the thieves’ cant to signal to Wesley that he expects to be paid 1/3 of the payment they are about to receive from the shipment. Wesley agrees, and the guards stand back as Weneon climbs onto the carriage and drives off, while Lorkhan is following him on foot.
== Part 5 ==
Approaching Manasa and Kilijan, who are still hidden in the shadows down the alley, Weneon is hoping that they can reach the broken down carriage he inquired earlier that day as a decoy.
Manasa waits for a moment to enter the courage and remembers how earlier that day he tried to acquire a big cloth, big enough to cover the shipment from prying eyes. As he sees the carriage passing him slowly by, he recalls the scene with Dwarf Schneider, a dwarven Taylor, whom he tried to intimidate into giving him the cloth, but was refused.
Kilijan and Manasa follow the carriage slowly and keep an eye out. Manasa attempts to direct the carriage through the alleys. He memorized earlier that day the ways to the rendezvous point where Silis was waiting with the buyers.
As they walk through an ally, Manasa suddenly notices a boarded up window, suspiciously stationed facing the street they were passing through. He suddenly remembers that the window was not boarded up earlier that day when he was learning the escape route.
He warns the party just in time to avoid the first bullet being fired from the window by a sharpshooter behind the boards. The shot shoots through one of the barrels. Lorkhan immediately tries to stuff the whole with a cloth, as the two patrolling guards from earlier approach them. 
Lorkhan immediately recognizes the one who had a disguise spell cast on him. He tells them to surrender the shipment, and the guard behind him removes the disguise spell from his partner. Kilijan recognizes immediately the man: it is David Morej, the right-hand man of Lorenz Magin.
A fight breaks out. One of the guards manages to climb on the carriage and takes over the horses. However, Weneon manages to climb the roof of a building and shoots with his hand crossbow the guard's head off.
Lorkhan to stop one of the barrels from spilling the wine, and Kilijan rushes towards the carriage to get it away out of the danger zone. Lorkhan deals with David by melting his face, while Manasa eldritchblasts the sharpshooter out of the window.
As they escape, Kilijan and Weneon climb on the carriage, but Manasa and Lorkhan stay behind. They are swiftly surrounded by guards, who are informed by the yelling, and by the shouting of the fight that broke out.
Lorkhan surrenders, and gets on his needs to be shackled by one of the real Oeble guards, while Manasseh manages to blend into the crowd that has gathered around. As the guard is putting shackles on Lorkhan, Manasa casts the arms of hadar spell and summons snakes from the ground, which start strangling all the guards, killing them instantly.
He grabs Lorkhan and rushes towards the carriage while hearing people from the alley behind them screaming in horror because of the scene they just witnessed.
== Part 6 ==
The party makes it to the rendezvous point and collects the money for the wine. Weneon immediately convinces the party to pay 1/3 to Malkyn so they don’t make more enemies. The party agrees and Weneon sends 150 gp through a delivery boy.
They return to the penthouse and celebrate. Silis in one moment of celebration, gives every one of them a glass and produces from underneath the table 2 bottles of the Calimport wine.
“Tonight we will drink like lords” he exclaims as he raises his glass. The door to the guest room opens, and the party sees Marla cooling Mycha’s forehead with a wet towel. He is still burdened by a fewer. Andre closes the room. A moment of silence. Silis raises his glass: “To Mycha, in sickness and in health.” 
“In sickness and in health”, the party mellowly repeats the toast.
While the rest of the party celebrates, Silis retreats to his corner and opens the window. The party hears music a few moments later playing from one Silis’s spell stones: a mellow song about being tired. Weneon recognizes the female voice: Astoria, the bard that robbed him in the One-Legged Donkey.
As the moonlight shines on Silis through the window, a gust of wind blows through his corner and messes up all of his maps. Underneath the maps, a photograph of a man and a woman is blown towards the common room. Weneon picks up the photograph and recognizes the man: it is obviously Silis, but when he was still a human. 
Silis slowly takes the photograph from Weneon, looks at it for a second, and puts it in his breast pocket. He forces a smile dripping with melancholy: “I think I will go to bed now. I’m tired. Great job guys.” He wanders back into his corner and sits down on his chair, unable to fall asleep.
Silis slowly takes the photograph from Weneon, looks at it for a second, and puts it in his breast pocket. He forces a smile dripping with melancholy: “I think I will go to bed now. I’m tired. Great job guys.” He wanders back into his corner and sits down on his chair, unable to fall asleep.
Category:Sessions