Cirque du Avalon

= Cirque du Avalon Fall '20 - Spring '21 ( Sumna 47th - Autumnre 12th 3104) =
== Season 1: September to December (Sumna 47th - Harvae 31st 3104) ==
=== Book 1: Open a New Window (9/27/20) ===
In the town of Kilbourn Dells, there are many avenues for amusement. There is an existing carnival where many visitors to the village indulge in the treats of the big top. Baron Nerite has been the ringmaster of this carnival for 100 years, but he's finally decided to retire his empire. Not wanting to leave his performers out of work, the Baron has arranged for them to have a private audition with the premiere travelling circus in all the kingdoms: Dizzler's Dazzler. Will the Kilbourn Carnies be chosen to headline the show? It all depends on their audition...
Session notes:The game opens with everyone in The Frolic Room, a tavern that caters to those who are employed at the many attractions of Kilbourn Dells. There is a recently-added "no pets allowed" sign, so Olallee the owlbear waits outside.
As we make our introductions, it's established that we've all been here from 2 months to a couple years.
We learn that "wherever the wind blows..."
* Marvin Meekman looks up at a mournful moon and cries.
* Desi Ignar watches the shoreline for a ship that won't return.
* Marvin enjoys a hearty stout.
* Wilton Thistleweed enjoys lying to patrons of the Dells.
* Ms. Esmerelda ("Essie") is always trying to find ways to take advantage of people.
* Desi rarely uses their real name.
* K'ti "Cutty" Wammelk had another family prior to this, but they are lost.
* Lambert Shore goes where the kicked rock rolls. Oh, and he's guilty of some terrible crime there.
* Desi wouldn't have chosen the circus first.
* Chastity likes to do yoga in the morning completely naked.
* Lambert lives on a strict diet (of homemade pizza) and is reluctant to eat other things.
* Solitaire the Harlequin has a comfort item that she never has off her person.
Person at the bar is complaining about a customer.
Couple in the corner is having a relationship talk. It's not going well. We catch mention of a drought somewhere.
A man named Razzie walks in. He's not a member of our circus, but wants to be. His areas of expertise include bad sleight of hand, training dogs for stage acts, and selling bootleg souvenirs, some of which are for -our- acts.
He sits down by Esmerelda. "Heeeeey, I hear you're all out of wooork soon!" He's not a charmer.
Dizzler the Dazzler is coming to the Dells, the one to hold the auditions.
Razzie wants to know when the audition is. We all know it's at 8. (It's 5pm now).
Razzie puts a hand on Essie as he gets up to leave, gives a squeeze. Marvin, in turn, gives him a lingering, crushing hug.
Niwri Evets tries to pick Razzie's pockets, fails.
The couple in the corner, the guy throws down his tankard angrily. "I need to go, my family needs me." (He is now Poochie.) Her: "I need you to stay here with me, for us."
She takes a poor swing at him. He gives her a poor shove. Cutty runs over to stand between them. They shout more. He needs to go home, or his family will die.
The friendlier of our bunch chat with her. Cutty sits back down. The guy's family farms, they're having a drought. Essie gives her some inspiring (nat 20) words. She's so moved, she gives Es her purse.
We learn that the couple make and sell popcorn. From this point on, they are Popcorn Guy and Popcorn Girl.
Solitaire makes to go after Popcorn Guy. Opening the door, a top-hatted individual stumbles into her, having missed the doorknob. She catches him. He looks like the tophat cane guy from Cowboy Bebop. Human. Some of us have seen this guy on posters. It's Dizzler the Dazzler! We exchange pleasantries. He invites us to go and see where the tent is being erected. Audition's in ONE HOUR, he tells us.
We go. The tent is larger than anything we've seen at the Dells. Some kids have cut a hole to peek in. Dizzler is inside, which is odd since we just left him at the tavern. Cutty inspects the tent material. It's legit (not conjured), and it's top-shelf stuff, lightweight but strong canvas, treated against water.
At the north entrance is a dapper dwarf with a baller moustache. Turns out he's the troupe costumer, and if we pass the auditions, he'll be designing for us.
Solitaire goes to check out the stage. Is greeted by Dizzler. (Also, Solitaire is silent and expresses most things with gestures, it's worth noting.)
Wilton chats with some of the help. Schweinhaben is their band. "Dakin the Dark" is their magician, which I know how to spell because they appear as an unassigned character on DnDBeyond. But NOT pyrotechnics, so no competition for Wilton's intended role.
An hour later, we queue up at the entrance, where the finery dwarf tells us to get into a single file line. Lambert starts a different line and convinces everyone that's the correct line, but is largely ignored in favor of the Initiative roll.
There is an adolescent, dark skinned, young man in business attire next to Dizzler. Both are holding clipboards.
Desi goes first. Does a changeling performance as three characters.
Wilton goes second. Storytelling and a light show. Contact juggling.
Chastity is up. Dizzler notes her St. Cuthbert's necklace. They chat about that, he decides she's a "recovering" Cuthbertian. Contortionist act. Dizzler asks if she wants music accompaniment. He snaps his fingers and Cottoneye Joe begins to play.
Lambert goes next, does a pole dance without any sort of introduction. Nat20. "Lambert Shore, but you can call me the Wheeze."
Niwri and Olallee next. They perform an animal act, similar to a lion tamer's routine. The owlbear crits the performance check.
Cutty is next. Dizzler addresses him, knows he is not a performer. "I can do feats of strength, but I am regularly employed to respond to... problems." Full-blooded orc? Tribe? Mal'Dalier? You're hired. "Very well, thank you." "No, thank you."
Solitaire is up. Magically puts out the torches, waits for signal to begin. Faerie Fires everything. Does a knife juggling act. Puts the torches back on at the end.
Marvin. "Please. I need to stay. With my friends." He lifts the bench upon which the pair are sitting. Mayor power makes the Athletics(1) a Nat20.
Geoff the Magnificent gives his introduction, downplays his ability. Starts with a card trick. Sleight of hand to know it was the 6 of clubs. Minor illusions the card to be inside his hat. One of them sees through the illusion, but his Performance(16) does well enough.
As he leaves, Razzie approaches with his three dogs. Tries to flirt with Essie. It's terrible. She goes in for her turn.
Ms. Esmerelda. "I understand you have been outsourced by House on the Stone." She uses thaumaturgy to make the lights purpley-dark. "The spirits speak to me, with a message for you!" points to the kid, beckons him. She shuffles cards. Throws three on the ground, spins a yarn about a troubled past, etc. It's very dramatic. Eyes roll back, lights return to normal. Performance(16). Dizzler likes it, not dissimilar from his old bits. He sees the value in fortune telling, as some who won't pay to see the circus will pay twice to hear their futures told.
Razzie goes in. Some of the group spy to see how this goes down.
He starts by trying to get the dogs to dance. Crit fail -5. "It's... it's a new bit."
Tries a canary trick. Covers and crushes the cage, pulls another bird from his pocket. Crit success, but Nat uses their reroll. 13. I use my reroll. 4.
"What's your name again? Razzie?" "Yes, yes, Razzie the Magnificent!" He's directed to lift the cover to ensure the safety of all the performers. He refuses. Raise it or there's no chance of Razzie passing this audition. He does. Dead bird. "This performance does not do those things. In Dizzler's Dazzler, we do not abuse animals." "But I have other tricks." "I will say good day, and we will pretend this audition never happened."
Razzie finally accepts his failure and exits, accuses some of us of telling Dizzler how he did his trick, the one we've probably never seen him do. He gives us some lip about working against him and his dream, and he leaves in a huff with his dogs.
(We break for dinner.)
We return to The Frolic Room to await the posting of the cast list. There's a piano player. After a few songs, the dwarf comes in. Shakes off a wet umbrella, sees us. "Oh my, you just can't wait to see who made the cut, hm?" We are all on the posted list. What's more, we leave tonight.
We go first to the Baron's estate to say our goodbyes. We're let in. (He's a hobgoblin, it's now established.)
"I'm glad you came to find me, because it saves me having to find you." He gifts us carts and animals to pull them to prepare for our travels. 2 carts, 2 carriages, 2 donkeys, 4 draft horses. We all say goodbyes, some hugs are had. Solitaire: "You're a strange old man." <- Transylswedish accent.
We investigate to see where Razzie makes camp, potentially to relieve him of his dogs. We manage to track the path in the rain and find him sobbing with one of the three dogs comforting him. We exchange some words, but he really seems to want nothing from us. He retires to his tent. A dog growls at us. We put out his campfire like responsible people and leave him be.
We retrieve and load the carts with our things. We meet up with Dizzler and set out for Herringbone. Also, we realize that we are the only ones not originally part of the troupe joining for this trip. One of the other carts slows to pull alongside us and addresses Solitaire, who doesn't speak. He then chats with the rest of us. Introduces self as Hark Leavitt of the Leaping Leavitts, family's asleep in the back of his cart.
Another 40 minutes later, we make camp for the night. Dizzler's cart is a pop-up camper, because of course it is.
We take turns on watch. During third watch, Niwri and Olallee notice that one of our carriages is on fire. Razzie has followed us... Roll for those asleep to perceive the call of alarm, roll initiative.
Those who are awake rush out to respond to the aggressor and the fire. He's trapped Willie inside the carriage, and he attacks! Marvin grapples him, but Razzie summons four dogs. But as the grapple becomes a pin, he's intimidated into calling them off... at which he is not terribly successful. We manage to put out the fire and knock out or intimidate each hound, and as we gain the upper hand, he suddenly succumbs to a spell and dies. We see a cloaked figure chanting, who tells us "Some of us are trying to sleep." Essie berates the individual for this, saying that Razzie didn't have to die, but the figure just returns to their part of camp.
At least we have the dogs now?
=== Book 2: Night and Day (10/4/20) ===
A group of intrepid carnival folk has decided to take up the generosity of their former ringmaster in pursuit of the guidance of their new ringmaster on the road of show business! But the real spectacle was the friends they'll make along the way...
Session notes:Marvin is weeping as he still holds Razzie's lifeless husk. Cutty takes his trilby. Ollalee digs out a grave. The dogs keep following his corpse. With a nat20, Marvin earns the affections of the four mastiffs. We have a funeral.
Come morning, we pack up and set out.
As we travel, we come to a point where the caravan slows. Someone is at the side of the road flagging people down. Some just move on, others drop coins or food. As we approach, we find it to be a Halfling woman with two smaller Halfling boys. Sign: Husband dead, crops dried up. We give them some of our things. Wilton prepares them a jar of honey, which Ollalee intercepts and downs. Cutty gives one of the boys the trilby. And of course, Kiel wants to gives the boys a dagger, like any responsible person would do.
We arrive at Herringbone. It's a bustling place. Markets, churches of many different faiths, and the West End. The red light district. The Covent Garden, as only Marvin's roll allows him to recall, is THE place of ill repute, but he doesn't share this knowledge with the party.
We're coming from the northwest, make our way across to the southeast. And the farther we go into the middle of town, the fewer non-humans we see. (Breton, human controlled region.)
There seem to be a lot of people on the side of the road yelling at our caravan. "You're not welcome here" "Take your sins out of Herringbone" "Stop your blasphemy" Banner, grey starburst, red gems in it. Symbol of the Church of St. Cuthbert. These are Cuthbertines.
One throws a tomato at Marvin, but it misses. Ollalee tries to get at the tomato. None of us sees who did it, thanks to Dan's nat20.
Wilton sends some sparks over their heads, and the crowd backs up. "You can see more at the show tonight!" But one guy is unmoved. Fairskinned, middle-aged human man, played by John Lithgow. Baller chapeau, wearing St. Cuthbert's regalia. Frollo, essentially. "There's not going to BE a show tonight!" He's too far for Solitaire to sully his clothes.
We reach our site. The veteran members get to immediate work, like clockwork. Burt Schwag, the seamster, also gets to work, calls us over.
Cutty offers to assist, but is told we are ALL performers! Says some unkind things about Cutty's current outfit.
Cutty first. Tailcoats. He acknowledges Cutty's skill and says they could work together in the future, Cutty acknowledges that Burt has access to better material than Cutty has ever been able to work with.
Solitaire next. Shoos everyone else away, whispers to him.
Wilton. "Ah, a professor now?" "I didn't know myself until I saw the playbill." Victorian hunting attire. Also, he is to take extra care with the fit of the upper chest. Burt understands.
Niwri (and Ollalee). "Is she opposed to wearing a collar?" The only clothing he thinks would work for the owlbear. Perhaps a fez? Niwri will be dressed as the Goblin version of the hunter from Jumanji.
Desi. Because Desi's transformations ARE the act, not sure what to do. But Desi takes the form of the church individual from before, requesting an outfit to fit that body exactly. Ooh, iiiiinteresting.
Geoff the Magnificent. Tuxedo is the way to go! Flexible, versatile, not easily singed. 
Marvin the Mighty. Old leotard is getting ratty. While he's being measured, Dizzler walks in. Lights a pipe. Dementine was the old bearded lady show back in the Dells. One of the more popular shows, in fact. They lauded her performance for legitimately being a great show. She didn't just have a beard. She had... more... than a beard. But people weren't ready to accept that. It's a tale of bias. In short, Dizzler is wondering whether Marvin would be opposed to being presented as the strongest HUMAN. People are uncomfortable, but Marvin sadly agrees to this.
Niwri asks about this and is told he doesn't have to worry about his appearance, because it doesn't apply to those smaller than humans.
There are rumors Dizzler sold his soul to get what he has now. Solitaire, with a nat20, knows he's been scraping by for years to make this work. Family hand-printing programs, and such. Dizzler knows that those rumors persist, won't publicly dismiss them. "You print the legend."
We make our preshow preparations. Solitaire seeks out the stage manager, the young man who was at the audition, to make sure the torches could be snuffed ahead of performance.
Desi runs his plan by Dizzler. "This is going to raise some eyebrows. And if there's anything we all got into show business for, it is to raise some eyebrows."
Friar Dwörkin is the Cuthbertian's name, we learn, and is one of the higher echelons in the Church of St. Cuthbert's. Correctors.
Wilton peeks out. Sold out crowd! But he's seen. Does a little show, returns. Tells the rest of us it's a full house. Geoff is amazed. Never had this happen before.
The Leaping Leavitts enter the greenroom. Hart comes up to us. Admires our new outfits. Introduces his family: wife Stephanie, sons Tim, Richard, Damon. We also see Dakken the Dark, who killed Razzie, in his flowing robes.
Opening routine! Dizzler explodes onto the stage! "People were afraid we were going to bring too much fun to this shit town!" People are into it.
Solitaire is "silent but deadly" Performance18.
Professor Wilton. Weaves a tale of giants and fire. Performace14.
Marvin the Mighty. Takes the stage with the dogs. Dancers set a bar across his shoulders. Two hang from it. Then another four are added. He gives the impression that he's struggling, just to lift them on only one leg. Performance7. It's not wowing, maybe because he forgot to rip off the sleeves of his tuxedo.
At this time, we hear chanting outside, St. Cuthbert's stuff. It's starting to drown out the band.
Captain Niwri and Ollalee. CRIKEY! Should get advantage, but the chanting outside is making it hard for the audience to hear. Performance16. Yay!
Dizzler announces a 20 minute intermission.
The protesting is becoming a problem, but it is their right to protest. We throw out ideas, but we're all too low level for the most obvious spells to handle this kind of situation (sleep, silence).
Geoff the Magnificent, who has to speak up to be heard. Performance15 despite disadvantage.
Desi. Performs as several magicians with minor illusion, uses a smoke screen to hide the changes and makes his faces appear as really good masks. Performace13. Alright.
Dakken the Dark. Bland intro. Walks to the tent entrance and casts a spell. It's silence, blocking the noise passing through. Asks the audience if anyone has a dead relative to talk to. Guy comes to the stage. Wife, Meredith. "When my eyes open, ask something only she would know the answer to. Then ask four more questions.
Some of us notice Dizzler is in the wings of the stage for this, and is holding a tiny leather pouch close to himself just for Dakken's performance. Dakken casts Contact Other Plane. His eyes are now a pale-ass grey.
Husband asks "What color are the stones in the engagement ring I got you." Immediately, in an alien voice. "Ruby." "Is it you??" "Yes." "You know I still love you right?" "Yes." "And think about you every day, right?" "Yes." "What do you want our children to do?" "Live." He then falls woozy. Performance14. It's alright.
The Sensational Leaping Leavitts! It's a lot of fun. Jesse White Tumblers. Performance16. Alright!
Zatch, Poet of the Big Top. Comes out from the front of the audience. Crutches. Very misshapen legs. Turns to the crowd and says, please, I am trying to preach the word of our god. Sets a holy candle to Pelor on the table. Reads a poem. It's an epic poem about Lowell Lestrange who sacrificed his life to protect our world from destruction. (See "Pride of Avalon" for in-universe details)
Dizzler calls everyone on stage for curtain call. Gives Zatch a kiss on the forehead.
Back in the green room, Dizzler is pleased. Great opening show, everybody! 4gp apiece. (Not Ollalee, though.)
As the event winds down, individuals do some extra entertaining, Cutty patrols, Desi wears a fresh face and shmoozes for information about the place.
And it gets to be 9pm and things are done.
The Leavitts spot us on our way out to hit the town. The kids, reportedly, prefer learning history Geoff's way. The middle kid, Rich (Dick) wanted to know of Geoff why all those people outside were yelling. Wilton tells a story about a goat. The kids don't get it.
We head off to the West End.
Studio 53. Some play Liar's Dice and make some coin. The others are people watching.
A woman approaches Desi. Striking, hazel iris eyes. "Greetings there, stranger. First time in the West End?" No, as it turns out, Desi used to work in the Double Throated. "You're with the circus aren't you?" "Nope." Deception roll. She works out that the rest of his group were with the circus, but the quick-change artist is strangely missing. More deception. She suggests she'd like to meet the artist and ask him to, perhaps, disguise himself as that Cuthbertian loudmouth.
A Chad comes up and asks Francine if "this guy" is bothering her. No, we're just chatting. Chad suggests Desi buzz off. Wilton steps up and pulls the same dialog against Chad. Francine and Chad exchange words. Chad and the group exchange words. He belittles us, coming in from the -Dells- and bringing our bad element, and he storms off.
F this. Desi changes to female for now.
We roll how drunk we got, and a few of us are pretty sauced. The most sober of the pack, the Goblin and the Orc (who is carrying Wilton, Solitaire, and Desi) end up trying to help the rest home. But we take a winding, uncertain path... and encounter Chad in an alley. "Well, look who it is! The circus freaks here to freak up the place!" He's got four buddies with him. We are rolling initiative.
We make quick work of the punks, but Essie fired a critical bolt into one of our assailants' skull, killing him outright. Solitaire, who is suddenly speaking a LOT, takes startling command and directs he group. Some are sent to find booze. The scene is set to make it look like the boys had gotten drunk and fought one another, with Chad's sword driven into the hole in the dead one's head, bolt removed.
"You successfully induce vomiting." (That extra touch...)
"Don't kill the townsfolk." <- Solitaire to Essie
As we finish "cleaning up" the scene, a few of us notice a window suddenly shut and a person pull away. At the third story. Solitaire attempts to Mage Hand some gold up to her. With a Persuasion15, she accepts the 30 gold we'd found on their persons and not another word was spoken.
We return to our camp. Sleep the night. No incidents. Long rest gained, hangovers had.
BREAKFAST BUFFET! Taken care of by a gnome chef named Sayer. She greets us!
We nom. It is a delight.
Hark comes by and tells us how the protesters may not be a problem since some one them apparently got into a brawl in the West End last night, one stabbing another in the head! Wow! We all roll Deception to convince him we don't know anything... and we Kuma down Hark's 5 to be below Niwri's 4.
We do acknowledge that we went out to the West End, but not to the Covent Garden (and indeed we hadn't). Cutty: "Why do you ask about that place specifically?" "Oh, well, I wasn't ALWAYS a family man. I do like to hear the stories. Costs nothing to window shop, right?" "Hm."
Jaden Penslowe, the stage manager, comes to us and says we have a visitor.
It's the woman who was at the window... Felicity. Marvin begins to weep and starts confessing to everything he's ever done. Meanwhile, she wants to negotiate the terms of her silence. She wants out of the brothel (she works at the Covent Garden) and to make it as a dancer. She's a human in her twenties. Not the most attractive. Her charisma modifier is shown to be -2 when she shows us her moves and gets a modified 0.
(Jack injured himself. Whiskey in his eye. Wow.)
We agree to try to get her the audition. Go to talk to Dizzler. Marvin immediately starts weeping and confessing to everything, again. Cutty puts a hand over his mouth. Essie spins a yarn about her long-lost sister needing work. He tells us to bring her over right away. Her audition manages a Performance10... with inspiration and a reroll.
But when she departs, he asks for the real story here. Marvin starts on his life story again, but we eventually manage to impart the truth of how we were attacked and left one of them dead. Dizzler correctly concludes that the girl saw everything and is up to speed. He'll see about including her in the opening act, but will only go so far as to get her safely out of the town, not make her a member of the circus family.
As we start on the day's preparations, we see Richie Leavitt sitting on a log crying. Marvin goes to him and cries as well. The kid has a black eye. "Do you think we circus folk are bad people?"
=== Book 3: Anything Goes (10/11/20) ===
Opening night was a success despite the efforts of the puritans from the church of St. Cuthbert. For better or worse, some blood has been shed. Most notably, young Richie Leavitt got a shiner which is making him question whether or not the life in the circus is a truly noble path.
Session notes:"Officer Candy Tube"
Picking up where we left off, Essie is sitting next to Richie rather than Marvin because Jack isn't here yet.
She talks with him and answers his questions, but her nat1 roll means she really failed to sell it. "I wish I was never part of this circus!" and he runs off.
It's Saturday. We have a show tonight, a matinee Sunday, and then we expect to depart.
Wilton goes to shop for alchemy supplies. chats with the elven woman who runs the shop. Because the seventh moon is in retrograde, she is forbidden from restocking (??) so ok then, bye...
Essie is approached by Dekkin the Dark. "Esmerelda. You're... not like your friends from the Dells. You're... ready to get your hands dirty." Lays down some ivory strips, a common component in divination magic. She plays dumb. "Where did you learn divination?" She read books in the orphanage. He's amazed she never went to a college to learn her things. She goes on about having been chosen by fate, etc. Deception19. "I'm interested in your services. I want to know something that the dead CAN'T tell me, a secret the dead can't say, because if you know the secret, you never die." He wants her to divine something, she asks what he's willing to pay. 20 gold right now, if she can reveal an answer ABOUT the secret. The offer becomes 40. She rolls to try and snatch the pouch of coins, Attack6. "All I need to know is, when I meet with Mr. Book, will he tell me what I want to know.
Essie puts on her performance, Deception24. All signs point to yes, and she gains 40 gold pieces.
As we continue our preparations, Francine (the girl we met in the West End while people were gambling) approaches. Desi goes to greet her. She mentions that there won't be any protests tonight because Father Dworkin put a curfew on all the faithful, after last night's unfortunate events. Also, she believes Scott (the first we hear Chad's actual name) when he claims that one of the carnies killed his friend, and also that they went out LOOKING for trouble. And FatD doesn't believe that they got drunk and stabbed one another. They won't be here tonight, but FatD will not rest. We have been warned. Meanwhile, Desi puts on the Friar's face and appears as him. Francine knows it's Desi, "That's good, and I know the Friar hates it."
Wilton goes to talk to Hark, asks about Richie's whereabouts. He had a tussle this morning, is resting up. Wilton spots him playing jacks by the trailer.
Showtime!
Solitaire adds sword swallowing to the repertoire, Performance23
Wilton, Performance(Nat1). Flies back, leaving a crater. Dizzler poofs in, brushes off his shoulders, "I didn't know history was such an EXPLOSIVE topic!" The audience likes that, all good.
Marvin, Althetics(Nat1) for disadvantage on Performance(10). It's not great. His troubled emotions from the past day are showing.
Geoff, Sleight of Hand(Nat20), Performance17. Woo!
Desi, opts not to continue with the Friar bit, does some snake charmer stuff, Performance19
The Leaping Leavitts take the stage, but they suffer a collision during the routine. This results in Mom being knocked off their acrobat tower. The lights cut out and back on with Dizzler in Mom's place, and they finish the act.
The rest of the show continues, backstage he calls us over. Stephanie Leavitt is in his tent with a large bump on her head. Wilton does a Medicine12, her neck is broken, and she is dead. He's giving us 500g to procure a diamond to restore her to life. Closest town is 60 miles away, and the clock is ticking, ten days, but he needs to keep her from rotting and her family from knowing. Northeast to the town of Anowstobenheim, where a Wary Hinson should have a suitable gem.
We exit the tent and immediately run into Richie. Cutty preemptively covers Marvin's mouth. "Is my mom in there?" Essie tells him she's fine. "I didn't kill my mom, did I? It's Timmy's fault for not throwing the ball high enough, and there was a crater in the ground, and..." Richie runs off, and we skip town for this spell material. Wilton experiences a bit of panic from the suggestion that his accidental crater may have been a contributing factor.
Solitaire and Marvin are driving. Burt Schwag sets up Solitaire's driving outfit. "Ah, you'll miss curtain call!"
Leading cart: Solitaire, Desi, Ollalee, Nirwi, Chassidy / Trailing cart: Marvin, Cutty, Geoff, Wilton, Essie
We agree to go 4mph rather than 3mph with a -5 to perception.
Two hours in, around 10pm, a tree collapses in front of us. Solitaire manages to stop the cart. Scott (That Chad) appears. With four others. "You killed Aiden and blamed us for it!"
At the end of the first round of battle, the front carriage's horse gets spooked, charges over the fallen tree and five combatants, and takes two party members with it. Nirwi manages to get it under control.
We slay the lot. Solitaire strips their bodies. Cutty and Marvin pull the tree off the road. The bodies are moved under the tree and fire is set to it.
We discuss exchanging the horses for fresh ones, but were are informed that there are no other towns between here and there. "Dan, I hate you." <- Kiel
We push the horses one hour past the 8 they can travel. Come to a stop at 5am. Long rest.
1pm, we set out again. At 5pm, we reach Anowstobenheim and immediately look for Wary Hinson's Exotic Goods. 
Angry customer leaving, complains he was only paid 30g for his "father's prized buckler." This place is probably a fence.
The gems he shows us will not cut it, but there's a suit of armor behind him with a large diamond set in the chest. It's legit, but he wants 900 gold for it, won't be further persuaded, and doesn't seem to have any tasks we could complete to make up the difference.
Wilton tries offering liquid from his alchemy jug, but after pouring acid onto his desk, Wilton and the rest of us are told to leave.
Solitaire casts sleep on the gnome. Dan figures out his total HP to see if it worked. But he has more than 22, so it fails.
In response to this, the gnome bangs on something below the desk. The main door makes a mechanical noise, and two suits of armor near it begin to animate. Shortly after, wall trophies hop down on mechanical legs, combat-ready.
Solitaire goes after the gnome and the gem. Cutty rages, demolishes the door, and invites Ollalee to come and join the fray. She pops over and restrains the gnome, which messes up Dan's escape plan on his next turn. Nirwi successfully persuades him to cut this nonsense and accept our 500g offer... so he drops it to 700. Which it turns out we have if we pool our coins with the 500 we were given.
Cutty tries unsuccessfully to put the door back in place. Solitaire gifts the shopkeeper the random weapon and armor bits we've picked up, for the trouble. The gnome gifts us a tiny, waxed canvas pouch. Hiward's Handy Spice Pouch. Solitaire also requests of the group to have the armor once the gem is freed from it. No objections.
We start on our way back. Four hours puts us at 9pm, during which time we manage to pry out the gem. We push the horses another hour. So far, so good. Another hour. One horse is exhausted. We make camp at 11pm.
No incidents. 7am. We have 9 hours to go. We set off.
As we near the town, we encounter two halflings with a sign, similar to before, but two guys this time. Solitaire tosses two silver. Cutty tosses them his latest hat. Wilton gives beer from the jug. But the one halfling isn't satisfied and hops into the carriage. We scuffle a little and convince him to go, but Cutty notices he nicked the diamond. Both Wilton and Ollalee grapple him, the latter pulling him out of the cart. Cutty tears the gem back from him and keeps it on his person the final hour until we reach the circus.
Dizzler is at his tent. He's surprised we're back so soon. We present the diamond.
Jaden says Sunday matinee went well. We ask how the Leavitts are. We go to check on them. Hark is glad we returned with the "medicine." Solitaire takes Damen outside to teach him some tumbling. By the way, Richie's not here. He was given a few coppers to go into town for candy.
We see him returning to camp. His knuckles appear bloodied.
=== Book 4: Finishing the Hat (10/18/20) ===
Our party has successfully brought back the reagents needed to bring an ally back from the dead! The bigger question is what's happened to their child?
Session notes:"I went out to find those kids in town before we left, made them regret what they said to me." He's convinced he killed his mom. Wilton tries to talk him out of this idea.
A carriage approaches with the Herringbone constable. Humans. They're looking for Richie. Oh, and what joy, Friar Dwörkin steps out. The child Richie had attacked, "Chadlet," is with them and freshly missing an eye, reports it was gouged out with a spoon. Solitaire goes to fetch Hark and Jaden, because this is getting beyond us.
Dwörkin is demanding a public flogging or an eye for an eye. Things... don't get better when Richie declares flat-out that he took the boy's eye in retaliation for their previous encounter. Cutty, aside to Desi, asks if Desi can appear as Richie with an eye missing.
Cutty, Desi, Richie, and Hark all go into the tent. One transformation, change of clothes, bit of screaming, and application of stage blood later, Cutty and Desi-as-Richie emerge. Marty holds back a distressed Hark. We present the "damage" to the constables.
Dwörkin is unconvinced, pointing out that one fewer person emerged from the tent, but the constables are considering this a done deal. Desi creates an illusion of himself near the tent to gesture at Dwörkin with a bloodied hand as they depart. 
Felicity appears, wants to ride with Geoff. Also, she's swole. Bad dancer, but built like one.
Old man with a leather-wrapped stack of a dozen books emerges from Dakken's tent. Wilton approaches him. "Book seller?" Turns out, this is THE Mister Book. He promises he can find all sorts of books. Notices Desi. "You there! You are very suited for your performances here at the circus, aren't you?" Starts measuring Desi, who becomes very uncomfortable. "An amazing specimen!" Ew. Desi attempts an Arcana4 and doesn't get what this guy's deal is.
We pack up our carriages and are ready to depart.
(Mr. Book is played by Christopher Walken in Seven Psychopaths.)
We check in with Dizzler. Stephanie is well! Wilton requests an alchemy kit. Dizzler stuffs his medical stuff into his hat, dons it, takes it off again, and pulls from it an alchemy kit, with the promise that Wilton won't blast any more craters into the stage. "Nice bag of holding trick!" "What of what now?"
Three days to Mergatroid. Traveling through the nearby forest Selva Stalfos, heavily elven.
The next morning, Dakken would like to... join us for breakfast? Geoff welcomes him. "I have reason to believe there is a cache of some value in a cavern nearby, but I am limited in my spelunking ability." he says, tapping his cane for emphasis. He just wants the book he knows to be there, the rest is ours. And there will be an additional 100 gold pieces each when we get him that book.
Tinfield the Wise, an artificer who got really into creating what he called "raw magic." Dakken believes his workshop is hidden in these woods.
Desi: "Is this why Mr. Book was here?" "Oh, you met Mr. Book? He didn't sell you anything, did he?" "No, he just touched me a lot." "Yeah... he does that."
RMS - some kind of magical defense unit. We're provided a page of its operations manual. It discusses motes and three phases of matter it can shift between. The instructions are fairly dense.
With a nat20, Nirwi leads us directly to the cave with no trouble whatsoever! Waterfall, and we know there's a passage behind it. But it's washed out and goes farther than the 60 feet Cutty can see in the dark.
Solitaire climbs down, setting pitons for a rope for the rest of us. We all roll athletics to climb down after.
Upon entering, we see a door of raw blue energy with two figures in front of it, one red, one green. As soon as we try to interact with them, they animate. We manage to overcome them by shoving them into one another and into the door and throwing energy motes at them, changing their phases to solid and the door's phase to intangible. Once we destroy the creatures, we carry on.
The next room features a puzzle where we have to use more motes to change the tangibility of the end links in bits of chain until we have a single conduit from a generator to the next door. Onward again.
The next room features three of the creatures, one of each color, drawing energy from more motes, again of the three colors. At this point, with there being three of them and their phases changing to their advantage every time they made contact with one another, we actually had to work out what color does what to what color as the motes were limited. In simplest terms, it was the Pokémon type comparisons: Red > Green > Blue > Red (as in, Fire > Grass > Water > Fire). We are left with an intangible red one at the end which floats through the wall to seek out the (blue) door and return to the middle state ("active"), but it had stops bothering us, so we let it be and continue to what appears to be the final room of the workshop.
There, we find what seems to be his bedchamber, and his skeleton on the bed. We were promised all we could find there apart from the book, so we begin looking through his things. But as Cutty takes the artificer's mage hat, the three colors of raw magic rise from the floor in the center of the room and take the form of a large, bipedal dinosaur.
"I love the T-rex's big, yellow dick." - Dan
=== Book 5: Some Enchanted Evening (10/25/20) ===
Our troupe is certainly always willing to make an extra coin or two, but they may have written themselves a paycheck they'll never cash given the dinosaur made of raw magic they've just encountered...
Session notes:We battle the dinosaur construct, striking motes off of it and using them to bring it fully solid. Marvin climbs atop for a round, prompting it to use an entire turn bucking him away. We have a few close calls, but we survive the ordeal and grab the book, which appears to be fully blank within. We also score some loot!
10gp, 5 gems worth 10gp apiece, 4 rolls on the random treasure table
potion of healing, spell scroll, potion of climbing, potion of healing
Jaden: "Where've you guys been? You look like shit."
As we pack up, we are greeted by Dakken the Dark. Lambert gives him grief about the book, but we all insist he gives it up as we'd agreed.
"I dance into the bushes and take a shit!" "Oh, good, he went into the bushes this time." (Lambert/Cutty)
Wilton attempts to persuade Dakken to let him assist in the study of the book. Persuasion10. Dakken turns him down.
The scroll is identified as a Scroll of Swordburst.
As we come to Mergatroid, we see that the town is in a state of some shambles. Doors kicked in. Smoke. A pyre, possibly with bodies on it. Any who catch sight of Cutty appear startled and pull away. Hmm.
A half-elf approaches the head carriage and talks to Dizzler. Mayor Khyber. They were ransacked by a nearby orc tribe, the Mal'Ogadai, who must have been hit hard by the drought as well. It's decided we should put on a show pro-bono.
Heavy human, heavy elven population. Desi goes about town to try to gather bits of local culture to use in his show.
Cutty stays close to camp. He knows better than to go traipsing about town right now.
Wilton also stays near, tries to see if anyone has anything they can spare for the people.
Solitaire wanted to do some shopping, is uncertain due to the ransacking. But a 34% is rolled for the amount that was ransacked, so he's able to look for and purchase some blades for his swallowing act.
Lambert takes a mule in hope of finding some booze. 87% ransacked. One supplier has a hidden bottle, 50 years aged. Lambert wants to share it with the masses. Rolls a Nat20 persuasion, contested by a Nat20... made a Nat1 by mayor power. He dilutes it in a barrel of river water and made good.
"Did you say diluted or deluded?" "Yes."
Marvin looks sullen. Finds the most pathetic person he can find, an old man missing a leg in front of a messed up farm. Asks if he can help. "Not unless you can... RETURN MY DAUGHTER TO ME!" They cry together.
Geoff summons his familiar, an imp that takes the form of a rabbit. Goes around spreading the word of the show tonight.
Niwri hopes to find some bolts and arrows. Buys the max, wishing to help the economy as much as possible. Forages for some food. to supplement Wilton's effort.
Chassity buys a healing potion.
Essie stays by the tents, helps set up, stays low.
Following all that, Dizzler introduces the show with an inspiring speech.
Solitaire delivers on his sword dance. Wilton adds a pole climb "mishap" with feather fall to his routine. Marvin does well with his weight routine. Niwri and Ollalee do their things, not too terribly. Intermission. Jaden is sent to look for Dakken, whom no one's seen all day. Second act. Geoff performs with a Nat20, with loud clapping from backstage... Chassity does alright. Desi does his quickchange to appear as various townsfolk for a togetherness message aided by Silent Image, Performance17. Leaping Leavitts do well. But Jaden returns to report a problem, believes Dakken is dead. "There's a dried up husk of a half-elf in his trailer wearing his robes, and he's not around." Dizzler asks if Esmerelda wants to be Dakken the Dark tonight.
She is introduced as Dakken, uses thaumaturgy to do the lights. Has Desi planted in the audience to be the audience participant. She delivers to him a message about... a locket, from his grandmother. The locket! He remembers! It was taken by his sister! "Is her name... Jasmine?!" It IS!! (Carissa and Andre laugh the entire time they improvise this.) Performance24.
With a Medicine15, it looks to Wilton like this WAS indeed Dakken.
Geoff's Arcana21 says this was done by a burst of necrotic energy.
We look around. While we do find his spellbook, we don't see any books that we recognize. Specifically, the one we sought for him is nowhere to be found.
Niwri and Ollalee look for tracks. There are some, humanoid footprints. Leading away from his trailer, eventually stopping. More tracks there, pawprints? Bipedal?
We all follow the tracks, come to a place where the plants show signs of a spell being cast. Possibly a devil/demon teleporting away. Yikes. We go back to Dizzler to voice our suspicions.
Marvin sees the old man. He is gearing up for war. "I'm going to get my daughter back!" Marvin tries to reason with him that she is gone. He insists that they left plenty of dead in their wake, but they took captives for... another purpose. Cutty lowers his bowler over his face. The daughter's name is Tilda. He insists that if no one else does, he's going after her, and yes, probably dying in the process.
So... yeah. We decide to go be Big Damn Heroes. Cutty leads the travel, having past experience living in an orc tribe.
We come to the Mal'Ogadai settlement in the Mal'Ogadai Mountains. There are some crops, wilted as expected. We find someone keeping watch and stop at a distance. Niwri and Ollalee try to stealth to get the lay of the land, but we're noticed. Desi, in the form of an orc acquaintance, and Cutty walk up to negotiate. Then to threaten. They're told to wait until morning when the chieftain will be awake, so they return to the group to discuss our next move.
Lambert goes on a tirade about inaction while people need our help... apparently ignoring the rest of the party as we finalize and begin our covert operation.
We start scaling the 40-foot cliffs to make our way up into the settlement. Solitaire goes first to secure a rope for the rest, throws a dagger into the throat of an orc who was taking a smoke and claims the pipe as a trophy. As we climb to follow, some other orcs come to investigate the commotion. Solitaire imitates the pipe-smoking orc and convinces them to go back to their tent.
We scale the next cliff and are noticed again. We dispatch the pair of orcs in the nearest tent, but the chieftain has noticed us and is donning a pair of gloves... and nothing else. Ollalee rushes in and attacks, and the orc seems... stimulated... by her.
More orcs join the melee from nearby tents. We locate two captives in the rear of one of the structures. But the chieftain summons magical darkness around himself, complicating things. We ultimately break his concentration and Marvin manages to pin him. We slay him and the additional orcs.
Cutty claims the lambskin gloves and dons them immediately.
Wilton picks the lock to free the two captives, a human woman and and elven woman. They were hooded when brought here and don't know if there are any others. We confirm she is Tilda.
Searching the chief's hut, we find 100gp and 1 25gp bottle of rye, much like the one from earlier.
Potion of fire breath, spell scroll (2nd level), a robe with magical insignia, potion of ??? red liquid in a heart-shaped jar.
Featherfall is cast on the girls while the rest of us climb back down. We collectively stealth well enough not to arouse any more trouble. Returning to Mergatroid, we reunite Tilda with her father. Weary, we turn in for the night.
Some of us hear a bonfire at 2 in the morning. It's in the shape of the holy symbol of St. Cuthbert. Friar Dwörkin is there, naturally.
"Sinners! You stand accused!"
=== Book 6: Shall We Dance (11/01/20) ===
The circus troupe is carrying on despite the trials of the crop failures plaguing the land, but there is a new trial they are facing. A trial by fire!
Session notes:Friar Dwörkin is accompanied by four acolytes in tabards. The four are all holding maces. We tell them to get lost, but battle ensues. Dwörkin successfully charms Cutty, ordering him to tie up and offer (and reveal) the one responsible for the death of his follower, but Solitaire snaps him out of it before Cutty can act.
Richie and Damen creep near, followed by their mom.
Creature with large, extended claws appears within our campfire. Dwörkin wastes no time accusing us of summoning it. Cutty, in turn, tells Dwörkin to call off HIS monster.
The creature grapples Damen. Dwörkin tells his men to flee and assists us in subduing the thing. He manages to banish it temporarily, giving us time to get the boys and Stephanie clear of the skirmish.
"Wil-steal" as Wilton deals the final blow. The creature dissipates into smoke, which Niwri is able to track.
It enters a tent outside the Leaping Leavitts' trailer. We follow it in, startling Steaphanie, Hark, and the three boys. Detection only turns up Geoff's fiend familiar.
We return to our camp, investigate to no avail. Dwörkin's long gone.
We chat with Dizzler. He suggests we talk with the local church, dedicated to Pelor.
We sleep the night. FINALLY.
Word seems to have gotten around town about our attack on the orc camp.
Chastidy talks with the nun there, Mother Dory. The church currently contains many people, recovering from their wounds during the orc attack. They chat about the orcs, the dying crops, the bishop. But nothing demonic has been occuring. We describe the creature and its gaseous form.
"Sounds like you may have been infected with a Bone Claw. Very vicious creatures, able to infest people." Nest inside people with a particular dark side.
"I'm not going to say this is all because we didn't let Dworkin whip the piss out of the boy, but this is all because we didn't let Dworkin whip the piss out of the boy." -Solitaire, written word
Crowd of people by a nearby farm (not the one from before). "Oh god, it's terrible! It must have been the orcs! They're back!"
Tilda has been torn to shreds (you say). The claw marks look like those of the creature we fought last night. Within the last 4 hours.
Do some asking, Newit is the name of the other woman we saved, and she's right over there! Asking her turns up nothing. They didn't really know one another. She only came by with the crowd after the fact.
We go back to the Leavitts. His bothers are outside playing jacks. Richie's in the tent, looks forlorn, has been there all day with Mom. Wilton takes her outside to talk. Solitaire and Cutty stay with Richie.
We tell her what we learned, and that the church is seeking someone to help rid Richie of the Bone Claw, assuming they're correct about all of this. She agrees and we bring mother and child to the church and to meet the specialist they've managed to contact. Naturally, it's Dwörkin. Yippee. He's not about to stop being antagonistic toward us, but for now, we must dine together to declare our temporary alliance for the sake of helping Richie. Whose eye, Dwörkin notes, seems to have healed miraculously.
During the meal, Dwörkin has us all say what good deed we have done today to calm the chaos of the world. Come Richie's turn, he says he didn't do ANYTHING.
"Read the room" has become the phrase of the scene.
We're going to go on a quest insude Richie's very soul. Adventure!
After Stephanie is denied taking part, there's an incantation and we find ourselves in another place.
Old farm. Tim, the older brother, towering over us. "Time to learn, you useless turd." Throws a boulder-sized rock at Richie, but it hits Niwri. We roll initiative.
When Richie doubts himself (or someone in the scene chides him), Tim grows Huge. If we persuade Richie, Tim returns to Large. Other opponents come and go mostly for the sake of insulting and incensing Richie. We keep catching glimpses of his mom, facing away from us, and departing before we can reach her.
Solitaire, recognizing we're in something of a dreamscape, won't shut up.
Wilton claims responsibility for Richie's mom's demise. ALL the NPCs look at him. Gulp.
Solitaire spends most of the battle paralyzed and unable to speak freely. Ha!
Walking into the house after the battle, the scene changes. Now we're at the place where his little brother was born. Hark is there. "Don't you want to meet your little brother? He's gonna be better than you at EVERYTHING!" Giant woman corpse in the adjoining room, blood everywhere. Wilton goes to perform a medical check, and a demonic entity emerges from her bloody goin. It blows a strong wind at us, and his dad turns into some shadowy frightful thing. The far window breaks, a swirling vortex outside it.
The neca-cherub tries to force us out into the vortex with its wind, while "dad" keeps putting us to sleep. We overcome the pair.
Through the next door, we are in an alley of Herringbone. It's the boys Richie went after in the eye-gouging incident. They want to play jacks with us, a game which now involves being slowed and experiencing significant body horror. We each have an eye pulled from our sockets. I don't think I like this game.
After a few agonizing rounds of inching up to them, we manage to subdue their leader. Our eyeballs shoot back into our faces. We are told it is very unsettling.
We next enter a circus tent flap. It's Dizzler's Dazzlers. Richie's mom is there, her back to us again. Dizzler introduces Richie, who doesn't want to do this.
As we attempt to cross the room, we trigger explosions and the sudden appearance of more Dizzlers, who all say the same thing about betting we've never tried to jump over someone HIS size before. It's very obnoxious.
Meanwhile, Ollallee misty steps beyond them and sees Stephanie's face. She's... Stephanie, rather than some freaky dream wrong-thing. Weird.
Cutty encourages Richie, noting that the Dizzlers are correct, and we're being made fools of, because none of us can do the kind of things Richie can do. But we're trying anyway. Richie is persuaded, removing some of the duplicate Dizzlers. He tumbles over them the next few turns, but he fails miserasbly at the final one. Still, we complete the sequence.
Beyond the far tent flap, we see a book, the size of a door, with the emblem we recognize from the book we sought for Dakken.
=== Book 7: I Am What I Am (11/08/20) ===
The troupe has volunteered to save the soul of a young child from a vagrant spirit which is using him as a host. They have helped him overcome the trials of his traumas, now they need to face off against the spirit to see if they can purify the boy or if he is as much of a monster as he thinks he is... 
Session notes:Solitaire hands out our potions and spell scroll. We prepare and follow Richie through.
As we enter the final room, a manifestation of Dakken appeals to Richie, convincing him that he is nothing more than a monster and that he should embrace this for the power that can come with it. Riche merges with him in the center of the room, above a dark vortex that begins to grow, threatening to overtake the entire room. His mom is being held to the far wall by skeletal hands.
The battle commences, 'Dakchie' trying to pull us into the darkness while we hack at the hands holding Stephanie. They keep reforming, but we ultimately free her. She is able to bring Richie down from all this, tells him she loves him despite his flaws, assures him he is not the monster Dakken said he was.
"I'm sorry you all had to see everything inside of me."
Returning to the church where we are still standing in our circle, we confirm that Stephanie had not traveled in there with us. We chat with Dwörkin about what we saw and who Dakken is/was.
"Was this dark friend of yours into spellcasting? Necromancy? Was he any good at it? Bone Claws are a class-4 apparition. What happens when someone tries to become a lich, but they're not good enough." Seems part of Dakken's soul went into Richie while looking for a dark place in the absence of a phylactery.
He assures us our feud is not over. We tell him we're still not sure what the feud even IS. He likens our circus work to hedonism, the antithesis of Cuthbertian values. We opt not to argue with stupid.
We go back and rest. Wilton tinkers a toy as a gift for Richie that says "Richie's a hero!" when tapped. Stephanie gives Wil a smooch.
At breakfast the next morning, Dizzler talks with us. Given the current state of affairs, we're changing our schedule. He has secured our next gig, but it won't be for another 10 days, and it's the next county over. We're on our own for employment for the time being.
A high elf from town approaches us. Has a cravat, popped collars. He's Mayor Khyber's half-brother, Garren, looking for those who retaliated against the orcs. We are hired to be entertainment at a charity dinner and auction to benefit the town. What timing!
We then go about our day making preparations and doing whatever we do with downtime.
Some encounter a feverish, unresponsive woman in the road, twitching. They lead her to the church and leave her with Matron Dory.
Wil recruits Marvin to act in a routine he's plotting.
Garren Khyber portals us to Slade Estate. Named after the humans who used to have eminance here, but since taken over by the elves. Violently. Supposedly haunted.
A wood elf summons us for dinner.
They marvel at the presence of a goliath.
Ailmer Falee
Framed artwork of Deldrotch Leroulo (sp?) a general of the Elvish Army in the war. Founder of the place. Wilton proposes a toast, but is told this was a faux pas as the figure was cause for much bloodshed.
Steamed vegetables, fertilized by a hunted condor. We learn that this is typical for them, while eschewing the consumption of meat, to consume exotic game vicariously through the plants that fed on them.
Wilton tells a ghost story about a buried severed hand. Palm tree?
Aegis Denillis (sp?) dressed in hunter's garb tells one next. Says that the area was once ruled by the creatures of the feywild. Suggests they defeated the humans before Deldrotch Leroulo had arrived to reclaim it. Blue, choked to death in the night, their lungs filled with ants. Hints that anyone spooked may want to sleep with their mouths closed, perhaps burn some sage to appease the spirits.
Dessert, fruits. Aegis says he grew them himself using the essence of a humpback whale.
He refutes the suggestion that their way of life is a kind of religion. That implies faith in something intangible and unseen. Saying we have faith in the soil is like saying you have faith in the air you breathe. "Best not to have it displaced by ants." Many chuckles, "Oh, you!"
Solitaire burns some sage. We sleep well. Perception 19 doesn't notice anything all night.
Breakfast. Fruit.
Dinner. Performances. Solitaire opens with a mess, but we recover through the rest. Jack fell asleep, so we start editing his image into memes.
The auction begins. Some artwork goes for 4000 gold pieces. Khyber buys a love potion for 1000. Cloak of the Manta Ray, couple thousand to someone. Potion of Resistance. Geoff gets in on the bidding. Desi, 100g. Dust of Sneezing and Choking, Wilton 65. Spell scroll, Hypnotic Pattern. Platinum Vial, potion of invulnerability, Geoff wins. Feather token, fast, high bidding, sells for a couple thousand.
The following morning, no one comes to greet us. In fact, no one seems to be around, anywhere. We head to the main hall and find many of the items from the auction are still there, along with a note addressed to us.
"Greetings, Troupe. Thank you for deciding to perform for the Slade Estate Hunters Lodge. As a thank you for your service, here is your promised compensation, and you may also have one of the items from our last night's auction. You are only fifty miles east of Brassington. If you survive the hunt, you may keep it!"
We're game, in a manner of speaking. Taking more than one of the magic items triggers a choking gas trap. The note apparently meant one item total, not per person. Thanks, note.
We choose to bushwhack rather than taking the roads, knowing this will take us an additional day of travel at best. But we hope that this may help us avoid some traps and ambushes.
80 ft deep ravine. Bridge in the distance, but we opt to climb down and up again. Ollallee slips, but Wilton catches her with a feather fall. On our way up the other side, we are discovered, and they are about to cut our rope.
=== Book 8: Defying Gravity (11/15/20) ===
After the party was able to rescue the soul of a young and troubled child, they carried on with their benevolent agenda and performed a benefit for the reconstruction of the raided town. The auction was a real gem, if only the party knew that their lives were going to be on the block!
Session notes:"I'm gonna make a big fucky-wucky and end up in the forever box!"
One guy at the top, two flying 20 feet out from us. Desi casts a spell at the two, and one loses concentration on Fly. He splatters. Solitaire blasts the one at top off the cliff edge. Cutty scrambles up ready to haul up the rope. Wilton blasts the remaining flier, breaking his concentration. The one falling from the top rolls a Nat20 to catch the rope where Wil is, except no, Mayor Power says it's a 1. Splurpch. (Turns out this was Garren Khyber.)
We head south a few minutes, Niwri casts Pass Without Trace, and we head west again. The rest of the day goes by without an encounter. (d100, 54)
While Solitaire casts a ritual to give us shelter for the night, we keep watch. Ollallee spots two large eyes in the bushes, alerts Niwri. It's a large-size owlbear. Male.
"Can we have a boss fight where something DOESN'T have a boner for Ollallee, please?"
They try to communicate with and/or shoo the thing away, but it's taken a keen interest in Ollallee. Initiative.
Ollallee uses three languages to tell it to stop, surprising some polyglots.
Wil raises a clamor to try and scare it off, potentially letting all of China know we're here. Essie does likewise, and the beast is frightened.
We pass without a trace again, traveling another hour west. Solitaire summons the shelter, this time using a spell slot to cast it.
The night passes without incident. We set off again.
Eventually, we come to a raging river. Solitaire uses the Cloak of the Manta, tying a rope a trees on opposite sides. We take turns crossing the rope.
Geoff rolls two Nat1's. Kiel gives up his reroll and he makes it. Wil is struggling and nearly falling into the torrent when two high elves (we recognize from the gala) emerge from the bushes. Roll init.
With their sneak attacks, they deal massive damage to Sol and Geoff, the latter of whom pops up at 1. Ollallee bampfs across and heals Solitaire, but gets struck down herself for Solitaire to heal. Wil drinks a gilly potion and takes to the water to attack. Marvin swims across but gets shoved back into the water. Cutty unties himself from the tree where he's ready to cacth people and also swims across. Geoff calls down a fireball on one of the two, igniting some trees in the process. Marvin pulls one into the river, but he climbs back out, just to be axed by Cutty. Niwri webs the other one and we put him down. Loot the bodies, roll them into the river, and carry on.
We stay the night. Nothing comes up during watch, but Cutty's hunter's trap has been crushed by something large.
We reach the forest's edge, and someone calls out to us. "Greetings, hunted!" It's Aegis Denillis. He starts monologuing about how the others are too modern with their approach and weapons, but he prefers the experience of going toe-to-toe with his prey... but Wil launches a firebolt at him, ending the speech and launching us into combat.
When he touches the ground, his feet light up, and two large insectoids erupt from the earth. He also summons clouds of insects.
Whenever he should take damage, it appears that one of the insectoids is taking it in his stead. Once both die, a huge centipede erupts from the earth, joining the fray and similarly displacing his damage.
Wil increases Marvin to Large size, allowing him to grapple a Huge creature. "I look up to the sun, to which I am now slightly closer. I point to the centipede and I scream, I have a need for 'pede!"
The 'pede grapples Cutty, creating a non-human centipede of grappling.
The 'pede goes down. Aegis starts taking the damage himself, dispelling the cloud of insects within which he'd taken refuge. Large Marvin drags him around. Solitarie deals the killing shot, shouting "Booya!"
550g, potion of healing, magic wand will baller fucking insectoid appendages on it. Fail the roll for there to be a hat.
Two hours to go. We make it! Welcome to Brassington. Coppertub Inn. Niwri pays for our lodging and drinks. Wil gives Ollallee some honey.
The next morning, we do some shopping. Oddly, they don't seem to be under the strain of the famine.
Wil goes to a jewelry store for a pearl to cast identify on the feather. One thing led to another, and he ended up paying an extra 5g for a gnome to give him a pearl necklace. (??!!)
We refresh our rations. Cutty pays 2g to repair his hunter's trap.
Wil casts identify as a ritual. Feather Token of the Whip. Desi asks further about the food situation. Seems they're doing trade with the northern islands, which are unaffected. Wil buys some goggles to tinker into night vision ones. Cutty finds no magic weapons.
We make it back to Mergatroid. Tent's down, our carts are still there. As we approach, we hear music being played, very loudly. Upbeat, sounds like an orchestra of some 40 instruments? No one seems to be at our tents. Weird.
We follow the sound of the music. A training ground for horses. There's a band, jamming, looking exhausted. Some 80 people bouncing and dancing, very strangely.
=== Book 9: I've Got Rhythm (11/22/20) ===
Having successfully eluded becoming the most dangerous game, our party has returned to the village of Mirgatroyd, where there appears to be much dancing, but very little merriment...
Session notes:We recognize some of the music performers are the Schweinhaben Band, the dwarven players from our circus.
There is a nun from the Church of St Cuthbert, bearing the markings of a novitiate, a nun in training. Also, she's Francine, the one Desi met at the bar.
They believe the people are afflicted by overheated blood that can be danced out. Thanks to money provided by the mayor's brother, they've hired the band to play! She goes on to explain that since Matron Dory's failed, they've stepped in to help! Yay!
We need Goat's Rue as medicine, but no one wants to make contact with the town as they're all assumed diseased. The apothecary at Crewton, he knows her. If we can manage to get there and back, Dr. Schyttlipz should provide it free. May even offer us something extra.
Crewton is nearby the Dells. There is a direct road, but that takes us through the forest from before, Selva Stalfos.
We return to the circus encampment. Schwag is there. Tells us Dizzler has something for us. We go to his tent next. "Ah! How'd the private performance go?" "Oh, we really killed." We're each paid 42 gold for the past week. We're being paid by the town for our downtime, part of the hiring of the musicians. As Dizzler explains it, if anyone goes through him to hire part of the troupe, he insists the entire troupe is paid. Good negotiator.
We tell him what we're up to, and we set off. Cutty rolls terribly with advantage (1,2)+3 Survival to lead us, but the DC was 5, so we're OK! Solitaire turns the map the correct way in Cutty's hands, we make a 180, and we set off to the northwest.
We see Richie as we leave. We wish him well, Solitaire skywrites to him to keep practicing his tumbling.
A day's travel without incident. We come upon a small village, Heavy Birch Grove. Elven, amenable to all kinds of travelers. Twin Cucumber Pub. We speak to Figwin, who doesn't want to open the door. Wilton bluffs that we came from Herringbone on our way to Crewton, but he calls us on that as there's the more direct road between the two places. Cutty explains that he was navigating, makes a show of the map being confusing. We're eventually let in, and he explains the plight in Mergatroid as he heard from the Cuthbertians. We play dumb, though Marvin has a lot of difficulty.
Cucumber salad and cucumber stew. And... a well-dressed human man in the VIP room has ordered us a round of drinks? An elven wine cooler. Afterward, he waves us over.
Geoff introduces himself. The man is Herrick. He saw us perform in Herringbone. How's it going in the circus? We explain that we're stalled at the moment because of the drought. We don't mention Mergatroid. He goes on, that things are tough for everyone, but none less than Dakken the Dark. "Oh, you knew Dakken?" "I didn't, but my friend did." He looks intently at Desi. We're very curious. "What I want to know is, what did you do with the book?" "What book?" Dan rolls a Nat1, fails the insight against this bluff.
As things develop, it seems that he believes Desi is Mr. Book, knowing that Desi is not "in your natural form," and that he has the book on him. He demands that it be placed on the table, would be a shame if they had to make a mess in this inn. "If I did have the book, why would I give it to you?" "Then I'll just have to take it." Initiative.
We web, silence, and grapple him. But the four of us seated near Herrick find that we have sat down upon mimics, and are summarily ASSaulted.
Solitaire rolls a Nat1 attempting to dagger the chair, hits his own junk. Does not lose concentration, though.
The chairs scuttle around to attack Solitaire. Once his concentration is successfully broken, Herrick teleports away out of Marvin's pin.
We dispatch the remaining mimics. The bartender, cowering, tells us the chairs have never done that before. We ask him which room Herrick had.
His room is untouched, except for four regular chairs. Geoff hauls them back downstairs.
We turn up no trace of Herrick and ultimately retire to our rooms.
First watch, Wil and Marvin, the latter of whom is still trying to disable the chairs.
Second watch, Desi as an orc and Cutty, they discuss how Mr. Book had taken measurements of Desi and taken such a keen interest. Cutty agrees with Desi that Mr. Book must have spent some time impersonating him in the time since we've met.
Third watch, Niwri and Ollallee. The former tries to explain the nature of Geoff's rabbit familiar to the latter.
Solitaire, Geoff, and Bunny fourth watch. Perception check! Geoff hears whispering. "Geoff, we need to talk." He looks around. It's coming from his rabbit. "You know, your friend Desi is not who he says he is. The person you once knew as the quick-change artist is gone. He's been replaced. I know because he used to work for us, but he didn't understand the nature of the contract the way that you do." Geoff is giving little responses. Geoff's part in the exchange is all that Solitaire sees, talking to Mr. Wabbit. Geoff tells Solitaire what Mr. Wabbit told him. Solitaire writes back "Even if that was the case, ...so?" Wabbit: "Do not trust him. He's only using you to protect himself. Your friend is gone, and if we need to kill you to get the book back, we will." Mr. Wabbit shudders, scratches at its head.
Geoff suggests that the guy we fought earlier was speaking through the rabbit. Solitaire rolls to understand this, has heard of entities speaking through animals, particularly fiends. S: "Yeah, you're probably right." G: "Do you trust Desi?" S: "As much as I trust any of ya." Geoff dismisses the thought.
Breakfast, cucumbers and egg salad. Wilton wants pickles. ALL the pickles. Nom.
We continue along. Niwri is here now to lead. 22 is better than the 5 on the previous day! On the way, a 92/100 means we encountered a shop. "Myfloon's Mystic Artifacts" An elf greets us. Wil trades the feather token for a potion of clairvoyance. Geoff asks for something illusory. Myfloon produces a black cloth. Asks Geoff if he has anything he doesn't care about. Drops Geoff's candle onto it... the portable hole. 4000 gold pieces. Would he trade for a potion of invulnerability? Hm, no, but do you have any MAGIC BOOKS? We roll our eyes. Geoff reports he doesn't have any. "None at all? Wait, don't go!" He says he'll level with us, he received a vision that he'd meet us and be rewarded if he got from us a magic book. OrcDesi asks him about this premonition. He's being offered his family's safety from the famine. We explain that we're being hounded by someone seeking the book and convinced we have it, which we. do. not. But he doesn't seem to know anything about the one seeking it, as it was a dream being that appeared to him.
As we continue, Geoff tells us of the conversation with Mr. Wabbit. We discuss that, we discuss Mr. Book's behavior while meeting Desi, we discuss the famine and whether it's even likely it's connected to any of this, and we check our belongings just to be CERTAIN we do not have the book. We' don't.
We decide to camp out for the night rather than risk involving others again when we are inevitably visited, because we know this guy isn't done with us. Aloserine Vale. We prepare our camping space, summon the hut, set traps, and cast alarm zones. Same watch order as before.
First watch, Dan rolls a 100... Wil gets a Nat20 Perception. Spots Herrick approaching. He talks with Wil, insists that Desi has the book, despite our having checked. "The book was offered in a contract that was not deemed legitimate."
Herrick acknowledges that he can't take us in a direct battle, so he'll be relying on denizens of the vale to do it for him. Our dome is surrounded by wisps. Some of us ignore them and rush Herrick, who teleports away, and the wisps start giving us some real trouble as they gang up on those who are outside the dome. Most of us return to its shelter, but some can hear the incantation from the bushes to the east as it is dispelled. But standing together, we manage the wisps more effectively.
As the fight continues, a hooded figure appears with a glowing sword and strikes Herrick hard, revealing both their locations. Herrick counterattacks the apparent ninja and drops him dead. "Fucking mortals! Can't believe you'd waste my time like this!" and he again bampfs away, this time exiting the battle entirely.
Solitaire fells one of the wisps and rushes over, grabbing the glowing sword.
Once all is done, we unmask the ninja. It's... Myfloon?? He has the portable hole on him, plus 5gp and the feather token.
We camp out the night again. Nothing more happens.
The next morning, we seek out Myfloon's clan to the north, where he had told us they could be found. Wilton starts trying to explain the purpose of our visit while Marvin just starts bawling. We're directed to his (Jandori's) father. He thanks us for our service, seems a bit perplexed that we went through all this trouble. Refuses our offers of items and gold, but is surprised we have the sword. Jandori had come to him last night seeking it, saying he needed it for vengeance against a corruption against their god (the form taken in his dream where he was tasked with finding the book). Says he wants us to take it from this place. "It is the Scimitar of Vengeance." He also doesn't want the portable hole back. "Jandori was selling these things because we didn't want them." He rewards us for our services.
Necklace of Fireballs, more Pocket Sand (Dust of Dryness), an Elemental Gem (to summon an elemental) blue sapphire, Potion of Growth (enlarge spell).
As we continue to Crewton, we find a blockade at the bridge with the insignia of St Cuthbert.
=== Book 10: You'll Never Walk Alone (11/29/20) ===
Our party has decided to help the ailing town while they're still paid to perform for them. But it looks like while they were playing for the Hunters Lodge, someone else has been playing their sorcerer... 
Session notes:We opt to get in line to cross the bridge. We see that they are stopping and checking people headed in both directions.
At the checkpoint, we find ourselves to be under the effect of Zone of truth. First cart is headed by Desi and Solitaire, then Marvin and Essie. Desi finds he is unable to lie. Solitaire has no trouble writing "NO" that we haven't been there. Essie later has no trouble lying. (Dan had made our save rolls in secret ahead of time.)
Having passed the bridge, we come to a broken down cart with a few well-dressed individuals. They need a wheel repaired, will pay nicely for assistance, except ACTUALLY they're looking for Mr. Book. The guy says he's sure we've already encountered ruffians who just want to "curry favor with the Ultraloth," but he just want to serve this writ and reclaim his body to deliver to the Tower of Incarnate Pain. We explain that his supposed alias is a real, separate person, but the man doesn't care. The judge will decide that. But we're still not giving up Desi, so it's combat time.
They transform into a large, winged demonic guy and a medium, insectoid demon.
Wil levitates the insectoid, which in turn fears him and Marvin. The rest of us pile on the larger demon who keeps making a break for Desi. Eventually, the smaller one reaches the ground again and starts flurrying running attacks. We drop the larger one, and the smaller one also starts focusing attacks on Desi. Essie deals the final blow, and the two dissolve away, leaving a pair of bowler hats, to Cutty's delight.
We examine the writ, trying to gleam all we can. Among the stated offenses seems to be the alteration, potentially transmutation, of the book. This opens the possibility that the book is currently not in the form of a book.
Desi adds the form of Mr. Scales to his repertoire.
By day's end, we make it to the doctor's. He recognizes "Mr. Book" and reminds him, no refunds. Also, he has a missive from The Sisters. It reads, in infernal, "Awaiting delivery."
We mention we're here at the behest of Francine. "Oh, Francine Dwörkin?!" Oh, she's... Dwörkin's daughter, we discover. He produces the Goat's Rue.
We get some presents. Thieves tools for Solitaire, components for Wilton to make a prosthetic leg, a vicious greatsword for Cutty.
The doc claims he recognizes "Mr. Book" who was wearing a different face when they met a few days ago thanks to Devil's Sight. We know that Devil's Sight... doesn't do that.
Wil starts questioning Desi. Desi asks that we do this outside. But opening the door, there are some 18 Mr. Scales circling outside.
"Whoops, close the door! I took your advice that they might be back, Mr. Book. Magic Cirlce, they ain't comin' in."
Desi reverts to true, natural form. "I don't know what's going on!"
There's an underground passage (the Deep Reaches) out of here that Mr. Book had taken the last time, connects to The Sisters' Covel, per the doctor. We discuss our options.
In the end, Desi opts to take the form of Jandori Myfloon's father, being an individual Mr. Book wouldn't have encountered.
Desi and Solitaire discuss their meeting several years ago, and potentially using this knowledge to identify Desi in the future if needed.
Niwri begins leading us through the Deep Reaches. After some time, we make camp for the night. Same watch order as usual.
Marvin asks Wilton what happens when we die, concerned for those we've been killing.
Second watch, Cutty asks if Desi is OK. Desi talks about not wanting to die, having not been his original self under his original name for so long, the possibility that his memories have been altered. Cutty does his best to listen and comfort. Desi asks Cutty about where he is from. Cutty discusses his old clan, lost, but that these folk here are his family now. Suggests that if Desi turns out not to be who he thinks he is, Cutty looks forward to meeting the person he is. It is worded awkwardly.
Niwri and Ollallee next. From within the dome, they spot some drow approaching, along with some kind of hound. Cavacan. Niwri wakes us, but we opt to stay put and stay quiet. One knocks on the dome. But they continue on their way.
Geoff and Solitaire, who have had a full rest but also terrible nightmares. WIS save. Solitaire failed and did NOT get rest, but also did not take a level of exhaustion (CON save). Dream they were in the circus tent, and Dakken the Dark was there. "You're not safe from me. I'm coming back!" Many explosions, then awake.
As we all wake, we ALL had bad dreams. And all had to make these rolls.
As we emerge, Solitaire spots the drow hiding in the direction from which we came. We try to continue, but they emerge, bows drawn, so we ready ourselves for combat.
We drop their hound immediately. They speak in elven, telling us we will pay for aligning ourselves with that evil wizard. Fortunately, one says, they reclaimed the soul of their sister. A spectral elf emerges and takes posession of Cutty's body. WITHOUT CONSENT.
Ollallee gets embiggened! Possessed Cutty gets webbed! Eventually, the ghost leaves him and tries unsuccessfully to possess Desi. Turns out, weapons work against it, though magic weapons work better. We slay the drow and destroy the spirit.
"Oh, you should've thought about that before you fuckin' LIKED IT RAW." - Jack to Dan
(Also, Dan presently has two Nat20's in a row with no d20 rolled since.)
=== Book 11: If I Were a Rich Man (12/06/20)===
The nefarious plot of Mr. Book is coming together with our party in the thick of it! Perhaps their answers lay within the hovel of the mysterious Kenny Sisters... 
Session notes:Desi leads as we carry on along the path. We travel an entire day without incident. Camp the night. Dreams again, saves and all.
Wil performs detect magic as a ritual. We set out our belongings for inspection, just to see, again, if we're unknowingly carrying the book.
We come to what appears to be an exit from the cave system. Not the only way out, but the first we encounter. Wil drinks the potion of clairvoyance and gets visions of a hut that we would find in that direction.
We go on. Desi knocks on the door. "Who IS it?" "Mr. Book and company." They open the door.
"Three nasty-looking bitches" as they are described to us. "Mr. Book, is that really you?" "...yes." Deception 24. "Oh! We didn't recognize you."
"I've come to collect... the thing." "Oh, about that... your delivery's been... misplaced?" Dan's Nat20 means we can't discern anything about that lie. But they explain that it's being held up in Mergatroid, which is set to be purged with fire any time now. Eep.
"There's one way to prove you're Mr. Book. What is the passcode to get to our coe-ven?" Solitaire:"Coven. The word you're looking for is coven."
"You're not Mr. Book! You're Desi!" Initiative.
Geoff's fireball ignites the house, and their fireplace is suddely burning with a blue flame. Wilton discerns some of their nature as hags, warns us to separate them as they're stronger together. Marvin is happy to oblige, pulling one out the crumbling window while Solitaire blasts another through the north wall. The third is banished.
"Let's just take the orc!" We're doing well, until Cutty fails a WIS save and is Held Personally. The other one casts something to activate the blue fire, taking Cutty with them. And Marvin, who had the one pinned, declares he goes as well.
Desi breaks concentration on the banishment, returning the third hag to the field. They attempt to coerce the passcode from her to activate the fireplace again. (Meanwhile, Cutty breaks the paralysis with a Nat20, Dan do a shot. But on their turn, they paralyze both barbarians again. Cutty and Marvin start taking damage each turn we are already paralyzed.)
The other hag taunts us and blinks away. The rest are left to try and recall and investigate and whatever else, but they keep coming up short.
A voice from the woods shouts "Kemezicks!" Wilton immediately repeats it, and the fire turns blue. Everyone leaps in. New battle map where the three hags have the two barbarians cornered, but with a surprise round.
We clear the encounter, search the room. Find some brass plates on them with a name and a roman numeral on each. Also, a pair of hag eyes. Ew.
As we get our bearings (we seem to be in the forest NW of Mergatroid), we hear organ music coming from below somewhere along this tree. We sneak down a ramp.
Another room, one large humanoid at an organ. Another in the corner sharpening a butcher knife. Three human women, naked, bound and set at a large table. We enter the room and battle commences. Striking the large creatures seems to instead damage their captives. Troubling. Geoff becomes convinced the organ is the cause of this and bathes it in flame.
Most attempts to free or lift the women are thwarted by INT checks, everything seems like impossibly heavy stone. On his second attempt, Wil sees through the glamour and the image of the girl fades. There's another hag standing there atop a stone centerpiece. Well, game on. Geoff, later: "There are witches?"
Following some curses and breaking their concentration on them, we manage to fell the hags, which collapses the large creatures to whom they were linked. The third "woman" turns out to be a petrified corpse, by all appearances. We find more nameplates on them.
Also, there's a door with eleven name plates and spots for one more. We decipher the Roman numerals on them, correct a few errors Dan made preparing the puzzle, and determine which of the six belongs in the empty slot, opening a treasure vault. Cha-ching.
We then book it to Mergatroid, finding siege vehicles stationed outside. Ruh-roh.
=== Book 12: I Dreamed a Dream (12/13/20) ===
||THE SEASON FINALE TO A THRILLING FANTASY TALE!||
While the party never found out what Mr. Book had sent to the Kenny Sisters, it was apparently lost to Mirgatroyd. Thankfully for Book, the village is slated to be destroyed by the church of St. Cuthbert. Will the performers in the local circus be able to stop the destruction of the village? 
Session notes:The guards are on strict orders not to let anyone in or out. They don't know the name Francine, but we can talk to their commander.
There are trebuchets. We work out that they probably plan to pelt the town with alchemist fire.
Dwörkin is there, of course. He's startled when we report that Francine had sent us and was reportedly in the town. Some of us immediately doubt that it was really her, realizing the possibility that Mr. Book could have sent us on this task that happened to bring us in contact with all those people seeking him.
Mr. Damask, the Minister of the Faithful, is the one who gives Dwörkin his orders. We COULD travel several days to be denied an audience with him, but that doesn't help the situation at hand.
Dr. Nightingale is working on the cure. Ultimately, Dwörkin is awaiting word from him whether Mirgatroyd can be spared.
Dwörkin is willing to bring the medicine into the village, but Wilton is concerned that Dwörkin will walk in and Book-as-Dwörkin will walk out. Tries to talk around this, but Dwörkin insists we spill the beans. We give him the short version of what we've been dealing with the past several days.
He attempts to cast Sending to talk with his daughter. She... IS in Mirgatroyd.
He'll kill us if we follow. He tells a guy with pauldrons to destroy the town if he's not returned by sunrise.
We sneak into town. Touch base with Dizzler. He assures us that he has contingency plans, but we'd better act quickly so they aren't needed. We go and see Schwag for disguises.
We find Francine at the church. She confirms that Dwörkin gave her the medicine and is in the back praying. And yes, he is there, though we do not announce ourselves.
She hasn't seen Dr. Nightingale all day. We check his cart. There's medicine in there, untouched. Clothes strewn about. Was HE Book? Niwri and Ollallee set to trying to track him. Track the scent to where Cutty had spotted someone creeping into the woods earlier.
We find a human strung up, swinging in a tree. Wants us to help him. Introduces himself as... Mister Snrub! Some insight checks see through that. Wilton cuts him down. He tries to slip away. Marvin goes in for the hug, but a Nat1 has him fail. Nightingale runs, but we catch him quickly.
He's fleeing because the people aren't sick. He can only guess at the reasons for the dancing, but they show no signs of actual disease. Telling the officials was of no help. Dwörkin has his higher orders, and Nightingale wasn't about to stick around for the inevitable conclusion.
Wilton suggests to him he's Mr. Book. This is met with genuine confusion.
We devise a plot to develop a placebo, a fake cure for a fake disease, to see if it prompts recovery in the afflicted. "We're not asking you to tell the truth. We're asking you to agree with our charade." -Geoff
We're heading back to the church.
We put on a performance presenting ourselves as infectious disease professionals. Solitaire begins performing a countercharm. They hand out bitter-tasting placebos. It... seems like it may be working? But only time will tell.
It's been a long day, and we all retire early in the church's bell tower, such that we'll be fully recovered hours before dawn.
Around 3AM, Francine creeps up to the bell tower. People are improving! Her dad will give the order not to attack.
Also, she wants to talk to Desi. Privately. He insists she say whatever it is in front of the rest of us, but ultimately agrees and heads to a lower deck with her. She is thinking the church may not be the future she wants for herself, but she worries how this will affect things with her father. Then a witchbolt happens and we all roll initiative.
We all rush to the scene to find two Desis battling it out and arguing, and both seem hostile to the lot of us as well.
Ollallee gets a Nat20 to smell one of the Desis, but Andre (who is conducting the parts of both True|Desi and Book|Desi) uses Mayor Power to make it a 1.
We do what we can to determine who is whom. The thing is, when asked questions, both are answering truthfully. What it boils down to is that one of the two has been traveling with us for a while now, and the other one... is Desi. Solitaire asks the former what happened the day the two first met, as they had discussed, but the answer is only partially accurate. Cutty, who realizes that the conversations he'd been having during second watch were with Book, sulks a bit.
Marvin does what Marvin does best, grappling the two. "Could you put me down please?" "No. I will put neither of you down. It's time you learned a lesson about always letting people hug you and not making a face about it." "We will have a discussion about consent LATER."
As we gain the upper hand against Mr. Book, he taunts us and teleports away. "Guess I'm going to have to kill you the old fashioned way."
"Oh my god! You're the real Desi!" -Marvin, who has pinned Desi at the end of combat.
Fearing the worst, we hightail it to the siege camp, expecting Book to have gone to them shifted into Dwörkin. Sure enough, we are nearly caught in the first barrage and take some splash damage.
We reach the camp. They begin shouting that we "are trying to escape" and must be put down, ignoring our insistence that they have been tricked, and the real Dwörkin is still in the town. Geoff destroys two of the four trebuchets with Fireball, aided by the ammunition being caught in the blast. We cast spells and bashed at the other two, largely ignoring the operators aside from those Marvin targeted for squeezing. But with their ammunition destroyed and the destruction of the town effectively halted, we turn our attention to Dwörkin's tent.
Inside, Mr. Book pulls out THE BOOK and reads from it, summoning shadow creatures. He then blinks away and into a nearby tree. Cutty tells the others to go after Book while he handles the shadows, which then start lowering his STR score. But he manages.
While some kept the remaining Cuthbertines occupied, the rest slew Mr. Book. Upon his demise, another of the beings who were serving the writ to capture him appears. Desi eagerly offers him the corpse and the book. Asked what he would like as a reward, Desi blurts out he wants for the rest of the siege operators to be gone. The being obliges, vanishing them, adding that he never much cared for Cuthbertines. Eep.
The threat neutralized, we head back into town to assess the damage. We reach the circus encampment first.
The Leaping Leavitts are all accounted for. But chaos erupts again, severely, as we discover that there's a second siege camp. It's twice the size of the first, and they've started their volleys. Dizzler announces it's time for his backup-backup plan, takes us to his tent, and pulls an apple from his bookshelf. Outside, he has us all link arms in a circle, warning us "You're not gonna like this, but it's all we can do." He speaks an incantation, but just as he's declaring where to have it transport us, another explosion occurs. Impaled, Dizzler drops the apple. Wilton grabs the apple, shouts "FEYWILD!" And we... go...
== Season 2: January to June 2021 ( Faewylds? Harvae 29th - Autumre 12th 3104) ==
=== Book 13: Somewhere that's Green (1/31/21) ===
Escaping the siege weapons of the Cuthbertines may have led our party to places strange and wild...
Session notes:We emerge in a dark cavern, accompanied by a few additional people.
Web Wilder, artificer, self-cannonball performer. He was with us at the Dells, but he never showed up for auditions and hadn't been seen since.
Dante Blackstone, hypnotist and enchanter, not sure why people KEEP FORGETTING HE EXISTS. No, really, he was with us for all the preceding events the whole time!
Also present, but not known to us, is a dwarf in outdoor gear, tall for his kind, 5ft, shock-white hair and beard. Strand Allheart.
There is a being strung up on the wall, a Korred. Their coarse hair should be the source of their abilities, but this one is most hairless with straw as makeshift hair. Wearing a duncecap with Sylvan text. Essie removes it, and against his insistence to the contrary, cuts him down.
Four fully-hairy Korred appear, angrily brandishing weapons. We do battle and slay them.
We talk with Chirie, the hairless Korred. He speaks Common in brief bursts of words. "Stay! Out, bad! Kelrath, bad!" Kelrath is the archfey with whom Web Wilder had made a deal for knowledge, a fact he shares with us. It becomes evident that no time has passed for him since the night before the audition, so he's a bit confused that so much time has passed from our perspectives.
We learn that we are in Dortagrim, a vale of the Feywild. We emerge from the cave to a temperate forest stretching as far as anyone can see. No trails.
Discussing our options, it seems that one of our better options is to seek out Omarius the Almighty, in the Sapphire City. Alternately, we can try to seek audience with Kelrath, against Chirie's suggestion. The two had split their realms some time ago to settle a disagreement they were having.
Chirie sidles up to Desi. Recognizes he's special. Says he has his own special power, and pulls a book out of his fake beard. "Chirie, Magus." The book is titled The Magus, by Barrett.
Desi uses Prestidigitation to create the illusion of a small figure of Chirie. Chirie appears delighted, and then tries to recreate it but has no material components. Desi sneakily creates it for him, letting him think he did it.
We travel some way with Chirie leading us. There's a waterway that should lead out of the vale, but he doesn't want to make the trip and seems unsure that the boat will even work. As we reach our destination, we see that this waterway exists at the edge of the landmass, crossing impossibly over an empty void. But there is a boathouse, so we investigate.
Inside, a voice begins narrating our actions and words. We're not quite sure how to react, some going along with it, some defying it. Solitaire casts silence around us, which works for a few seconds until stones start flying at him from seemingly nowhere to break his concentration.
This is followed by the appearance of three demonic dragons, which are then whisked away just as quickly as the speaker opts instead to make their presence fully known. They are Wordkin, the Storysmith, and they will help us cross the waterway if we can win in a battle of storytelling. They describe a griffin-like creature with elemental powers, and we are told to describe our combatants to see whose reigns supreme.
=== Book 14: Big Spender (2/7/21) ===
Our party has found themselves in the Feywild county of Dortagrim. While their current guide may not have the brains, he's certainly led them to someone who will test theirs. In the storytelling contest of a lifetime!
Session notes:We conjure our combatants as follows:
Desi: The Snake Demigod from the winter campaign Hythonia, success
Geoff: The Baelor, failure (looks kinda like Trogdor, has disadvantage)
Wordkin: Androsphynx, summons an additional 9 reptilian creatures
Cutty: Arcanaloth, success
Niwri: Adult Copper Dragon, failure
Solitaire: Worldeater "The Hydra," success
Wil: Storm Giant, success
Strand: Roc, success
Web: Warforged Titan, success
Dante: Juvenile Kraken, nat20
Essie: Sings Trogdor, Adult Brass Dragon, nat20
Marvin: Himself: two sizes larger (Dan decides this is a Stone Giant), success
The battle plays out with several resistances and immunities coming into play. In the end, the party is victorious.
Wobert the ferryman, transformed into the figurehead of a giant, iron boat. "Oh yeah, I have to bring him back to life!"
Wordkin wants to come with us, wants to renegotiate with Kelrath. He won't be able to warp reality once he leaves the boathouse.
We set out along the mercury river, flowing over a black void.
Wil enlists Marvin's help, having him hold his ankles, to scoop some of the mercury river. But something seems to be tugging back on the vial.
"Ah, yes, those are just the void dragons. Mostly harmless, just don't look them in the eyes."
Web tries a hand at some fishing. When he sets the hook on something, Cutty tells Marvin to get ready to hug him. Sure enough, Web is being pulled to the edge of the boat. Marvin pulls back, and the hooked creature climbs up the side. Most of us avert our eyes, as we'd been warned.
Roll for initiative.
"That fireball put a giant fucking hole in the river! It's collapsing behind us!" Solitaire attacks the fishing line, hitting it twice, but Web maintains his hold on his catch. Ollallee manages to take away the rod and toss it, but this does not rid us of the creature.
We continue to attack, pushing it from the boat with a force cannon.
With the river collapsing behind us, Wil casts Haste on the boat. Two more void dragons appear. One is banished by Desi, and the other is dispatched more directly. With the ship still hasted, we carry on.
Ollallee and Niwri go off on Web for starting all that nonsense.
Reaching the opposite shore, things appear very similar to what we'd left, but there's a trail here. "This is Kelrath's Keep." Wobert is also hoping to renegotiate his terms. This feels oddly like the Wizard of Oz.
=== Book 15: A Million Miles Away (2/14/21) ===
Our party has a guide, a ride and an ally on their quest to get back to their home plane. But can they convince the Archfey Kellrath to release them?
Session notes:We notice wood carvings in the nearby trees, happy little nymphs, etc.
We take a long rest. Wobert keeps watch. Wilton makes a Potion of Boldness for Marvin. Clockwork Amulet for Cutty.
When our rest is finished (and it still seems to be night), those carvings... step out of their artwork? Bogeys, three of them, well-dressed but still made of wood. "Our primarch, Kelrath, will welcome you into his wood! In fact, you are invited to his court for the masquerade ball!" But Wordkin and Wobert are not invited. They must stay here or face immediate execution.
"Chirie, you stay here and watch the Wobert Report."
We are invited, as long as we make it through the woods. "Are they dangerous?" "Oh, exceedingly!"
Cutty uses Augury to ask about how the trek through the woods will go. Weal and woe.
Solitaire uses Survival, finds us a path that seems to avoid the fog. We come to a clearing. The more observant notice the fine spiderwebs on everything. Marvin grows really despondent as this is pointed out, recoils when someone tries to hug him.
Desi uses gust and another ability to move the fog in a wider range than usual. We hear this eject something from a nearby tree. Briefly see it, it looks quite arachnid.
Roll for initiative.
We dispatch three invisible arachnids without terribly much trouble. But Marvin has run off during the conflict. We track him.
Clearing. Table with a sign on it in Sylvan. "Prove Your:" Adjacent to the sign, a standing target board and an arrow with the phrase "poetry" written on the table underneath it. A quill, inkwell, and piece of parchment with the phrase "gluttony" written underneath it. And a loaf of bread with the phrase "archery" written underneath it. It is decided, since the fey are somewhat loopy like this, that we should do as they say. Chug the ink, write a poem into the target using the arrow, fire the bread from a bow.
A Bogey appears and congratulates us for being able to read! We get a roll on the magic item table. 20 +3 crossbow bolts. "Hopefully, these will help you find your way to the Unseelie Court!" and he vanishes... by going under the table. Where he very clearly remains.
We carry on. Hear the noise of a fiddle playing. We follow it and come to... a masquerade! As we approach, half of us fail the WIS save and are charmed, observing the dance.
A beautiful dryad approaches Cutty, flirts with him, tells him he's underdressed but she can find him something else to wear on his face. Gives him a smooch that deals necrotic damage. His nat20 Perception causes the illusion to dissolve in front of him. He rages and shoves her away. Those who passed their initial save also see the illusion dissolve, but the rest do not. Dark forest, dilapidated temple, lagoon with black water.
Battle against dancing dryads, along with a three-headed dragon-like creature that emerges from the water. All three heads come off during the conflict, but those then sprout limbs. More battling until those, too, are put down.
Inspecting the black water. The water itself isn't black, but something in there is making it appear that way. Web tries fishing again. A glittering, oval-shaped something appears in the water. Then another one. Then a big, smiling mouth beneath them. "Who has taken the dragon of the lagoon?" Web claims he did. "Then you must be a mighty warrior!" Web rolls deception. "I understand that you have been looking for me. In fact, I have been looking for you, too." Claims to be Kelrath. A light bridge appears, spanning the lagoon.
Ollallee rolls Wis19 to she if she recognizes the voice. Yes, but also, no. She tells Niwri.
We cross to the other side. Woods, fey architecture. Bogeys inscribed in the wood. In the center of the grove, a humanoid figure with a long, luxurious gown made of leaves and flowers. Dramatically turns, "Greetings, welcome to the Bundlewood Sanctuary." They acknowledge that we are strong warriors, even if that is not our... chosen profession. We discuss our circus life. Dizzler is mentioned. "Dizzler? You know Dizzler? I'm still making good my agreement with Mr. Dizzler." They will help us, but only if we seek out and kill Omarius the Almighty. Wil bargains further for the safety of the rest of the circus troupe, Dizzler included. Oh, and the three who helped us cross the river. Since they will have to continue helping us if we are to get to the Sapphire City...
So the plan is that we will go with their associate, pretending to be the circus troupe they are gifting to Omarius. They call upon... Dizzler. Who appears much younger than we knew him and seems to be meeting us for the first time. Timey-wimey!
===Book 16: Being Alive (2/21/21)===
After making contact with the Archfey of the Unseelie Court, the troupe gets to meet their new ringmaster: Dizzler the Dazzler?
Session notes:"Hello! You all look like you've seen a ghost!"
We discuss a few things, such as the nature of time and how it matters little here. How one kills an archfey (iron weapons work). What happens with the power vacuum afterward. Whether this guy will be joining us (Dante). "I keep telling you, I've been here this whole time!" Kelrath reminds Dante of their bargain, so yes, he will be joining.
Wil gets started trying to cap Ollallee's claws with metal, but Kelrath doesn't have a forge. But hey, we know a smith of another kind. (It's the wordsmith, guys.)
Dizzler wants us to start preparing to perform at the masquerade. "Oh, we're... doing that?"
Kelrath leaves. Dizzler wants to see what we can do. Wil acknowledges we worked in HIS circus. Cutty tries to interject, but Marvin gushes about EVERYTHING that happened. Dizzler rolls too low to make sense of it.
Wil then gives a better explanation what we've experienced and why we're here. There's some back and forth about whether it's safe to reveal so much, but the cat's out of the bag, so here we go. This Dizzler is here to ensure the survival of his son, as stipulated in his deal with Kelrath. But he also keeps referencing his wife, whom we've never met. Eep. Looking over the program we're carrying, he remarks that she clearly didn't make this one like she usually does, since its his terrible handwriting.
The artificers get to work again. Web imbues Marvin's dumbbell with the Enlarge spell. Wil grants a +2 to Essie's bow.
Desi has a chat with everyone, finally having the opportunity to discuss the time when Mr. Book had replaced him. Cutty officially welcomes Desi into his orc clan, the Mal'delier. Desi requests and accepts a hug from Marvin, just this once.
Dizzler tells us it's time to perform, also referencing how he will see us perform his later but our earlier. "The past is now, young man!" -Chip to Young!Dizzler, which was far more clever than anyone acknowledged.
Skinny, spindly trees with flesh faces stretched over them. Dizzler: "I guess this is the masquerade. Have I ever asked you before if the show must go on?" He goes out and tells a few jokes in introduction, met with expected silence from the trees. Solitaire uses prestidigitation to provide the Full House laugh track.
Solitaire is up. Kiel: "I guess in the Feywild, Faerie Fire is just called Fire." He succeeds in his performance, provides the sound of cheers.
Wilton does his contact juggling and history lesson. Even with advantage, rolls a 5. He generally feeds off the audience, you see, and this is just... weird.
Cutty tries to do his usual thing running security and Perceives. But a Nat1 means he, too, is just weirded out by this entire situation and can't focus on anything.
Marvin wants to do his animal act, so Desi uses Silent Image to conjure the image of the dogs. Marvin manages a 12. Not bad.
Niwri and Ollallee do their thing. 18.
Geoff the Magnificent! Does a card trick. Nothing fancy. 7. Dan: "It's a Professor Wilton-level performance, but you don't blow anything up!" Nat: "...thanks."
Desi mimics Chirie and family, again using Silent Image. 18. "Do the trees want him to take a bough?"
Dizzler comes out again, gives closing remarks, describing his hopes for his family, likening things to roots and growing.
Kelrath emerges, applauding, and looking confused. "This is custom?" They order the trees to do the same, and they slap limbs together. It's weird, for everyone. Kelrath then orders the masquerade to begin, and the trees begin playing music, sounding like the hoe-down scene in Back to the Future Part 3. Some trees begin to dance.
One approaches Cutty, gives a weird bow, and extends a vine. Cutty looks unsure, but he returns the bow and takes the hand. Dex17 means he keeps up with the tree's lead and dances well. The trees make a Soul Train tunnel and he is led down it.
Solitaire, wanting to avoid this at all costs, starts playing an instrument. Dante follows suit. Everyone else is approached by a tree and must similarly Perform their way across the dance floor.
As things conclude, Kelrath is glad for our having attended. They will be sad to return us to our world when all is done. Now, we are to return to the ferryman and head to the Sapphire City at our leisure. We are to return with the head of Omarius the Almighty.
"I have restored the Wordsmith's powers. He will be able to tell the stories he wants wherever he likes, within my realm." Also, we're getting a roll on the random treasure chart! A stick with what appears to be an outstretched palm. Staff of healing, bard/cleric/druid, so Solitaire takes it to begin attunement.
Kelrath parts some foliage and there are Chirie, Wobert, and Wordkin, right there beyond it. They cower. Kelrath restores Wordkin's ability, tells Woebert that he will become the weapons we wield there which Woebert accepts. Chirie voices wanting to help, but Kelrath dismisses him entirely and tells him to go home or be a liability. But we opt to bring Chirie since it's what he wants.
Ollallee tries to remember anything at all about Sapphire City and Omarius the Almighty, but she's fairly certain that none of that existed when she was last here.
We board the boat. Woebert resumes his place as figurehead. There is a new river of mercury.
Web prepares to fish. Half the party prepares to stop him.
We sail about a day. People make their preparations, and then Wordkin narrates our arrival causing it to occur.
"Wilton's Got a Gun." We make our requests for Cold Iron armaments to be provided by Woebert's material composition, which is limited. Some group members request ammunition to be used by others. (We are later warned we'll have to recover ALL the ammunition to reconstruct Woebert...)
Once ready, Wordkin wishes us luck. Chirie is raring to go. Solitaire gives him a dagger (not a cold iron one).
We approach. Lots of blue crystals growing out of everything. Wilton attempts to chip at some, gets a little sapphire(?). As we continue, Wil feels compelled to chip at MORE of them! And now we all roll a WIS save, which Wil automatically fails.
A voice speaks in our minds, identifying itself as Omarius the Almighty, and ordering us to kneel as crystalline constructs step out of the crystals. Roll initiative.
During battle, Dante asks Chirie if he would like to help. Chirie would like to do so, yes, emphatically. And so, he is polymorphed into a mammoth!
On his next turn, Dante puts Wabbit and Wil to sleep. "Uh... I'll Modify Memory later so no one remembers that." (Except it's pointed out that we don't actually know from where the spell originated, so...) We down the constructs without hearing anything more from Omarius.
We follow the crystalline pass, some riding the mammoth, and come to a pair of large doors. We knock. It is answered. Essie bluffs about our intentions, selling the whole gifted circus cover story. We are let in! He will bring us right to his highlord's keep. The guy's wearing a mask, very geometric. We are told we have to don masks as well to follow the dress code.
Led through the place. Essie manages to resist the urge to shoplift some crystal jewelry.
We are brought to a hot spring episode, directed to bathe while our clothing is cleaned. Solitaire and Wilton are uncomfortable disrobing in everyone's presence. Others, like Cutty, have no shame. Desi creates fog to obscure things better. Many of us discover that Solitaire appears to have natural webbing similar to a sugar glider's.
Another splash. Chirie has joined us! Chats with Dante about the polymorph, wants to learn how to do it himself.
An Eladrin woman appears, wearing a mask. Sliiiiides into the water. "Oh, I trust you all are a gift for Omarius the Almighty?" Sure! "I love the baths, where you are exactly as you are meant to be." Wilton disagrees, still hiding himself. She goes on about how we can be ourselves, be honest, let's talk honestly! "We didn't catch your name." "I'm Dancer." We all go around introducing ourselves. Desi introduces himself as Scourge Trouten. Succeeds on the deception roll.
She continues, that we are here to cleanse our bodies and hearts. Casts Zone of Truth. Desi lies again with a different name, Dracus Ignari. Solitaire also succeeds on the roll, "Solitaire the Harlequin."
She looks at Web Wilder, asks him to identify who sent us as a gift. "Our patron." Who? "Doesn't want to be named. It is to be revealed at the end of the performance." She tries Niwri, who just begs the questions. "What is the name of your troupe?" "Dizzler's Dazzlers." Dizzler gives a look no one can see in the fog.
"I'm afraid I cannot let you see him if you do not answer my questions." Wil tries to think of another archfey to name, rolls low. Solitaire rolls well enough to recall Oberon, who CANNOT be named. Slyly suggests that this is our patron, and this is the reason we cannot answer. "The HIGHLORD? It has been a lifetime since he left this realm. We heard whispers that he had been destroyed." "Time has a funny way of acting around here." Fair enough. We will perform. She turns and leaves, granting us all the momentary view of her fine backside. There is some leering.
We discuss the possible plans. Attack him during Solitaire's sword dance? Come clean and work out a way to deliver his head without killing him? Openly discuss the full situation with Omarius to see what other options exist? Deliver the head of a statue? Will we even have our weapons as we expect? "Oh, I have your weapons right here! Uh, not that I heard anything BEFORE that!" Dante modifies his memory so he thinks he's actually learned our act and must keep it secret, please!
Solitaire and Wil ask us to keep mum about what we've seen of their physiques. We dress and reequip.
We are led to the throne. Huge-sized humanoid, bulky Warcraft-style, Lich King-like armor, can see his glowing eyes. He asks us to confirm the lie of he-who-must-not-be-named sending us. Solitaire confirms. And we are to begin... are we still trying diplomacy?
Solitaire does his act well. Apparently, Omarius is familiar with clapping without having to observe it first. Interdasting.
Wilton has his turn. Better than last time.
Web does his cannon act, bouncing into his own bonfire. Well done!
Owlbear Show. Goes well!
Desi's Quick Change. Uses an element-shifted fireball for effect, shifts into Dancer, and back again (requiring a quick clothing shed-and-don).
Geoff was skipped, oops! Illusion show, ooh, things are not always what they seem! Places himself within a box, ports out of it, woo!
Dizzler gives curtain call.
Omarius calls us on not being sent by the one we claimed. We speak frankly, that Kelrath sent us. He guesses correctly that we were sent to kill him. We tell him, yes, we agreed to return with Omarius's head, but we would prefer to find a way to fulfill our bargain without having to die trying to kill Omarius. He seems willing to cooperate for a few seconds, before saying that he could more easily just feed us to his hounds. And the floor drops out from under us, sending us plummeting.
=== Book 17: Once and For All (2/28/21) ===
Our troupe was able to infiltrate Omarius the Almighty's throne room and after a decent performance, he declares them enemies of the state and drops them the pit where his enemies feed his carrion minions!
Session notes:We are descending, and it is dark as fuck in this pit. The trap door closes behind us. The total drop is about 80 feet, but featherfall was cast. There are spikes at the bottom with impaled bodies on them. Some notice that the eyes on these bodies are black as pitch. Wilton recognizes this as something that can happen when one's entire life essence has been drained. And the corpses have multiple puncture wounds in addition to those from the spikes where they are now.
As we land safely, we are enshrouded in magical darkness. Wilton succeeds in dispelling it. Three tentacle horrors that are functionally invisible in the nonmagical darkness. Initiative.
Their M.O. is to cast magical darkness, reverse gravity, and drop us onto the spikes. The only time one attacks physically is to swipe at Geoff with an opportunity attack. We interrupt some of the casts as we are able. Solitaire continuously chooses to fail the save against Reverse Gravity to get free movement out of gliding.
Chirie attacks! 1 damage! We are all very proud of Chirie.
Once they are defeated, we take stock of our surroundings. One way, a stairway going up. Other way, an iron door with sapphires set into it. Down the pit in the center, unmoving fan blades. The humanoid corpses look like they once held magic items, but those were drained of power. Cutty collects four bucket hats. Oh, and their coin purses all contain wrapped toffee candies, as if they used to be coins.
Dizzler casts Catnap, short rest in ten minutes.
Chirie chats. Wants to be acknowledged as a fierce warrior, but also wants to be a magic user. Asks to be shown how to use Counterspell as Desi had done to the void creatures. Desi mimes it, Chirie rolls a Nat1 on his performance.
Wil shares pot brownies.
Cutty uses Clairvoyance to investigate the room beyond the door. It appears and sounds empty, but for what appears to be a ventilation shaft up in the ceiling.
Wil suggests Solitaire crawl down to inspect the pit. Bones and refuse down the hole. Perception 24 confirms that there is nothing more to it.
We opt to try the door, since it appears safe. It's made of iron, which is unique for the area. Even the spikes were obsidian or something. Wil recognizes that it's open-able from this side, so it's meant to hold things within. Things that are likely dropped into the room down the shaft. We leave it be and head for the stairs.
As we climb, it's growing increasingly hotter. Desi suggests we are below the hot spring, maybe? Web gives Chirie a folded paper fan. He likes it, but quickly decides his enthusiastic waving of it has made him too cold.
We reach another iron door. Open it, into what looks like the smelting room in Terminator 2. This may, in fact, be connected to the springs. Creatures that look like Chirie but with fire instead of hair (or straw, in Chirie's case) wielding wrenches bark at us in Sylvan. Dante responds, telling them we survived and are just hoping to pass through. They tell us to go back where we came from. Dante opts to try charm monster on two of them, succeeding on one. We need authorization. He's going to go get the foreman. Can we go with? The other one insists we stay here.
"Korreds, like Chirie, no hair, fire."
A hairy Korred wearing a hard hat comes back. Dan rolls to confirm it has an OSHA symbol on it. Still speaking Sylvan, tells Dante that isn't a two-way door. Dante starts replying we're gonna carry on, then, get out of his hair. BUT, Chirie recognizes... IT'S HIS DAD! The foreman recognizes Chirie, tells everyone to stand down, declares we are family if we have taken in and protected his son, and invites us to his office for coffee. All still in Sylvan, so only Dante is getting any of this. (Vix's characters are still in the bushes, but we break for dinner, remedying that.)
Lots of iron here, which is still odd. Sparks flying from places, the fire korreds banging on things and such. The taller among us have to duck to get into the office.
He thanks Dante for returning his son to him. "How is this possible? I thought the realms were torn asunder!"
Discussion, in Sylvan but occasionally conveyed to the rest of us. The plight of the shorter beings. Not great under either archfey, really. There's a vent up to where Omarius sleeps. We will wait until the snoring can be heard.
Storage closet full of medium-sized furniture. 11 hours pass. Long rest.
It's time! We wait for the 5-minute window between the furnace firing up. Solitaire, Wil, and Essie fly upward. See Omarius snoring away on his throne. Wil ties a rope. Solitaire casts Silence around Omarius, but strangely, still hears the snoring. Wil floats nearer to investigate. Once inside the zone of Silence, it's muted. But "Omarius" still seems to be a creature of flesh within the armor. Essie perceives... that the snoring sound is coming from within the walls. Bas reliefs of warriors and such. Wil looks for an opening.
Meanwhile, the rest of us come up the rope as quietly as we can manage. But a couple have difficulty, and the furnace is starting to fire up. We haul up the rope and reduce Dan's Perception rolls so not to wake the sleeper.
But the stealthiness of our arrival is dashed once Wil opens the partition, waking the human behind it. He grabs at an egg-like thing and Omarius awakens. Initiative.
As we battle, Omarius teleports into the middle of the room. Three warriors step out of the bas reliefs. Wil attempts to dispel the force field in front of the human, but to no avail. Spectral knights are also emerging from the wall to attack and immediately withdraw. Wil attempts to Misty Step into the force-fielded room, also to no avail. We decapitate Omarius and continue battling the rest. Wil takes gaseous form to try to slip past, finds that the force field seems to be contiguous, a complete sphere around him. Tries convincing the human to give up. He insists that his additional forces are on their way to rout us, even after we finish dispatching his minions.
Wordkin strides in, "I see you have dispatched Omarius the Almighty as I have requested." He belittles the human, tells him he will tear the force field asunder. Some insight rolls see that Wordkin is simply putting him on. Waxes poetic. Everyone casts illusions and the like to really sell the story. The human finally relents.
Turns out, he also came here by accident. Omarius died somehow, and he began this grand deception. Just wants to go home. Will go along with us as long as we don't reveal to Kelrath his role in things.
"My name is Cod."
=== Book 18: Coming Up Roses (3/7/21) ===
Our troupe has finally vanquished "Omarius" the "omnipotent". But can the pauper convince the archfey to release our heroes?
Session notes:Wil gets a Nat20 to recall the history of Cod. (For the sake of this wiki, note that Cod was Jack's character in last year's campaign, Seas of Avalon.)
Karr, Chirie's dad, enters. Sees we were successful.
Cod proposes gifting the controlling egg to Wordkin and Karr, leaving them to rule in his stead. He splits it in two and gives them the pieces.
"He's a fey, he doesn't use iron. What's he gonna do, PUNCH my head off?" (R.I.P. Teeny Shrimpers, Cod's predecessor and Jack's FIRST character in Seas of Avalon)
Long rest.
As we exit the keep and begin making our way back to the mercury river, we are stopped by Dancer and Sapphire Guardsmen. Weren't we supposed to be executed? Wordkin presents himself, badge and all. "Who?" Dante uses Mass Suggestion to get us past them, but they are headed in to check with Omarius. We skedaddle.
Reconstitute Woebert, set off on the mercury river.
Commotion under the boat. Tentacles! Cod creates a protective circle, says these void creatures are nothing outside their native realm. He wanted to conquer the void, but found they were indestructible on their home turf.
Make it to the shores of Dyortagrim. Chip points out it's Mirgatroyd backwards.
Where we're headed, we find... a crater? No, it's a ball of void. Wil sends his tiny servant in for recon. Goes over, looks in, returns. "What'd you see?" "Nothing!"
Four void humanoids and two void dragons emerge. Initiative. They are taking no damage while in contact with the portal. Wil reduces the size of the portal to make more of them vulnerable. Ultimately rolls a Nat20 to dispel the portal altogether.
At the end of battle, no sign of any of the void stuff (except we're later told their corpses did remain). But we find a younger version of Dizzler's son Daejin. We reunite him with Dizzler. And his wife is there, too! Adja (pronounced ah-dyah)
Cod had traded the name of his god to Omarius for the egg and power that controlled Omarius. This is why he cannot name his god and doesn't have the direct line for miracles that he used to. But he should be able to send us safely into the void.
Weighing our options, we come up with a plan to have Niwri skin the void dragons and then have Cutty tailor them into disguises. This will work for four of us while the rest use invisibility to move about unnoticed. Cutty also consults the spirits about this plan, learns that this is doomed to fail, but what choice do we have?
"Now bow your heads or I'll bow 'em for ya." We are transported away, landing on more of those void things. They seem to have been crushed, not from our impact, but from their impact into one another. Interesting.
Niwri tracks Kelrath. Nat20! We find a trail of his cloak-leaves. Underground passageway, guarded at the entrance. Desi bluffs us past by repeating back the tail end of what the guard says, louder each time. Those who are invisible successfully stealth past.
(Dan tells us later that he didn't bother checking whether anyone had Tongues or Comprehend Language because SURELY someone does! So anyway...)
After a long, winding ramp, we come to what seems to be a... shopping district? But it is like an Escher drawing. We are approached almost immedaitely by a feminine-looking void humanoid who speaks to the dragon occupied by Niwri and Ollallee. She seems like maybe the dragon was familiar to her? We eventually opt to scram! Duck into what seems to be a book store. Desi creates an illusion of the dragons continuing to run past to lure her away and give us a chance to double back. Desi then... somehow seems to manage to buy a book using the toffee candies as payment. We follow Niwri to continue the tracking.
We pick up the trail and find a guarded, barred gate. Desi distracts the guards to Knock the gate open. We shuffle past them during the confusion as the woman from before reappears, pointing and shouting. They all give chase.
=== Book 19: Hasa Diga Eebowai (3/14/21) ===
Our party needs to get back to their home plane, but their ticket back just got taken as a political prisoner. Their efforts to find this person have landed them in the void hive of the feywild and despite knowing none of the language, they've somehow managed to offend someone of station...
Session notes:"T'kal pur! Neti!" The woman shouts at us once we are sealed inside.
Three void noids are reaching for their weapons. We roll initiative, but Essie goes first and gets Persuasion 22 with disadvantage, giving them pause. She detects their thoughts. "Have we been infiltrated? Are they here for the enemy of the state?" Dante uses Dominate Person, which fails because they're not functionally humanoid. His target addresses him. He seems to respond acceptably, but then we suffer a widespread deafening attack and return to initiative order.
Attacks aren't dealing damage, until Cutty grabs one and swings it into another, critically. On their turn, the void creatures do the deafening attack again and a similar blinding attack, affecting most of the party. Dante polymorphs into a huge crab with blindsense. Wil uses Lesser Resto to negate these effects on his allies on each of his turns. Essie swipes the sword from one of them and starts stabbing.
Desi, groping around the desk, hits a button opening the east door. Those who aren't blinded see that there are cells to the east.
"La'tem! Naak, NAAK!" -the woman at the gate
(Dinner break)
Bars shut behind us. "OREZICO. OREZICO. OREZICO." -siren noise most of us can't hear, on account of deafness. Flashing light emanating from seemingly nowhere. We begin taking levels of exhaustion and fall unconscious.
We awaken in separate cells near one another. Half the party teleports from their cells and look around. We are without our items and wearing void fabric muumuus. Wil takes back Niwri's leg to try and fashion useful tools. Desi uses Knock to open his and then Cutty's doors.
We hear the sound of someone approaching and talking. Desi can now grasp bits and pieces of the language. "greatest threat" "high danger" "immediate transport" But Desi cannot speak without his necklace, so he writes on the ground to communicate these things to us.
Three armed void guards and one more menacing guy with a Cloak of Billowing enter the room, seeing many of us out of our cells. "SNAKON! SNAKON!" Dante tries to charm them.
Ultimately, we are made to return to our cells. The highlord dismisses the other three over their protests.
"I have informed them that you are all mentally unsound and need to be taken to another facility for your mental illness." Wait, who are you? "I can't tell you that, but the show must go on." Dizzler is out of spell slots, and he's not sure how long he can keep up this charade and the spells to understand them. We're about to move. He doesn't know where our things are, but we're about to be outfitted like mental patients for our transport. The three return with straight jackets. But as he's talking with them, he suddenly goes back to speaking Common and starts trying to Persuade. Flash of Genius helps him, and the three leave, just before Disguise Self fades from him. He wasn't expecting to get this far, really, so there isn't exactly a plan going forward. Also, we've been gone a week and he thought we were possibly dead. "I've got this set of keys they gave me when I told them I was a mental health expert."
Dante borrows a needed material component to polymorph Ollallee into a mouse. We don the jackets in such a way that we can shrug them off if needed. Niwri rides on Cutty. Dizzler recasts his disguise, and we set out. Cutty consults the spirits whether heading left will find us our supplies, we get Weal. Dante sends a snake to scout around the corner. Three doors, no people. The first door, no sound, but scratches on the floor like something heavy and spindly was dragged in here repeatedly. Second door, bad smell beyond it. No magic detected behind either. Third door, there IS magic beyond that one. No signs of danger or foul smell there.
Dizzler opens that door for us. Our stuff! Also, Kelrath's cloak! We rearm and disguise ourselves as we are able. We shut the door as some guards move past in the direction from which we came. Once we're ready, the snake scouts the next corner. Stairs and guards.
We double back to check the doors we passed now that we're armed. Stinky room is a lavatory. Eladrin and tiny imp bones in the scratchy room. No archfey bones, for what it's worth.
We opt to head south, figuring going deeper into the prison complex makes more sense to find Kelrath. Three more doors, two small and one large like the one leading to our cell block.
Dante DOES detect magic behind the first door. It's an armory, three guards in there. Dizzler barks an apology and immediately shuts the door.
We enter the room behind the larger door. Beyond it is another cell block, its compartments occupied. Eladrin, little fae, little bogeys, and one containing Kelrath. No guards.
Dizzler's device doesn't work to open his cell. Knock fails. Essie tries to pick it open, 15. An ogre-looking guy starts angrily banging on his cell. Solitaire silences the area. Marvin tries to get in to hug him, fails.
Essie succeeds in opening Kelrath's cell! He opens his eyes from meditation. "Well, this was unexpected." We return his cloak. He can't do anything to get us home from within here. So we're gonna prison break! Dizzler's device DOES work to free the ogre, but... he's angrily charging -at us- now.
=== Book 20: Cell Block Tango (3/21/21) ===
The party had someone sneak in to get them out of jail! But sneaking out is looking to be more trouble than it's worth, they'll just need to break everyone out and hope they can make their escape in the chaos!
Session notes:Desi reverses gravity on the ogre, who manages to catch hold of the bars. Dante charms him to seem friendly to the ogre. Tries to reason with him, but the ogre speaks Giant. So does Cutty, however. Cutty offers to let the ogre pass and escape ahead of us. He agrees, so Desi drops concentration on the reverse gravity. The ogre kisses Dante on the head, says thank you brother, and charges out of the cellblock.
Solitaire casts Seeming, to make us appear as voidfolk, and Comprehend language.
As we reach the armory, the door blasts open. We have to save against the fire damage. The escapees are there, arming themselves. One guard sees us, calls upon us to assist him! Oh, whoops, we look like void noids...
Wil attacks the guard, knowing the firebolt will do no damage, to try and persuade the escapees we are on their side. But a Persuasion 4 says nuh-uh, given that they just watched a void creature unconvincingly deal zero damage to its mate. Desi does a better job of persuading them, allowing them to pass. The guard insists we need to be stopping them, but he's talked out of it and starts cleaning up the room. Desi then intimidates him into giving up his spear. Dante does a quick search and finds 1 (reroll) 8 armaments the escapees missed. Bolts, arrows, a handaxe, and a battleaxe. We arm ourselves with the void weapons and carry on.
A different group of escapees is engaging some guards past the stairs up. We try to sneak up the stairs, but they notice Dante. One of the guards calls out to him to assist, just before being butchered. The escapee points and shouts that we're next! Dante casts hypnotic pattern on the fracas. Two escapees resist the effect, but they hadn't seen us, so the distraction works. (8 guards vs 6 escapees, so this helps turn the tide for them.)
The stairs... connect to the stairs we passed. Great. We drop the disguises and go back down to see that the escapees have won. They see us, now as fellow escapees, and give a cheer, and they continue on through a door.
Figuring their guess is as good as anyone's, we follow them through the door to find... and empty room with a large pit in the center and a door on the far side. Cutty and Dante enter the room first and are grabbed by a large tantacled creature that takes them to the bottom of the 50 foot pit where they find the bodies of the failed escapees. Battle ensues. Wil recognizes it as a "Particularly elder eldrich horror" Resists lightning, Immune to fire, Vulnerable to cold.
Solitaire glides down and attacks, but the creature shambles back up, producing an Incendiary Cloud in the hallway where most of the group was still positioned, ultimately undone by Solitaire's dispel. Meanwhile, Cutty and Solitaire climb up to continue their attacks while Dante hurls magic from below, safe from breath attacks. Marvin successfully pins the thing, and Essie revels in Sneak Attack damage. Those able to provide healing do so. It takes more than 500 points of damage to subdue the terror.
After it's put down, we retrieve Dante and check the door. It leads to the entryway where we had lost consciousness at the start of all of this, and the security protocols seem to be active. We agree to look around more for a way to deactivate them rather than risking recapture by the same means as before.
Rounding the next corner of the hall, we see a woman at the far end. She is the one who had yelled at us previously. She slams the door between us, and the same alarms as the room we were avoiding begin sounding here...
=== Book 21: Used to be Mine (3/28/21) ===
Our party has been sprung from the holding cells of the Voidfey hive. They've almost made it out, too! But they've been thwarted by someone they may have wronged before...
Session notes:Dan posted an "Um actually" that turned out to have nothing wrong. We got 2x points for deducing that.
We charge the door. Solitaire unlocks it, and Cutty kicks it open. We assist everyone in crossing the doorway, beyond which we are no longer being affected by the exhausting effect.
There is a panel missing something in a hex-shaped indentation. There is also a chest here that reads "Security" in void script. Solitaire picks it open and gains some "Sweet Void Gloves" Wil examines the panel. Uses tinkering tools to try and deactivate it to no avail.
Ollallee looks down the stairs, finds some recently-disturbed, warm liquid pooled in the hall. With nowhere else to go, we all head that way.
We come to a larger pool of liquid, but much of it is white. Marvin tries to drink/chew it, because he's Marvin. Makes a con save. Takes a point of exhaustion.
There's an island in the center. The woman is there, and she pitches the hexagon into the fluid.
Three void beasts rise from the fluid. The woman starts to cast something, which Desi counters.
Desi reverses gravity, which seems like a good idea at the time, until the fluid all shoots up into the air. Eep. He drops it shortly after, dumping gallons of it onto Wil's head. He is made severely uncomfortable.
A ray emanates from her, striking Ollallee and reverting her to an elven child to everyone's shock. "No more masks," she says to the child in Sylvan.
Cutty reflects her legendary action's damage, aimed at Solitaire, back to her and kills her. HA!
Wil is planning to use Dust of Dryness in the area where the hex key was cast to attempt to retrieve it. But it seems to have no effect on the liquid.
Meanwhile, there's the matter of Ollallee's transformation into a child, which seems to be permanent. We get the explanation, from Niwri, of her past encounter with an unknown archfey.
Loot the body. She has a ring made of some peculiar silver, symbols of the moon, moon-silver?, which Nirwi takes.
Wil keeps working on getting back the key. Dispel magic on the liquid does nothing. It seems that there's some unknown element in the liquid that is not water.
Solitaire spots something odd on a far wall, some fae heads carved into the wall, one higher than the other. He goes over to investigate. The ears on the higher one, one appears to be moveable. Solitaire tries it. It starts dumping more of the fluid into the room from above, so he turns it off again immediately. Is there a drain for it somewhere? Wil goes over to take a look for himself. The lower head seems to have some erosion from where there was liquid before. Perhaps it's a sensor? We try bringing some of the liquid to it to see what happens if it gets "wet." About a liter's worth makes its eyes light up, but it runs out and they fade again. Solitaire uses his unused breastplate to scoop several volleys. Enough successes, and the eyes light up and a drain opens.
We try to perceive the hex key. Cutty spots it and leaps for it before it's swept into the drain. Success! And now the exhausting goop is gone. We return up the stairs.
Also, Nirwi gives the ring to Ollallee.
Kelrath and Dizzler seem to be discussing their agreement as we reach them. "Did you get the key?"
Wil wants to inspect the key, but he finds that he is too short to slot it into the wall panel himself and tries to hand it back to Cutty. Cutty instead lifts Wil to be able to reach it.
There is some discussion what to do about the now-child with us. She is haphazardly outfitted with extra armor pieces we've picked up in our travels.
We use seeming to again appear as void beings and make our way back to the front desk where we'd first entered the complex. We find that there are over a dozen elite warriors beyond the gate. "Is the scene secure?" Desi:"No! There're more down below!" This bluff works, but then they notice the seeming-children in our ranks. "It's bring your child to work day." Power of Kuma helps this succeed.
Once we're outside the facility, Dizzler calls out to Cod for our rescue. Dan discusses with Jack to determine the percent chance that Cod has already blown his use of the weekly god power. Success! We are back at Kelrath's grove.
Kelrath revels in his freedom. Shrugs off his leaf cloak and grows a new one. Cutty discretely grabs the old one, but it's now just a bunch of leaves.
We hurry over to where Dizzler's wife Adjia is. She's... dead. But they have a deal, and Kelrath sees to it that the baby is born, however deformed. Wil does his midwifing, for what it's worth. Then does a medicine check on the mom. 1. Halfling luck. 1. Reroll. 10. But there's still nothing to be done. Kelrath considers the pact fulfilled, as the request only specified the baby being born and not the life of the mother, and magics them back to their world.
And what of our agreement? Kelrath argues that the head we brought them is not that of the one who was ruling, but we protest Rules As Written. They ultimately accept.
Takes a seed, presses it into the ground, and it quickly grows into a tree. A knot in it opens into a portal. "You may return." "But when and where?" "That is up to you."
Ollallee goes to them, tells them she knows it was meant as a curse, but she liked who she was. Kelrath invites her to stay with them, perhaps make another pact.
Niwri and Ollallee are going to stay for a while. But... given how time works, we'll likely see them very soon. Solitaire wants no more of this sappy stuff and jumps into the portal. Wil gives her one of his contact juggling balls since she'll need toys. "Next time... more honey?" Hugs and goodbyes. Desi hugs them, too. Marvin tries to bring Cod through the portal, but it prevents his passage. Kelrath points out that no bargain was struck with Cod, and no amount of arguing was going to sway them. With half the party already through the portal, there wasn't much else to be done about this, so Cod is left at Kelrath's mercy...
We return to Avalon in a place we've seen before. Nearby is the burning hut where we encountered the three hags, with sounds of commotion inside. We recognize that we've reached the moment the party was trying to activate the fireplace portal. Wil, thanks to perfect recollection, shouts the password for our past selves to hear, "KEMEZIKS!" Stable time loop.
=== Book 22: Losing My Mind (4/4/21) ===
With a stroke of luck, our party was able to fulfill their compact with the Archfey and were seemingly transported back to their home plane, but the timing is a little off...
Session notes:We discuss our options, as well as what Desi recalls from his time as a captive originally. Strangely, his memories of this time are very foggy. But he's sure that he was being held in the coven's hut right here. Sure enough, DesiThen emerges from the building and tries to sneak away. Wil webs him, and DesiNow has Dante augment DesiThen's memory so he won't recall seeing us and believes he must make haste to Mirgatroid, ensuring he will meet up with the party there. DesiNow then punches Dante for being the reason his memory of the time was always clouded over, despite Dante's protest that he TOLD him to do it.
We recall the series of events. Solitaire wants to intercept our past selves to try to kill Mr. Book before the assault on the town occurs, but Cutty insists that the events we've already experienced are immutable, given our attempts so far to save Dizzler's wife. In the end, we're going to head to Mirgatroid to try and stop the north bombardment camp, figuring that either we will only be able to mitigate the damage they deal, or perhaps we can succeed but then put on a performance to give the impression for our past selves that things occurred as we saw them.
The fastest way, we determine, is to use the keyword to transport ourselves south of town, then head to the north siege camp from there. We magic ourselves to travel in disguise, just in case, but make it there without incident. We make camp near the north bombardment site, and the stealthier of our ranks do a bit of spying (while Cutty holds Marvin back).
Three siege engines are being constructed. There is a commander's tent, more ornate than the one at the south camp.
We camp for the night and make preparations. Wil does artificer stuff. Desi asks Dante to prepare the spell Illusory Terrain.
Solitaire's Void Gloves are identified, +1, allow the grappling of incorporeal creatures and to use an action to cause a level of exhaustion against a grappled creature. Solitaire gives them to Marvin. Marvin gives Solitaire a hug, pays him 125 gold pieces into his pocket in a way that Marvin thinks is discrete. It isn't, but Solitaire pretends not to notice.
Disguising and Seeming, we all appear human and wearing St Cuthbertine garb. We approach the siege camp.
A man wearing epaulets addresses us as we approach and identify ourselves as reinforcements. "The Minister of the Faithful did say we'd be increasing security. They do not believe there will be a cure in time."
Wil begins the sabotage. The commander questions this, and Essie continues bullshitting. We're a patrol that ALSO checks siege engines, and also mind your own business. Wil manages to damage the rope so it will snap when attempting to launch. Success against the second as well. On the third, there's an engineer actively working on it. Wil and Essie convince him to let Wil handle it. Successfully sabotaged.
As the time of the first (south camp) volley nears, the commander states that there is no word, so the assault will happen. Dante attempts a mass suggestion to get them to clear out, but it seems to fail on the Engineer and Commander. Thanks to new wizard stuff, they aren't aware of the attempt to charm them. But the minions are affected and in a panic, trying to flee. The other two go after them.
We raid the tents. So much explosive ammunition. We detonate them from a distance. It's amazing.
But approaching us from the flames are five masked humanoids with canes. They demand... THE BOOK! We collectively realize that we hadn't considered the fact that these guys would still be after it during this time period. There is groaning and frustration and face-palming and bloodlust. Solitaire DOES persuade them to find him at the south camp, but while it does succeed, they're still going to kill us first, supposedly for having defied them so long. Roll for initiative.
They have an effect, if we can see them, that causes vertigo, so some of us spend a lot of time crawling or rolling to get into melee range with the demons. But our casters riddle them with magic that slows some and causes two to be unable to distinguish friend from foe. Solitaire deals 69 damage (nice) in one hit. We fell them without too much trouble.
As we lay claim to their robes, masks, and canes, Mr. Scales steps out of the ornate tent. (We break for dinner.)
Mr. Scales chats with us. He acknowledges that there are presently three Mr. Books, and his scrying tells him two are fighting at the other camp, which coincides with what we'd told him. The demons we just fought were opportunistic scrubs who weren't worth Mr. Scales' time, so he simply waited for us to finish with them before chatting.
He agrees to go and retrieve the book and Book from the other camp, as we recall him doing the first time around, and asks if we would like anything as a reward. This time, we give it some thought, and request that he create the (harmless) illusory charade that will convince our past selves that the circus camp is under bombardment. Mr. Scales seems to find it odd, but agrees.
We rush to the circus camp to arrive ahead of our past selves and present ourselves to Dizzler. He greets us and quickly deduces that we have since met Kelrath. We tell him what's about to happen, how we experienced it, and what we have planned to make it go off without any injury to anyone. He seems excited to finally get to use the apple, and like he always says, the show must go on!
We are all hidden in his tent when our past selves arrive and the apparent attack begins. Dizzler fetches the apple, begins the ritual, appears to be impaled, and drops the fruit for Will to retrieve. When our past selves are ported away, we emerge to check on Dizzler. He opens an eye and asks how he did.
STABLE TIME LOOP ACHIEVED!
We traipse on over to the church where we find both Dworkins praying. He believes we are about to meet our ends, but we assure him we've taken care of it. He wants to head to the North Camp together to check it out.
As we exit the church, an enormous tree erupts from the ground. A section of its trunk parts in a familiar way, and out steps an adult Eladrin woman who instantly recognizes us. Solitaire:"It's tomorrow, I called it!" as he has no trouble identifying Ollallee, now decades older than we last saw her.
=== Book 23: Left Behind (4/11/21) ===
Most of the party was able to make it back from the Feywild without incident, and they were even able to create a stabilized time loop! An old friend just showed up to complicate things, though.
Session notes:Introductions with Ollallee. Solitaire knows who she is immediately, but it's Wil who recognizes her and says her name. Hug? Cutty wants a hug, too. Let's all hug!
Dworkin is going to report to his superiors that Dr. Nightingale and his assistants did cure the plague, and he has more important things to do than continue to harass the circus for now.
There doesn't seem to be terribly much damage from the first volley, and the places that were hit have been taken care of, though there were some casualties. Desi adds the likeness of one of the deceased to his repertoire to varying reactions from the group.
Ollallee wants to talk to Dizzler. We all return to the circus camp.
Dizzler is surprised at her age now. She wants to reaudition. Dizzler says she's got the job. But she wants two actors with her, one to play an evil wizard and the other a romantic interest. Dante volunteers for the former, Cutty bashfully says he'd do the other one if needed.
Wil goes off to see the Leavitts. The others follow soon after while Ollallee chats with Dizzler in private. Wil interacts with the kids.
Wil then seeks Marvin, asks him again about joining his act. "I like to hug!" Wil refreshes the casts of Enlarge stored in Marvin's dumbbell.
Dizzler calls an all-circus meeting. We're going on a month-long hiatus while he and his sons handle a pressing family matter, and no, he can't accept help for it, won't say what it is. Ollallee looks guilty, though no one presses her for the details of the talk they had. Anyone interested in continuing under his employ is to meet up in the Dells in thirty days.
We discuss our options. We have enough cash to survive a month without employ. Should we take a beach vacation? We already had the hot springs episode, after all.
Ollallee is concerned when the next full moon is. The last was last four days ago. Asks Wil about making a vessel to carry her fragile object while not being terribly specific about its nature. (Post-game OOC discussion determines she doesn't actually have to be concerned about the moon(s') phases.)
As we're gathering our things, we encounter Burt Schwag, our costumer. He's got a lead on a talent show in Westminstershire, Breton. "Avalon's Got Talent" The place is ruled over by Baron Galgal. He holds this show every month.
As we prep, we do some inventory management.
The Leavitts are also prepping to leave as we're setting off. We mention the show we're going to attend. Their mom shakes her head, explains that the Baron just ridicules everyone who performs, though the pay is good. Hark says he thinks it would be good for the boys to be exposed to that kind of performance atmosphere, and they argue a bit. Wil gives Richie a hug. Richie asks one of Marvin, too, who obliges perhaps too strongly. Dan tells us Marvin vomits all over Richie. (?!) Wil prestidigitates him clean. Marvin turns the boy around, and straw comes out of Richie. (?!) Hark asks his son if he was sleeping with the horses again. We all start trying to figure this out, but nothing comes of it. So we part ways.
We chat with Schwag again. He'll be going there, too, but he has to take a detour to get more supplies, so he'll see us there in a week. He taps the back of our cart. It sounds like a sword is rapping it. Odd.
We travel to Herringbone, one of two travel options but the other would be taking us by land through Elfton, a town Desi wishes to avoid. We arrive between 8 and 9 at night, and the next ferry will be in the morning. We opt to stay at an inn. One that ISN'T in the red light district. The Secret Pudding. Seems clean, no carousing. Half-elven host. Offers to take our coats for laundry services. Cutty hands him the pile of leaves that was Kelrath's former cloak. "Um... any special washing instructions?" "Yes." "..." We'll have tapas for dinner. Separate rooms, one gold apiece. Sparse, single-occupant rooms, very clean.
We establish what were are all wearing to dinner (including what form Desi is taking). We're told what we're eating, as Dan reads us a tapas menu. There are a few others in the dining area. Elvish scholars discussing written works, merchants discussing whether the plague is real or a farce, and two gnomes who keep eyeing Cutty.
The eponymous secret pudding is served for dessert. Raisins, currants, eggs, nuts. Steamed. We eat them.
The gnome couple approaches the table, address Cutty. He tips his hat, looking back at them with suspicion. Where'd he get those threads? "I'm under the employ of someone who also employs his own tailor." They want the contact info. Wil tells them of Burt Schwag. To thank us, they want to order us a round of drinks. May they join us at the table? Dante tells them they may, and the two pull up chairs to either side of Cutty and take a seat.
Dan plays Degluster Dimplerimple, and Chris's wife Evie is tagged to act as Kritchra Dimplerimple. The two gnomes want to know if we are up for playing any games. Wilton pulls out his deck of cards and says that we would. They gnomes divulge that they want to play a SHARING game. Because they like SHARING, you see. Cutty is uncomfortable.
We play a game similar to "I've never." It begins with people saying things that they HAVE done, and anyone who has done so drinking, but it shifts while we act it out to the more typical statement of things we've never done as we're more accustomed to playing.
Degluster: "Had sex in a carriage while it is moving." He and his wife drink. (Apologies, but I couldn't keep track of which PCs took drinks while also typing out the questions.)
Cutty: "Taken gloves off of a corpse." The gnomes are intrigued and want details, so Cutty explains the rescue effort at the orc camp. Wil:"Oh, right, the naked guy!" The gnomes seem giddy.
Kritchra: "Had sex in a tree taller than 20 feet" The couple lean forward and talk about how big it felt like it was, chuckle chuckle. Cutty continues to be uncomfortable.
Desi: "Killed someone after fucking them." The gnomes both drink.
Oll: "Had sex with royalty." Both gnomes drink, recalling who qualifies.
Geoff: "Injured someone during my act." (Inspiration point earned) Deg:"Wait, you guys are performers? Do you do commissioned shows?" Cutty:"Sometimes, yes, but we are VERY BUSY at the moment." "Oh, you're in just for the one night? Well, we should make that night memorable!" Cutty is uncomfortable.
Marvin: (Has yet to take a drink, looks withdrawn, uncomfortable) "Um... petted a horse." We all look confused. "I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY!" Practically everyone drinks.
Solitare: Says nothing, just drinks. We all do.
Dante: "Never before have I handled another person's serpent." By that, do you mean? Wilton suggests that he has handled Dante's serpent. Deg:"Oh! You guys are... 'in the circus?'"
Wilton: "Never have I ever partied with pixies, but damn I want to." Desi drinks. The gnomes do not.
It's suggested that we continue playing for some time. All roll con saves against the alcohol we've been sipping. Cutty gets a 23. As last call happens, the gnomes make their final attempt to convince him to join them tonight, Kritchra suggesting that the rooms can be coooold. She persuades with a 19, but Cutty is just uncomfortable. Suggests that maybe one of his companions knows fire spells? "Ooh, that sounds -dangerous- but not the kind of danger we like." Cutty thinks he hears his goldfish calling. The gnome couple takes the hint and stops pressuring him. (OOC, Ollallee was too drunk to offer him an out, which he would have DESPERATELY appreciated.)
Dan: "So nobody gets laid by gnomes tonight." We break for dinner.
The next morning, we each get a knock at our door and our clean laundry. Breakfast is served in the dining hall.
The gnome couple comes in from the outside, turns out travel is suspended. The waters are choppy. It's unprecedented. But hey, they'll be in the east room suite if we want to hang out with them, nudge-wink.
Well, this is concerning. But a gravely voice from the corner tells us he can get us across. Human, rough, John Voight plays him. "Captain" CamAllister, not gonna let the government tell him where and when he can't sail. He's heard of Dizzler's Dazzlers. He'll ferry us for three gold pieces. Um... let's get a look at this boat.
Outside, the water is indeed choppy, and without wind. Our nature and arcana checks tell us that this shouldn't be possible magically without also affecting the wind, and no creature can do this to an entire river. Also, the boat seems seaworthy, if not perfect. Also, we're gonna have to help him crew the vessel. Fortunately, Desi has proficiency in sea vessels. A man in uniform runs toward us as we launch. "CamAllister, there is a small vessel warning!" We go anyway.
It should be about three hours. (We all hum the Gilligan's Island theme.) Desi uses Gust to keep us going faster. Dante tries not to lose his lunch, sees some sturgeon swimming alongside us. But they act peculiarly. Diving, leaping out like a dolphin. Very odd. One leaps out and hovers in the air, keeping pace. Uhhh... Arcana checks don't note any spells affecting it. Solitaire attempts to dispel it anyway, no good. But then the fish hits us with some kind of magical wave. It feels like what we felt in the void prison. WIS save (psychic damage), followed by initiative.
Flying fish battle, 4 of them, drop when paralyzed (so webbing drops one into the water).
The Captain wakes up at the end of the battle. "Ah, I see you caught and grilled some sturgeon."
=== Book 24: You Can't Stop the Beat (4/18/21) ===
Answering the call of a talent show while their circus is on hiatus, our party has taken the ferry away from Breten, but weather conditions aren't the only peculiarity afoot...
Session notes:Dan gives us an Um Actually based on Desi having a feat that he doesn't have. We celebrate our victory, but he cheats and presents us a backup question.
We pull into the harbor of Oar's Crest.	Mostly halflings, bustling market, the works. Gilligan's is the inn, but it's midday so we assume we'll press on. We head to the stables, MaryAnne's Mares. There will be a carriage available at 9 in the morning, so we put a hold on it.
Desi gets tired of striking his forehead on doorframes, shifts into a dwarfen woman.
We encounter a travel agent of sorts. "Oh, you've never heard of The Bosworth?" He tells us that this luxury cruise ship is where Avalon's Got Talent is going to be held. How oddly convenient! Insight checks make it seem legit. He has (Dan counts us) seven tickets left for 50 gold apiece. Desi tries some seduction to no avail, though that ORC maybe... so we all end up buying tickets. The ship launches in two days.
We go to the shopping district to hunt down newly-needed reagents and such. There's a marching band, and they're jamming hard. "Deeper Darkness" is performing I Believe in a Thing Called Love. The crowd is dancing. Some of the group try dancing, too, and Wil fails miserably. Bunny Bandycane is the frontrunner. Wil realizes he recognizes her from their hometown... back when she presented male. They chat a bit as Bunny comes around with a hat to collect coins from the crowd. Cutty inspects the hat, but it's shit. Once Solitaire finds out she and her group are hoping to raise the funds to compete in the show, he drops fifty gold into the hat because he wants to CRUSH them later. Bunny thanks him, then tells Wil she's working very hard because it's not EVERYONE whose parents can pay for them to go off to school before turning tail. Solitaire assumes this is a dig against him and soils her outfits, which Wil immediately reverses. This repeats like the faeries in Sleeping Beauty changing the color of the gown. Wil is taken aback.
We do our shopping. Howell's Jewelry. Ollallee and Wil chat with the gnome inside. Wil proposes a trade, offering dust of coughing and sneezing, selling its effectiveness as a burglar deterrent. He accepts! Using the dust as a 500 gold credit and another 800 coins, they buy 1300 gold worth of diamonds. His wife emerges, speaking like Mrs. Howell and holding a martini glass, asking what all the commotion is. "How much do they want for the orc?" Cutty, who has stayed near the door, exits with haste.
Magic shop, Ginger's Treasures. Red-haired halfling. Dante talks with her, seeking scrolls to expand his repertoire. She has (d100 = 99) a whole f'ing LOT of them. Solitaire looks to trade his void bolts for a magic item. In the end, the bolts are traded toward a scroll of Telepathic Bond. Cutty trades his Vicious Greatsword for a Vicious Greataxe.
We go to Gilligan's, where everything is salty. CamAllister is there. He greets us. So does Gilligan. "Ah, welcome! The only inn in town with a door tall enough to accommodate you all without ducking! There are seven of us but only six rooms available. We start discussing how to make this work. Cutty starts looking around nervously in case any gnome couples are here. Ollallee asks if he wants protection, offers to share a room and sleep on the floor. This is awkward for everybody. Meanwhile, Solitaire discusses with Wil the identification of the items the demons dropped and the possible creation of a one-man-band suit using the instruments he's carrying.
We get our rooms. There's gonna be a hoedown tonight! Wil can't wait to dance again! Dinner is a fish stew and some hard tack to dunk in it. Fifteen minutes in, the place starts filling up. The performers arrive. Solitaire presents his horn, and they invite him to join. They're going to do a particular group dance, The Reel. Wil and Desi take to the floor. Wil's kinda alright, but Desi's 32 steals the show. Meanwhile, Wil ends up partnered with... Bunny! Long enough to chat. They were unable to get the tickets.
Also, in this time, Ollallee and Cutty returned to their room. Along with Dante, they discuss her ideas for her act, a twist on Beauty and the Beast. After Dante goes to his room, Ollallee asks Cutty how he grounds himself after going into a rage. Cutty says it's just a switch that goes off again on its own, but then discusses how during battle, his outfit often becomes shredded and he takes the time later to return it to normal, after which he feels back to himself again. Maybe Ollallee needs something like that, a ritual of sorts to return herself to normal.
They both prepare to sleep on the floor, neither wanting to deny the other the bed, but Ollallee eventually convinces him since she needs only meditate and not sleep. Cutty does take the bed, but remains super-conscious that this pretty lady is in the room with him.
The next morning, we go to MaryAnne's by 9:00. She asks where we're headed, then mentions that Deeper Darkness got themselves a ticket as well! Huh, that's weird. Following Solitaire's example, we all check our pockets. Only Wil is missing his, and he assumes that Bunny picked his pocket during the dance. We get on the carriage and set out. Deeper Darkness had tried to get a carriage, too, but no luck. Perhaps we can overtake them!
As we travel, it begins to... snow? But the snow, which we all see, never touches the carriage. Curiouser and curiouser.
There is a horse some mile ahead of us on the road. Hard to say when we will catch up to them. But meanwhile, Solitaire is unable to stop the horses from stepping onto/into a concealed trench in the road! (And we break for dinner.)
We have determined that it is Thursday.
Seven band members on the cliffsides, Bunny off ahead of us.
"Now I'm about to realize..." (Sylvan:)"...my dream of performing!" Wil realizes Bunny shouldn't know Sylvan. This is weird. "Don't kill any of them, something's off here!" Solitaire:"I don't owe you any favors." (By request, let the record show that Solitaire did not kill anyone, though death was dealt.)
Ollallee uses mass suggestion, "Everyone relax, stop fighting, return Wil's ticket." We Kuma down Bunny's save, but on her turn she says to Ollallee in Sylvan "My mind cannot be taken." She dispels Solitaire's sword, begins glowing, strides into the middle of our group and expels that energy. Meanwhile, the bandmates are grappling people from a distance with prehensile hair.
Dante casts Hold Monster on her, but she appears to be immune to paralyzation. Desi does manage to banish her, however.
We discuss our options (and expect the suggested rabble to snap out of it soon) and ready actions. Wil is convinced we've never actually left the Feywild, so he desires to dispel any illusion magic surrounding us... but Dan doesn't allow it.
BunnyInSylvan:"You took my friends from me! I'll take them from you, too!" Wil:"Still can't speak Sylvan."
These abilities are not ones Wil has known her or any halfling in the world to possess. Seems like fae bullshit. Wil discusses with Ollallee whether this could have been the result of another archfey pact, but that shouldn't have conveyed a language or all that hair weirdness.
Cutty and Marvin re-right the cart, but the horses are dead from Bunny's magic bursts. Marvin offers to pull the cart. "Pulling is just hugging with a different vector."
We roll for the treasure table. We use our remaining rerolls. We end up with 2000 gold, some ammo, and potions.
===Book 25: Call the Wind (4/25/21)===
Our party has finagled a ticket on board the very exclusive performance cruise ship! But they've had to stomp the competition along the way...
What do we do with them now?
Session notes:Dante as a triceratops pulls the cart an hour until polymorph runs out. Bunny, tied up, awakens and talks with Wil. "You shoulda just killed me." Are you speaking as Bunny or as some fae creature whose identity I've yet to deduce? "Whatever helps you convince yourself what you're doing is OK." Insight roll reveals nothing. Wil asks her a specific question from their youth, who from their class fell into the pond that one day? Bunny correctly recalls it was Jinnafer. Wil asks her directly how she learned to speak Sylvan, she claims she never did.
Dante polymorphs a second time, and we set out for the next hour. Wil keeps chatting with Bunny, who doesn't recall much about our battle. Suggests that the strange phenomena Wil's describing is a result of his smokeables. Bunny asks what happened to the rest of her band. Wil answers truthfully.
Essie tries to detect shapeshifters, detects the two we know about and no others, and no invisible creatures.
Wil finally opts to untie Bunny and let her go on her own, along with the other one we'd knocked out and placed delicately in the trunk. She heads back from where we came to bury her friends. We carry on.
We discuss things a bit. Are those around us being affected by something external, are are these events happening because of their proximity TO us? Or perhaps to the one who spent much longer in the Faewild than we did? Does Ollallee radiate fae? Faediation? 2Fae2Furious?
The barbarians take a turn pulling the cart while Dante recovers a spell slot taking a short rest. This continues, switching between polymorph and barbarians, until we reach the town. Return the cart to Mary-Ann's twin sister, Joy. We end up paying 300 gold for the lost horses.
Lovin's Lagoon has places to bathe, a feature Cutty requested. Wilton takes a potion of transformation first to feel more... natural. Rolls a 7 of 10 for dick size.
An effeminate but male-presenting eladrin joins us in the hot spring. Asks to join us in the water, then lets out too long a moan. Chats with us, turns out he won the show last year. Gitali. Thinks we're PRETENDING we've never heard of him, how cute. Some roll to recall hearing of him as a popular singer. "I'll think of all of you naked in the auience tomorrow." Marvin:"The audience has to be naked?" Gitali goes on for the rest of the scene talking about how great he is. Our drink orders are taken by an attendant. Gitali keeps talking. Dante cools the water around him. He complains. Essie:"Maybe you should leave." The persuasion roll passes and he does so. Solitaire:"I'm going to crush him."
We hear a tapping noise, like a cane, approaching. A blind dwarf with a tapping cane comes to the bath. He clicks it right into the water, stops, begins to undress. Wil greets him, he says Hello back. Very deliberately: "My name is Fikrid. Can I get in the tub?" He slowly lowers himself in. "This water is nice." He's also here for the talent show. We chat a bit. He's a musician. Wil tries to explain what he does, as Fikrid doesn't get what a light show is, so it's summarized as a lot of explosions. How long has Fikrid been performing? "I've been performing for people for 3296 days." After some silence, he wants to know if all of us explode. Dante explains his act, and Fikrid starts discussing thinking-you-are-something equating being-something. He ultimately decides that he doesn't like the concept of the circus, declares he's leaving, does so.
"HEY DESI, LOOK AT MY DICK!"
Attendants come to dry us, though Solitaire refuses to let them touch him. We are given soft, hooded robes and shown to our perfectly clean rooms.
Wil looks out to see if he can see the Bosworth, but the hotel is too far from the coast. Glimpses Desi wearing the blue face of a triton. Desi see Wil, changes back, says he wasn't supposed to see that.
We are awakened in the morning with tea and hot towels. Led to the continental breakfast. Marvin:"Which continent?" Gitali is finishing his breakfast, dabbing his mouth daintily with a napkin. Essie goes up to him, offers a palm reading for good luck. He establishes that he's not actually competing, he's invited as the guest of honor. But he accepts the reading. She makes a show of being overtaken by a revelation that if he uses his voice, HE WILL DIE! Dante reinforces this by causing fear. Gitali clasps a hand over his mouth and runs off. Essie:"I could go for some eggs."
We establish what we're eating. Fikrid comes to our table, says he needs to know where the potatoes are. Geoff offers to lead him there. Gets him a plate. Fikrid loads the plate with his bare hands. Returns to the table. Eats the potatoes one at a time with his bare hands. Scoops the remnants with his hand, licks it clean. Asks what he should do with his plate. The attendants will get it. He announces he's leaving, does so. Scene.
We all finish our meals and 'cruise' on over to the boat. 425 feet long. Lots of people queueing to board. We're shown the deck map. Jack immediately recognizes and names the real-life vessel. We discuss this odd revelation for five or six minutes.
Cutty and Solitaire do some people watching. Desi checks out the WindSpa, which has steam rooms and hot coals and masseuses. Desi lounges, but does not want to be touched. Dante checks out the library, lots of easy reading literature. Takes a book and goes up to the deck. Wil also people watches, but is looking to feel the vibe. Lots of people at the casino who still have their luggage with them, interesting. Goes to a guy who appears he doesn't know what he's doing (played by Chevy Chase), suggests that international waters means THESE are ok! But... all the things Wil tries to peddle are legal and available to buy from the ship, too, so... Essie goes to the spa place as well. Geoff gets snacks at the cafe and goes top deck to watch the waves. Marvin wants a margarita, but while food and soft drinks are free, alcohol is terribly expensive. He has a virgin mudslide instead.
We eventually cast off and dinnertime arrives. Joining us at the table are Fikrid and a human couple who introduce themselves as Cimo and Belle. Also, a gnome with thick bottle glasses. Corvin Spiffvel. And a human girl who appears to be about 12 years old. Larcy. She's accompanied by her lamb puppet, Smackers, whom Marvin greets and immediately hugs.
(Dinner break)
After dinner and dessert, Galgal taps a glass for attention and gives a speech. Introduces Gitali. Gitali starts to sing, and Dante casts Cause Fear. Dan rolls higher and he isn't affected. His performance is amazing. But Galgal responds by tearing him apart with his words, to great applause. Galgal then pulls out his bagpipes, which make a sound like a gremlin laughing.
Wil chats with the other performers at our table. "These people all explode. They told me last night when we were naked." Fikrid is planning to play the cello and sing songs. He tells us he's going to practice and leaves.
We hear a commotion outside the room. Eight militarily-dressed individuals are surrounding him and holding his stick. The barons of the Andelusian military guard, Maxwell militia. They are a rifle squadron. They are accosting Fikrid, one of them holding his tapping cane and demanding he "shines his boots better." We tell them to shove off, but they're having none of it, so we step up to intervene and get back Fikrid's cane.
One round of combat consists mainly of us grabbing people, teleporting beyond them to get to the cane and Fikrid, Solitaire pummeling the crap out of the one who seemed to be in charge, and the lot of them unleashing some area attack with their firearms. But things are stopped then and there by the arrival of Galgal. He suggests to Fikrid that he go back to his room, which he does immediately, and Galgal would like to have words with the rest of us.
He tells us, our lot and the militiamen, that he should be kicking us off of the ship now. The militia are very cooperative, "Yes, sir. We'll be more respectful of your space, sir." BUT Galgal proposes... a compact! Which is totally not sketchy.
Wilton angrily hashes out the details of this pact. He wants to negotiate a guarantee of Fikrid's safety, but Galgal won't include anyone not present to speak for himself. So what we have for the pact is that we will not be thrown off the ship and neither group can take aggression against the other. We all place our hands in the middle, and Solitaire attempts to fudge the pronunciation of "It is sealed" in Sylvan, but is called on it and does it properly.
At which point, the military group disappears from view. Apparently, we cannot interact with them at all now. (Um, uh oh, who are they really?) Wilton asks how long this pact will be in effect. Galgal answers that since it wasn't stipulated, it's indefinite.
=== Book 26: Under the Sea (5/2/21) ===
We try and figure out what Dan has planned for us.
Session notes:Ollallee contacts other plane with five questions for Kelrath:
"Are we on the material plane?" Irrelevant
"Have the material plane and other planes merged?" No
"Have we left the Feywild?" Yes.
"Is Galgal an Archfey?" No.
"Are we currently in the Feywild?" Irrelevant
We rest for the night. Morning, continental breakfast. Fikrid is there, seemingly totally unbothered. Celery and raisins, a bite of the first and one of the second, repeat. Belle and Cimo join us as well, chat a bit. They wonder if we're going to be competing against one another. Lacey shows up, looking for Smackers, have we seen him? We promise we'll look.
We wander about, figuring we'll try the gift shop, just for the chance there's a more valuable spell focus for another spell Ollallee wants to try. The shopkeep is a triton, and Desi blends into the corner to be unseen by him. He has a key that he says should be useful for scrying. Insight says it's legit. Arcana agrees. Identify says it's not magical. 1000 gold? Ollallee tries Persuasion 28. 900 gold and a favor? He wants her to scry on someone for him. We pool some coin to help her purchase it.
He pulls out a necklace, belonged to his past love Tikat, and he wants to see whether she left him for whom he thinks she did. A reroll means it succeeds, but what Ollallee sees it somewhat blurry, there's static. She's swimming together with another triton. Does he have the big scar across his right eye? Looks like yes. The shopkeep is gonna let go. But he also wants to talk about it at length. Dante changes the topic, asks if he has any wands, which he does not.
We head next to Lost and Found out of curiosity. The guy tells us Lacey's already been by in search of the puppet. Dante wants to personally look through whatever's there, pretends he's lost something -embarrassing.- But that's against policy, at least until charm person takes hold. But the box has nothing of value, just the kind of things people would lose on a cruise like toothbrushes.
Wil does some Investigation to look for the puppet around the pool area, then the veranda. No luck. Maybe it's time to sunbathe.
Ollallee tries scrying again, this time on Dworkin. Power of Kuma says it succeeds. Again, the vision is as if the VCR tracking is off. He's sitting at a table somewhere, eating a sparse lunch and writing. So he should be on the same plane as us, yes? Wil ponders whether the messed-up signal is a result of something interfering with, or perhaps BOOSTING, the scry. Ollallee tries scrying on Chirie, and it doesn't immediately fail, but there's some commotion. "You're a hero, Richie!" Wil recalls the hay falling off of Richie, they're one and the same. (chi rie <-> ri chie)
We take a short rest so Ollallee can recover, Wil can toke, and we can consider our plans. We hear some banging on the deck below. We investigate. Solitaire unlocks the maintenance door. There's magical darkness beyond. Geoff, with devil's sight, rolls a Perception 5. Dante attempts to dispel magic, 18. Now we all perceive. Ollallee's nat20 sees that the bolts of the hull appear to be in the pattern of eyes watching us, shares this fact with the rest of us. Arcana nat20 to understand this. This is definitely an illusion spell at play. Wil dispels magic. All the nuts fall to the ground, revealing the area beyond. There's a furnace there. And beyond that, Lacey and Smackers. "Hey, I found him!" "How did you get in here?" Smackers:"I let her in!"
"What's that Smackers? Why would I say that? Smackers wants to ask you a silly question." To Ollallee:"WhY dId YoU bRiNg HiM bAcK?" "yOu'Re KeEpInG hIm In A jAr!" Ollallee tries asking Smackers questions, but he's gone asleep. Ollallee was supposed to lay Niwri to rest, reportedly, but has yet to do so. Everyone has various reactions to this revelation. She wanted to do this in Breton. Will we be going past Breton?
Ollallee casts the spell to consult with Kelrath again.
"Did I inadvertantly break my compact?" Unclear
"Am I on the right plane to complete my compact?" Unclear
"Will you allow me to extend it?" Maybe
"Will you reach out to me so I can do so without endangering my friends any longer?" No
"Is there a way I can still complete my compact?" Unclear
Some of us roll Arcana. Turns out, when you contact another plane and that plane is the feywild, you're not sure what time it is there. Questions about the timing of pacts are bound to be answered with necessary uncertainty.
Ollallee explains Niwri was, essentially, used as fertilizer. She brought back his skull and a sapling that grew from him. Detect Magic on Niwri's skull, Conjuration.
We discuss the possibility that two entities have been pulling strings this whole time, one pushing us along this route, the other trying to deter us.
Dinner. Lacey isn't there. We chat with Belle and Cimo.
Dress rehearsal! Galgal isn't here. Corvin Spiffvel takes the stage with several triangles, warns us all to step back. Con save, the most beautiful noise we've heard in our lives. Those who rolled low fall to their knees, possibly ejaculate. Fikrid wheels out there with his cello. Asks to be told when to start. Beret guy gives him the go-ahead. Long, soulful notes, beautiful singing voice. Avalon's equivalent of Amazing Grace. There is applause. Next up, Lacey and Smackers. No? Last call! Wil quietly tells the guy he's worried, she didn't come to dinner, but the guy brushes him off. Next up, Dizzler's Dazzler? Solitaire goes onstage with his dulcimer. Take Me Home Country Roads. 18. Next, Wil and Marvin. 21. Belle and Cimo do a simple display of their archery act. The arrow... appears to hit her between the eyes, but they continue as if nothing happened, bow, walk off. (??) Geoff next, stand up routine. 20. Dante asks for a volunteer, Solitaire goes up before anyone else can react. Dante does Suggestion on him. Solitaire quacks like a duck, runs across the room and back, does so once again while Hastened. Next, Ollallee and Cutty and costumed Dante with their thing. Next, Desi sits on stage and unenthusiastically talks through the performance with spells cast and all.
(Break for dinner)
As the night comes to a close, we seek out Galgal. He lets us into his room.
Where does his power come from? Won't say. Also, we know it doesn't violate any of our other pacts to have made this one as we would have been unable to make it otherwise. Wil presses the issue of whose authority this is, and Galgal says he'd have to make a new compact to gain that information. Wil pursues this. Trade information for information? But what knowledge does Wil have that Galgal does not? Knowledge of Kelrath? "Who's Kelrath?"
"You really have no idea what's going on, do you? I'll tell you everything you need to know. And what I want is what one of you brought back with you." The remains of a soldier born in this realm but enlisted in the Feywild. Ollallee argues that she cannot turn them over without violating her own compact. She also references her father, surprising Galgal. Cutty questions whether Ollallee is sure they are really Niwri's remains. More details of her plan for them are discussed. Galgal says the ship will go to Breton, the intended place for the burial, in that case. What all does he need? He's not certain specifically, but he needs "anything" from "that realm." We question whether he needs the various void armaments we're still carrying, and he asks to see one of the void bolts. Asks that we give him a moment.
He places it on a table with incense and ivory strips, begins casting a spell. Ollallee recognizes it is Legend Lore. After the ten minutes pass, "You've all brought something terrible to this world."
=== Book 27: I'm Still Here (05/09/21) ===
Our troupe has been able to make contact with a person of arcane ability who may have the answer to the curiosities they've been experiencing recently. But it seems they may have unleashed something terrible... 
Session notes:This piece of the void hive is probably the void hive god. Bringing void items here has effectively brought the void, part of the Feywild, into Avalon.
"I've been a part of planar overlays before, but this is different." The Feywild, which is itself a reflection of our world, is duplicating itself here rather than overwriting our world.
Huge crash from the lower decks, and the ship begins tilting. Galgal tells us he has a plan for this, takes something from a piano in the room and unceremoniously blinks away. We decide as players that it's another apple, recalling Dizzler's quote-unquote backup plan.
We rush up to the deck to assess the situation. We hear noises in the cabins we pass. The shaking of trees. Desi Knocks one cabin's door open. Two trees just sprouted from the rug, and a human woman is there on the ground, a flood of foliage pouring from her mouth. Eep. Desi shuts the door. We continue upward, determined to abandon ship.
We open the door to the deck. Belle is there, still with an arrow in her head. "Where are you going? The show is tonight." Isn't it tomorrow night? Cimo comes up behind us, bow in hand. "You can't leave, the Show is Tonight." "There will be a show tonight. THE SHOW MUST GO ON." Solitaire pulls out his daggers, and we roll initiative.
As we battle, four trees with human faces stretched over them manifest from the lifeboats we were hoping to reach, destroying the vessels in the process. Solitaire stabdicates Cimo with great fervor. Marvin gets stunned and gangbanged, for a lot of halved damage. Dante takes control of two of the trees, and we slay the rest. With Dante maintaining his control on them, we continue along the deck looking for more lifeboats.
We find another two lifeboats, and near them, Fikrid is playing the cello.
(Break for dinner)
He causes a musical fear effect, affecting only Cutty, and summons four sound golems. Wil tries to persuade Fikrid to come to his senses and abandon the sinking ship with us, but he insists that the show must go on. Solitaire attacks the cello directly, resulting in a sonic burst that pushes nearby people away. Solitaire and Wil nearly go over the edge of the ship but grab hold, though on Fikrid's next turn they are swept over the side. The cello is ultimately broken. Dante casts deafness, in a moment of genius, and the sonic golems dissipate. Solitaire rescues Wil and climbs back onto the ship with mad gecko skills. Dante attempts to dispel any charm that may be on Fikrid, to no avail. So attempts Ollallee, but for her efforts she can tell there's a terribly strong charm in effect here. Some are concerned that taking him with us WITH his (broken) cello (his focus?) may be a bad idea, so Cutty pulls it from his hands and pitches it overboard. Desi firebolts it in the air, causing it to be struck by lightning. Dramatically.
When the deafness fades, Wil tries to coax the distraught Fikrid into calming down and coming with us. Succeeds.
Solitaire pulls the tarp off of one of the lifeboats. Lacey is in there. Does she have the puppet? Dan says no. Chris and Mike: "Good." Lacey: "Is everything ok?" Half the group: "Nope." Inspiration points. Lacey says Mr. Smackers is in the other lifeboat! Would we get him first?! We all agree, no, we will not be doing that. She becomes convinced he'll "catch up" with us. Some of us are worried he actually will. Cutty to Desi: "Firebolt the other lifeboat." Wil is really concerned about other escapees, but Ollallee reasons that everyone and everything is becoming charmed and turning into dryads, we can't help them.
Splashdown. We see the ship rise and fall. Solitaire: "I wonder what made the boat sink in the first place."
=== Book 28: Rock The Boat (05/16/21) ===
The troupe has found out there is something more curious about their return to their home plane. They've gotta find their way to land before they can remedy the new troubles, though! 
Session notes:We watch the boat turn up, practically straight up vertically. But... it isn't sinking. Solitaire tries to get a look under the water. Perception 23 but it's not easy to make out anything, unusual or mundane.
Ollallee suggests to Cutty that he craft another puppet if Lacey is going to be weird about his absence.
"We'll sink that ship when we get to it."
We use the staves we recovered from the illithids we'd battled to craft a mast, and Cutty's weaver's tools to craft a sail from bedroll cloth. With a roll of 17, we have a rudimentary sail!
Wil has his directional sense, and we determine east is our best direction to return to land. Desi supplies Gust and wind control.
Fikrid and Lacey aren't taking all this very well. Ollallee and Desi reiterate that Smackers will catch up. Meanwhile, as we travel, the upright ship doesn't seem to be getting farther away. Rather, it may be gaining on us? We discuss whether it's following us due to the void stuff we're carrying and what we could/should do about that.
Ollallee, upset, blurts out it's her fault we're all on this vacation in the first place. Desi stops the wind a moment demanding explanation. She explains that she'd brought Dizzler's wife's ashes to him, and his dealing with them is the reason for the month long break.
Geoff reminds us that he has the portable hole from earlier, and we all gather up and toss into it the void items we are carrying. The upright ship is still following us, hull-first. We see what appears to be another (unoccupied?) lifeboat ahead of us. We get closer, hoping to find some oars we can grab. There are oar, but they are in use, as it appears that the lifeboat is rowing itself the same direction we are traveling, however more slowly. Essie is able to see invisible if within thirty feet, so we continue nearer to the lifeboat to try and ascertain just what is happening here. Smackers is the boat's sole occupant, not manipulating anything, and nothing manipulating him, just sitting there. "Dan, is Smackers a Muppetborn? You can tell us if he is." "NO."
Lacey spots Smackers before we can shield her view. Desi subtle-spell Fireballs the craft. When the smoke clears, the boat is clearly destroyed. Lacey wants to rescue Smackers! We stop her jumping in after him. But she INSISTS, and our boat stops abruptly, and then begins to tip forward and sink. "WE'RE GOING AFTER HIM," Lacey announces. Cutty grabs Fikrid and Lacy and pulls them off the vessel and up to the surface. Wil gives everyone water breathing. Lacey is inconsolable, and Cutty releases her.
Solitaire speeds down after Lacey with the cloak of the manta ray with the rest of us trailing behind. He finds her hugging Smackers, apparently able to speak normally while underwater. She tells Smackers something, points at Solitaire. Dark tendrils fly out from Smackers to him, grappling him. We roll for initiative.
Some try to return 30 feet to the surface to use verbal spells. Cutty releases Fikrid to the surface and rushes in, demolishing Smackers. For his efforts, Cutty becomes her new puppet in a horrific display of Lacey's fist casually piercing his chest. On her next turn, she swims over to Essie, has Cutty attack her, and then takes Essie as a puppet on her other hand. Geoff takes fire form and starts blasting.
She's ultimately put down. And the ship falls prone.
(Dinner Break)
For lack of a plan upon which we can all agree in the moment, we stuff Lacey's corpse into Ollallee's bag of holding with Niwri's skull. Using Wil's magic rope, we come back onto deck. Look around. No trace of anything... but we notice some odd movement(?) in one of the masts. Solitaire throws a dagger into it. There's a groan, and the ship begins pitching backwards. We start sliding toward the door where we'd emerged before. But the door becomes a giant, toothy mouth, and the windows eyes. Roll for initiative.
Some of us lose our footing and slide into the mouth, becoming gnashed and grappled. Cutty breaks free and pulls Fikrid from its maw. Wil (who does not speak Sylvan) and then Ollallee (who does) try to reason with the enormous mimic. It demands to be fed the one who stabbed it. With a roll of Deception, Ollallee tosses Lacey's charred corpse into its mouth, where it is crushed horrifically. Eep.
Ollallee manages to bargain with the thing. It will bring us the 69 (ACCEPTABLE) plackers (Feywild nautical measurement) east toward land... IF we play it a beautiful song. So Solitaire and Ollallee play a little ditty. Ollallee:"Did that please you?" Ship:"NICE." They continue playing to please the ship. Solitaire passes a few Con rolls to keep it going dozens of hours.
"I remember Dante better than I remember being in the circus."
In two days' time, we come in view of the coast. The ship tells Ollallee (in Sylvan) that it can't get any closer or it'll run aground. Desi casts fly on us and we make landfall.
We argue a while about what transpired, the moral ramifications of feeding the thing Lacey's corpse, that we were otherwise just going to leave her corpse like the archer act couple, OK but what about Fikrid, and does is the problem here that she's a child unlike the others? Eventually, we all agree we should put aside any arguments just work on the tasks of burying Niwri and recovering the void items.
Will uses Animate Object to create a walking vehicle from a log. We travel along the coast, expecting to encounter a village before long.
As we approach a treeline, an arrow flies at us, fired by someone unseen. We are told in common, but in an elven-sounding voice "You may not enter."
(POSTSCRIPT: Dan informed us, during a later session, that the "empty" lifeboat Desi Fireballed in an attempt to destroy Smackers was actually being rowed by the rifle squad. Our pact made them imperceptible to us, but not invulnerable, it turned out...)
=== Book 29: Bring Him Home ===
Our party may have enlisted the aid of a fey-addled ship, but they are gonna need a whole new set of friends to get them through the forbidden woods!
Session notes:Perception rolls. Expertly camouflaged elves in the nearby trees, bows cocked and ready, about eight of them. Essie notices the branches growing out of their faces. A voice speaks to us from all around, "All that are allowed are the Dasyatis, no one else is welcome." Some of us recognize this as the name of a clan of wood elves, particularly insular. Wil knows they keep to themselves and war somewhat regularly over land with nearby clans of goblins and owlbears. Wil explains the situation while Solitaire makes gestures of greeting. One of them steps forward to address us directly.
"While we see that you come in peace, you must understand that these woods are closed. There is a terrible plague that has plagued these lands. We blame the goblins." He continues: "Our champion is keeping us from turning, but only when we are near to him." Lacrelyn is their champion's name. Cutty tells him we are actively seeking the source of the corruption and trying to undo it. Ollallee tries to reason that this is her ancestral home, but is told that she bears the markings (her tattoos) of their enemy. We are told to turn away or be purged. We make our choice and roll for initiative.
Three fireballs, reversed gravity, and a lot of volleys back and forth produces seven dead elves. The last one attempts to make a run for it, but Solitaire Counterspells his wind wall, Wil webs, Cutty grapples, and Solitaire knocks him unconscious.
We burn the bodies to be unrecognizable and tie up the live one, and Solitaire uses Seeming to make us appear as the elves we defeated. Some rustling in the distance clues us to the fact that the skirmish did not go unnoticed.
(break for dinner) (tacos are delicious)
Their gear includes 4 shortswords, 4 light crossbows, 31 bolts.
"What happened?" Solitaire in elven: "Goblins. And they had some hobgoblins with them." He bluffs his way through the encounter. They're here to relieve us on watch. "Where's the rest of the unit?" Solitaire points to Wil up in the tree. We make several OOC references to Wil being either short or viewed from far away. The elf makes a perception check due to Wil's height. Also, Wil doesn't speak elven. Solitaire explains that this specific elf was hit with a reduce spell and now appears shorter than usual. "Crafty devils." He wants to dispel it, but Solitaire insists he save his spells in case there's another attack.
19 on Survival to deduce the trail to their campground. We find it without difficulty. Guard tower, where Solitaire in his elf disguise is addressed. "Yabisse! The champion wishes to speak to you immediately!" We're told he's in the executive chambers. Ah, yes, those, of course. Solitaire rolls Investigation 15. Enter what we assume to be it. A very northwoodsy place, the most ornately decorated one. Mossy green, burnt khaki. Earth tones everywhere. There's an elf there with baller pauldrons. Wisdom check, Essie and Wil believe they recognize the guy, but from where? Turns out, he was certainly in the audience at the hunters' lodge where we were hunted for sport. Desi tries to signal Solitaire ineffectively.
"I understand there was some arson?" "Hobgoblins." Deception. Solitaire suggests we retaliate in same. The elf references having turned down his cousin's "silly hunting adventure" (so he didn't participate in the hunt-the-circus-troupe plot) by Yabisse's advice. Solitaire suggests they go on a diplomatic mission. But heading south would take us through... The Grove! Hey, that's where we need to go! Solitaire talks him into allowing this plan. But now, the champion is suggesting they spend the night together. Solitaire is considering this. But Ollallee and Desi, the only others who speak elven, suggest we should LEAVE TONIGHT, dammit. The champion touches Solitaire's face, but does not perceive through the effect of Seeming.
We discuss a while whether we should resurrect Yabisse, and moreso when, because we're not backtracking and doing it right now.
Survival 19 to carry on toward The Grove. Ollallee ponders whether Omirys the firbolg will recognize her. We assure her her current owlbear form was fairly like the one we saw when she was a child. She discusses what she was told by Niwri about the destruction of their old home and whether parts, such as the random bandits, were embellished...
But suddenly, as we're leaving the camp, Lacrelyn runs after us super-gayly. He wants "Yabisse" to take his shield for protection and to promise he will return it to him. Yikes.
We go a safe distance and make camp. Wil starts identifying the stuff we're now carrying. This shield is an Arrow-catching shield. Cimo's bow: A Promise Kept. (After game, we find that these amazing armaments aren't very useful for our particular builds and proficiencies.)
Fikrid misses his instrument. We offer him other ones we happen to be carrying, but he wants his. Ollallee tells him we'll get it back soon, Deception Nat1. Reroll Nat1. Eep. Others jump in that we can try and make him a new one. Wilton discusses making one now, but we're not sure about that. Plus, he wants HIS cello, not a replacement.
We rest the night. Solitaire thanks us, he feels much more comfortable talking around us. Geoff goes in for the hug. Wil gives him a potion of alter self, and Solitaire thinks of the possibilities to have claws and be MORE horrifying! :D Wil asks him from what he's running. Solitaire: "NOPE."
Ollallee talks through her theories about what may happen as we go forward with this plan, laying Niwri to rest and planting the associated tree. That the tree may be a teleportation station, and the possibilities of what or who may emerge and their plans once they do. Oberon, and his past plot, is discussed.
Ollallee then does scrying to see where Omirys is. Spell fails. Tries Kelrath for yucks. Nothing. Wil gives Cutty a potion of Boldness. We all share some wine. Ollallee drunkenly rests her head on Cutty's shoulder. He blushes.
In the morning, we head out to the Bindi Grove, as Dan has now named it. Wil sends his dragonboi in to scout. Goblins? Owlbears? ANYbody? No to all these questions. Essie peers in with her special sight, and something in there seems REALLY off. Like looking at a 3D movie without the glasses on. Essie tries using the scope on Cimo's bow but can't penetrate it visually. Desi sees a clearing within. We opt to just go on in, stealthily, and see what comes of it. Ollallee transforms into an owlbear first. Our lowest stealth roll is an 11.
Everything seems a little off to Ollallee, like everything's here, but not quite in the right order, like someone put things into the wrong bin. We come to the clearing, find some stones with Sylvan script. Grave markers? Names, one of which is Omyris. History checks on the others. Wil with a Nat20 has heard of none of these names but recognizes these appear to be firbolg names. Perception! Many of us hear the approaching footsteps. Ollallee says aloud, in Sylvan for anyone to hear, that we only came here to respect the dead.
Emerging from the bushes appear at least 12 broad-shouldered owlbears, but they look... different. Like a direbear would compared to a typical bear. Odd, exaggerated features. Ollallee repeats what she said, but in goblin. One rears back and sniffs. Then addresses Ollallee in Sylvan. "Why have you brought him here?"
=== Book 30: Close Every Door ===
Our party has finally made it to the inner sanctum of the forbidden woods where they may be able to summon the archfey and stop them from infecting their world. But will the owlbears allow them to perform the ritual in the first place?