TGAT: Session 13

Mistshore at Night

## **Chapter 4: Dragon Season**

### Scene 12: Brizzenbright Theatre

Continuing the surveillance of Agorn and Amath the party are told by Remallia Haventree that she does not want the party to interfere with their surveillance op. The Harpers want to discover the whereabouts of the bosses of these Zhentarim leaders as doing so would enable the Harpers to eradicate at least one of the crime factions in the city.

The party watch the performance *"Blood Wedding"* while keeping a keen eye on the people of interest.

> "*Blood Wedding"* - a play about love, jealousy, and death. In the story, a young woman is brought to a castle by a count, only to fall in love with his younger brother, a man of faith. Her betrayal eats away at the jealous count. He murders his brother on his wedding day and pursues the bride, who hurls herself off the castle battlements in despair. The count is cursed by the gods and transformed into a creature of darkness, damned to live in his castle and feed on blood.
>
>

Halfway through the performance the party are afflicted with a compulsion to commit the murder of someone near to their hearts whom they care for deeply. The compulsion need not be enacted on immediately but this need increases each day that they do not commit the murder. The party are currently unaware that they all collectively suffer this affliction.

At the end of the play the audience provide a standing ovation and begin to take their leave. Agorn, Amath, another Zhentarim thug and Agorn lady friend leave the building by the main entrance. The party follow at a safe distance and are able to remain relatively inconspicuous. The Zhents board a hire-coach, and the party hire their own to continue following their targets, paying a gold piece to the driver who was shivering in the cold weather.

### Scene 13: Castle Ward

En route to their destination, Agorn had his hire-coach make a brief stop in the Castle Ward to drop off his lady friend. Guff jumps off their hire-coach to follow her while the others follow the Zhents.

### Scene 14: Mistshore

Agorn has come to Mistshore to visit a member of his actual family-his mother, who is gravely ill and lives in abject poverty.

A blizzard is tearing through Mistshore, turning its rotten tenements into dark, looming shapes behind veils of blowing snow. The water around the docks is frozen solid, and impoverished commoners clad in tattered garments gather around sputtering campfires for warmth. These folk are suspicious of anyone they don't recognise and far from welcoming, even toward those who show them charity. These people would tear the clothes from the characters' backs given half a chance.

Playing on the ice underneath the docks are three street urchins wearing frayed cloaks and gloves. They dart in and out of view, hurling snowballs at each other and laughing as the blizzard batters the structures above them.

When the children see the characters for the first time, their interest is piqued. The children fancy themselves adventurers of sorts, and they are quick to idolise and emulate real-life ones. Squiddly even has the audacity to hurl a snowball at Cubone (+0 bonus to hit).

Agorn Fuoco is inside, trying to smother his bedridden mother, Marta Fuoco (female human commoner with 1 hit point), with a sack she uses as a pillowcase. With tears born of joy and sadness streaming down his face, Agorn is cutting loose his old family ties and embracing his new family: the Zhentarim.

Agorn was moved to perpetrate this act by the play he saw at the Brizzenbright Theatre, Amath Sercent, to whom he entrusted the Stone of Golorr. He doesn't give up her location willingly. Agorn pushes himself onto the dagger Richard Dickens threatens him with to show he is not afraid of him and won't tell him anything. When Richard Dickens interrogates him, he responds by telling him the stone is hidden in his arsehole and that he should reach inside and retrieve it. Taking Agorn at his word Richard Dickens turns Agorn around, dropping his trousers and peaks at his butt hole. Agorn lets rip a wet, splattery fart directly into Richard Dickens's face covering it in faecal matter. Richard Dickens cuts his throat and leaves him for dead with his mother and the other thugs corpses.

The party leave the building and are surrounded by four Zhentarim thugs who pose no real threat for the party. After the battle they search all of the bodies and the building and fail to find the Stone of Golorr, deducing that it has been given to Agorn's lady friend who decamped back in the Castle Ward.