Adventure 3

**Previous: Adventure 2**

   The current campaign begins: the party attempts to investigate some dead students, run into fey titans and aliens, and in the process run up against the secret society behind McBannin's work.

## Spoilers: This Squad Won't Get Less Dysfunctional

### Session -1

Pre-current campaign: the constables are assigned to the Kaybeau Armament and Technology Exposition, where an incident breaks out with a golden staff that summons a semi-incorporeal monster from another plane. In the process, the famous docker Rock Rackus shoots a civilian while trying to help kill the monster.

The party catches wind of Kaja Stewart, arcane arms dealer and former McBannin-employed researcher. While trying to set her up Mona and Dreues’s poor attempts to pretend to be a couple catch Kaja’s suspicion, and she ambushes the full party. Eventually Dreues is the last one standing, and Kaja gives him a choice: choose one person to live, and the rest die. Dreues chooses Daewin, whom he was created to protect. Kaja kills Daewin, spares everyone else, and leaves. Everyone is thoroughly traumatized.

In retribution for killing Daewin, one of his moles, Morgan Cipiano kills Kaja and delivers her remains to Marcel’s house. Dreues retires to run Daewin’s orphanage and be Marcel’s househusband.

### Session 1

Cleone and Hoya are brought onto Marcel and Mona’s squad, now down to two “difficult” members. Their next mission is to investigate the Ziggurat of Apet, where the golden staff was found. All but one person died on the most recent expedition.

Before that, though, upon a request from her friend Serena Cleone helps investigate a murder scene in a factory, potentially related to the McBannin case. Serena hints that Marcel and Mona would be helpful despite technically being pulled off the case, so the whole party comes. Serena’s squadmate Carlao is less than thrilled due to how much trouble everyone will be in if discovered, while Serena and Dima turn blind eyes.

Evidence at the scene includes: an iron ring smelling of gasoline, a 500-year-old scrap of eladrin cloth that evokes a sense of deja vu somewhere in Cleone’s past lives, and the remains of a highly advanced but thoroughly torn-up golem. Cleone requests to take the golem to her workshop at home as opposed to the RHC, since the people actually experienced with the case (Mona and Marcel) will be able to get a look at it that way.

The body discovered belongs to a 40-60 year old human bearing the initials A.G. and evidence of an ankle wound, probably from the Third Yerasol War. Hoya requests records of people matching those descriptors, though it will take time to get the information.

### Session 2

The party talks to Xambria Meredith, the sole survivor of the ziggurat expedition. Her memories are jumbled but she mentions Caius Bergeron, who funded the expedition and sent in his own team before everyone was found dead and he cut the funding. She zones out frequently, and a few party members begin to suspect that her memory has been modified or that she’s been possessed. The party talks about Xambria’s research and the Ancients before talking to one of her colleagues, Hans Faber, about the artifacts retrieved from the ziggurat.

We also attempt to question Caius Bergeron, but he claims Xambria left the expedition rather than him cutting things off. Before we can get much further, Saxby intervenes and tells everyone that they’ll cause a diplomatic incident if they take things further.

Without the power to do much more from there, the party heads to the Ziggurat of Apet. Cleone grumbles about the quality of Risuri trains, while Marcel semi-accidentally sings a suggestive song in the middle of the train. Gatria is grumpy for the following 16-hour boat ride. Thanks to Mona’s skyseer powers the party is able to identify the offering they need for the Voice of Rot in the swamp before arriving at the ziggurat.

At the ziggurat, Hoya gets a vision of the people who died - not in the same positions or locations as their bodies are now, indicating that they’ve been moved. Mona is compelled to look up for a vision of her own.

### Session 3

The party explores the Ziggurat of Apet, experiencing traps and visions along the way. Cleone sees a man wearing a stone ring in the mirror, suggesting that she’s afraid to understand him but will come to do so anyway; later on, she has a different vision of a man in Danoran clothing offering her a cigarette (“It’s Nicodemus”). Hoya sees Tinker Oddcog, claiming he’s achieved something great that will come to inconvenience her. Gatria sees Pardo, blaming her for leaving the Cult of the Steel Lord and namedropping Isla dola Focas. Marcel sees his father, warning him that someday he won’t be able to come home. Hoya also sees a vision of the Ancients, and learns to speak Ancient herself.

Eventually they find a device that displays an ancient star map, which Hoya and Marcel are able to copy down. In a different room they find a giant golden seal, only…it’s fake, actually; somebody took the real one and replaced it with a facsimile. Mona gets two simultaneous visions: one of Apet and the edge of time, stars turning like gears; and her death sitting in a chair, killed by a man whose head bears the spike of a crown.

### Session 4

Hoya triggers a trap just to see what it will do, and what it does is raise a bunch of zombies and convince Gatria to put her on a leash. The party begins to realize that the dead bodies have been moved from the seal and the room tampered with, but further investigation comes to a halt when Hoya is nearly killed by hidden mummies.

Leaving the temple, it turns out that the trap Hoya triggered raised…all of the dead, everywhere, for way too much area. They’re rescued by the Voice of Rot, who demands a tithe: creatures from beyond this plane or the ones we know have escaped, and the constables must draw blood from their leader. He gives Marcel, Mona, and Hoya the ability to smell for planes. Gatria will later figure it out for herself. (RIP in no spellcasting, Cleone)

## Xambria???

### Session 5

Returning to Flint, the party debriefs with Delft and gives him a mighty shock when they bring up the fey titan’s tithe. We also find out that Caius Bergeron has been found dead in his hotel room. When we go to investigate the body, the party finds that Caius’ entire brain is missing and his skull hollowed out. We find a ring with a center inlay of stone and the inscription “Old Bergeron Gold” among his personal effects, and Cleone feels a nostalgic sense of deja vu upon seeing it. The staff informs us that Caius’ last visitor was a woman matching Xambria’s description, and that they did not part on good terms.

Upon Delft’s request, we also check out the situation around Rock Rackus’ arrest and the ensuing docker protests.

### Session 6

Turns out Rock Rackus is a huge tool, and will only disappoint the docker movement if they continue to put their faith in him. He also claims to travel the planes on the regular using scrolls of planar travel, some of which he sold to a man matching Caius Bergeron’s description. He also talks of his expeditions to other planar ziggurats, and of a skyseer vision about how he had no future and the constables would solve his murder. If they do solve it, he says, he’ll take the party to travel the planes with him! Mona takes his golden gun as collateral and leverage for future negotiations with Rock.

Back on the main investigation, Xambria has disappeared from her guards’ watch and hired a boat out to sea. Hans Faber requests us as guards for a museum gala where the golden artifacts will be displayed later that month. Everyone wants a piece of the constables, and in different directions. Will Cleone ever get spare time to visit the tech expo or put together the golem in her basement???

Also the team gets its own ship for pursuit of Xambria and any future boat-requiring matters. The party names it the Guiding Star (and not Boaty McBoatface).

### Session 7

On Marcel’s reluctant advice Gatria, Hoya, and Cleone go talk to Gideon Ambrose, who leads Marcel’s former theatre company. Gatria bans Hoya from speaking, much to Hoya’s chagrin, though the group will use her previous familiarity with Gideon to their advantage. Gideon will try and temper people’s expectations with respect to Rock Rackus, and try and make sure Rock doesn’t do anything stupid. Good luck, dude.

Following Xambria out to sea, we find several ships around the Ziggurat of Mavisha. One belongs to a researcher investigating the ziggurat on Caius Bergeron’s dime; another belongs to a ship of “mercenaries” escorting Caius’ specialty crew, who have taken over the operation. The third ship is the one Xambria hired, and when we visit her Xambria is ever hazy but claims to have seen a tentacled creature. Looking after her health, Hoya discovers eyeballs all over Xambria’s body. Poking one causes Xambria to fall unconscious.

### Session 8

Xambria also happens to have had the Icon of Apet, so the party confiscates that. She later asks for it back, claiming it was a gift from a student and that although she doesn’t have long to live she wants to keep it while she can. The party keeps the Icon, however.

We talk to the “mercenaries” and basically outpay Caius’ crew so they let us access the ship, including his team’s quarters, and then ditch their old passengers. Among people’s belongings is a letter from Caius to Finona Duvall, talking about various operations at ziggurats, truths about the planes, and a particular meeting in Vendricce, Crisillyir on Winter 20.

Going down into the sea towards the Ziggurat of Mavisha (after Cleone is forced to drop her makeup and tell the party she’s a deva with an impending swim), we meet Finona Duvall herself and convince her to stand down using Caius’ ring as proof of his death. Finona doesn’t know much beyond what was in the letter, only that Caius was working for an organization of some kind. She requests that we contact her if we find Caius’ killer, as he was fond of her and she’d figured she could do worse than a rich guy. RIP her gold-digging dreams.

### Session 9

Finona neutralizes the seal at the Ziggurat of Mavisha, and because we got rid of their ride she and her crew hitch a ride back to Risur on Xambria’s ship while Xambria stays under watch on the Guiding Star. Unfortunately, Xambria disappears during a hydra attack - and once we return there’s been a string of deaths, each victim missing its brain.

The RHC intercepts a letter from Xambria to her colleague Faber, revealing that she has indeed been followed and possessed by an entity known as Sijhen - and Sijhen has been investigating something called the Obscurati.

Upon their return to Flint, the constables are also subjected to an audit by Saxby. (Gatria gets to sit out, since she’s not a constable.) Saxby digs for information on Marcel and Mona’s connection with the Family, but doesn’t get anything. She also offers Cleone a promotion??? A position closer to the king??? Well that’s not suspicious at all.

## Well This Is Escalating Rapidly

### Session 10

Cleone can finally stop complaining about not having time to see the tech expo, because it’s time to check it out! The party trolls Marcel at the mechanical orchestra and visits a few other tents before Mona and company are invited into the Pemberton Industries tent - turns out Benedict Pemberton knows Mona and Marcel from Adventure 1!

Inside the tent is Heward Sechim, to whom Gatria offers her condolences regarding Nilassa’s death - they were best friends. Gatria also has a business proposition for him. Cleone and Hoya try out the demonstrations, and Cleone accidentally flirts with Pemberton. Mona catches up with Heward and runs into a lady with two cats, who recognizes Caius’ ring on Mona’s hand. “Is yours the hand?” she asks. Mona is unable to answer, and the cat lady leaves unimpressed.

After the tech expo comes the museum gala, which Sijhen-as-Xambria crashes. The party takes her down when Hoya gets close enough to poke an eye on her back, and takes her into custody at the RHC. Unfortunately, this is part of Sijhen’s plan - and Xambria for once is able to tell us so, revealing a variety of other things in the process.

Sijhen is a creature from beyond the known planes, who learns what people know when consuming their brains. He’s trying to get home, and in doing so stumbled across people from a secret organization known as the Obscurati. Caius Bergeron and Reed McBannin were both part of the Obscurati, and so is Margaret Saxby. The Obscurati operates on a secretive cell structure, but part of their operations includes investigating the same mechanisms that Sijhen needs to go back home.

And unfortunately, getting to the RHC was part of Sijhen’s plans all along. He leaves Xambria’s body, which was dead all along since she experienced the same burst of planar energy with her students at the Ziggurat of Apet, and Xambria’s soul finds a place within Hoya’s head.

The world starts to go transparent, and there’s a storm of thundering footsteps upstairs…

### Session 11

The RHC headquarters are under attack! Cleone stays below to try and save some civilians from alien bugs, commandeering a confiscated steamsuit in the process, while everyone else heads upstairs to check out what’s going on.

Upstairs, Sijhen confronts Saxby for an item she has - a star map dating back to the time of the Ancients. Saxby makes her escape while Sijhen is engaged fighting the party. Eventually Gatria kills him after learning that he needs the star map for his way home, leaving a bloodstain on Saxby’s desk. Snooping around in Saxby’s stuff, she finds all the evidence Saxby was withholding from the McBannin case as well as McBannin’s Obscurati ring.

Downstairs, Cleone encounters hitmen from two groups - Lorcan Kell’s Thieves Guild and the Obscurati - out to kill both Saxby and the party. Thankfully the steamsuit offers extra protection, and she leads them on a not-so-merry chase until she reunites with the party.

Mona goes to chase Saxby. While the building is temporarily incorporeal, something is visible in a train tunnel beneath the RHC. Gatria, Cleone, and Hoya drop down to the tunnel to find a golden seal like that of the Ziggurat of Apet, and a piece of melted/imprinted gold serving as a makeshift Icon of Apet. Marcel is too late, and just barely escapes the Kell/Obscurati assassins with his life.

### Session 12

Mona confronts Saxby, using Caius’ ring to momentarily pretend to be a member of the Obscurati. Saxby buys it and namedrops the king. Mona appeals to Saxby’s squad of constables and successfully convinces them not to  fight - they’re too confused by what’s going on to pick a side.

In the train tunnel Gatria has a cat-batting contest with a tentacled creature on the other side of the seal that’s trying to get through while Hoya tries to close the portal that will actually let it through. Thankfully possessing both the star map Saxby had and the Icon of Apet they grabbed off of Xambria helps, and they’re able to close the portal before anything manages to cross.

In the aftermath, the party debriefs with Delft. He and Gatria officially introduce themselves to one another, knowing that she isn’t a constable but vital to the group. When Mona tells the group about the cat lady and the rings, Cleone makes the connection that her past life used to be in the Obscurati - was Saxby trying to recruit her? The party has doubts about giving this information to the king given Saxby’s implications, but Delft reminds everyone that as constables they would be committing treason by withholding that information. So the king’s gonna get that information anyway.

Delft gets a promotion to Saxby’s former position. Gatria gives the party the missing McBannin case evidence. Cleone goes out for drinks with Serena to make sure she’s okay, following Saxby’s betrayal. Mona gets a dream indicating that the Voice of Rot is satisfied with his tithe.

Next task for the group: infiltrate the train Caius Bergeron was going to take to Vendricce, and check out that meeting…

**Next: Adventure 4**