Band Tour to Nymeria

## Should I Stay or Should I Go

* A couple months after the trial, Ursar Baus summons for a vital mission: travel to Nymeria, acquire the Court of Owls' "Void Project" and recover Dr. Triandra Perry alive. The Void Project refers to the legendary Orb of Planar Melding, which Morgan the Powerful originally gave the Protectorate to help them with the Orc War. It is a very powerful magical artifact and it's unknown what the Court of Owls plans to do with it.
* Now that they are officially working with the Protectorate, they are considered members of the Black Company, a Protectorate special operations unit. Baus introduces the other agents who will be joining the party.
	+ Wan-Ti Skullcrusher - a member of the Black Company who will provide backup for the team on their mission
	+ Reggie Star - a rockstar who has also gotten into trouble with the law, and has been essentially blackmailed into helping this operation.
	+ Kysona Abrekiir - an enigmatic trinkets salesman whose (fey?) magic has been deemed useful. Kysona has also gotten into trouble with the law and has been similarly blackmailed into helping.

* The plan is for the party to attend the Zion festival in Nymeria disguised as a traveling band where they will meet the Protectorate's Arasaka contact. The Zion festival is a celebration of music, and many important and well-connected Nymerian elders attend. The location of the festival is secret, which is why the Arasaka contact wants to meet there.
	+ To get into the Zion festival, the party will first have to travel to the Lemuta village and meet a contact who will bring them to the festival where they will perform as a band.
	+ The band will take an Arasaka transport ship from New Ashton in Tarrin to Nymeria. To let the ship contact know that they are here on Protectorate business, the party must go to the Puzzled Pig and say to the bartender:
		- Call: “fate whispers to the warrior.”
		- Response:  A storm is coming”
		- Call: “And the warrior whispers back”
		- Response: “I am the storm”

* The party's Q Clearance is **ek7zc2t5w**

## Bad Reputation

*Many months earlier*

* After leaving the city, Soleste travels through the Outerlands until she finally arrives in a small town named **Bladdakin** where the residents are suffering from a disease. The local priest is selling potions that he's claiming will cure residents of the disease, but Soleste discovers that he is a false prophet. She tries to expose his lies to the authorities, but the sheriff is in cahoots with the priest. Soleste ends up killing the sheriff and flees on a stolen horse.
* As Soleste is fleeing, she encounters some paladins who try to stop and interrogate her. Soleste panics and casts Cloudkill on one of the paladins while spreading her black corrupted wings. The other paladin calls her a devil and escapes.
* The next town that Soleste goes to has received word of a "devil" wandering through the countryside. They suspect Soleste of being that devil, and a mob arrives to execute her. She is saved by a dark-furred Tygron paladin named Azrael. He is a paladin for Asmodeus and he tells her that everything that she was told about herself was a lie. To find the truth, she must return home.
* Soleste journeys to her parents' home and stays there until Semasi and some Dol Arrah paladins arrive at the house. Soleste tells Semasi that Asmodeus saved her and that she is conflicted about her faith. Semasi admits that Soleste parents are not actually her biological parents, and that she is actually the daughter of Luna and Asmodeus. The Church sent Semasi to kill Soleste, but he didn't believe that Soleste should be punished for her parentage and gave her to her adoptive parents, hoping she could be raised as a good servant of Dol Arrah's light. Unfortunately, it seems he was wrong and she has "strayed too far" from Dol Arrah's light and must die for her transgressions.
* Semasi orders the paladins to kill Soleste but Soleste resists and fights the paladins. Azrael arrives and saves her again, showing his power by catching a Divine Smite with his hands. Semasi begs for his life, and the figure spares him, saying that unlike Dol Arrah, Asmodeus forgives.
* Azrael takes Soleste to her mother's grave and tells her that her birth name was Pandora.

## I Wanna Rock

* Barnabus, Eli, Franz, and Jaque are widely known as "Heroes of the Protectorate" and will need to take on cover identities to avoid attracting attention. The Protectorate provides powerful Potions of Disguise that change the party members appearance indefinitely until they consume a potion that counters it. The Protectorate also provides useful potions and performance enhancers.
* In order to begin their "band tour", the party travels to Landlow and meet Darla Dione, their band manager. Darla is a dwarf who lived in both Nymeria and Tarrin, and has a history with Reggie. From there, they will do a series of concerts as they travel through Tarrin, get on an Arasaka transport ship, and and continue the concert tour towards Lemuta.
* The band exit the capitol city of Sirex and travel down the Toklanda River (the one that feeds in Juniper Lake) to the Steamfields where Landlow is located. They make a stop at the Golden Cake, a famous bakery famous for a spurnut cake called "The Golden Cake". They also meet up with Darla.
* The band is called "Reggie and the Stars"
	+ Reggie is the band's lead singer
	+ Wan-Ti plays the drums
	+ Aelis and Franz (disguised as \_\_\_\_) play the guitar
	+ Barnabus (disguised as Jackson "Jackknife" Wesley, a teenage boy) is \_\_\_\_
	+ Eli (disguised as Edgar Allen, a pasty-faced poet) is the band's songwriter.
	+ Kysona is the band's stage manager.
	+ Jaque (disguised as)
* The band cross the border into Tarrin in **Ballingsmallard**, a Sirex-Tarrin border town. On the road, they encounter a hoard of giant cicadas, and a party that's traveling to the Outerlands to capture a devil. Eventually they arrive in a Northern Tarrin town named **Beckingsdale** where they have their first concert. While there, they help a small farm whose sheep have been taken by giant ants. The party defeats the ants and collect ant acid, which can be used to make Alchemical Acid.
	+ Some of the band players take the performance enhancers. Wan-Ti develops a dependency and has withdrawal symptoms if she doesn't take them after a while.
* Their next stop is **Addersfield**, located in Tarrin Upper Titan Bluffs. They have their concert and enjoy the festival occurring at the same time. Eli recites the Black Cat as Edgar Allen.

## Back to Black

* The band goes to **Dangarnon** in the Tarrin Lower Titan Bluffs where they have another performance. After the concert, the band members attend a party at the governor's estate. Halfway through the party, someone shoots an arrow through the window and hits the governor. Barnabus rushes to perform first aid while Kysona sends Aria to follow the archer.
* Partygoers spot figures approaching the estate. Security tries to shoot them, but can't stop them because the figures are actually walking corpses. Eli rushes to the balcony and casts Turn Undead. It successfully stops the undead army, but the figures then move to form the Court of Owls symbol before turning back into inanimate corpses.
* The governor's security arrives and Kysona tells them that he can track the culprit's location. Franz, Jaque, Barnabus, Kysona, Aelis, Eli, and three elite guards with anti-magic shields follow Kysona to apprehend the attacker. They arrive at a small house on the edge of the forest. They fight and subdue the attacker, who turns out to be a necromancer, and destroy his undead abominations.
* It turns out that the necromancer is not a member of the Court of Owls, and is only a copycat who idolizes Damian and attempting to get his attention.

## Kung Fu Fighting

* Because of their run-in with the necromancer, the party is running late and may not be able to reach their next stop on time. Darla takes a shortcut through a lightning farm. The party gets in trouble with the owner of the farm, but they do reach **New Ashton** on time. Coincidentally, Cage the Loxodon is also playing in Addersfield. Reggie is unhappy that another rockstar is there to steal his spotlight, and tries his best to show him up. In the second half of the concert, Kysona roofies Cage, causing the Loxodon to fall off the stage and injure some members of the audience. Outraged that by Kysona's tactics, Eli shouts that she saw Kysona do something with Cage's drink. Luckily, Darla defuses the situation and the accepted story is that Cage had a little too much to drink.
	+ While in New Ashton, some members of the party get Dwarven Tattoos.
* The band goes to the Puzzled Pig and gives the call and response. A Black Company operative nickname Ice Man arrives and tells them that they have a spot on the transport ship. Ice Man also tells them that the Arasaka contact that they will meet at the Zion festival is a high elf wearing red feathers. The contact has confirmed that they know important recent info about Arasaka operations. The contact's identity as a Protectorate associate can be confirmed with the code
	+ Call: we live in a twilight world
	+ Response: there are no friends at dusk

* Professor Pattins is a professor at the Nymerian University who works with the Protectorate. If the party gives him the same call/response that they gave the Puzzled Pig bartender, the Professor can get the party in direct contact with Ursur. When the party determines the location of the Void Project or Dr. Perry, they should contact the Professor for backup
* Ice Man is traveling to Arasaka with a large metal crate that he is delivering to Nymeria. He says that if this package is intercepted, worst comes to worst the magical part can be separated.
* The night before they leave, Eli breaks into the Ice Man's quarters to investigate the metal crate. It is magically locked, so she is not able to see inside. Ice Man returns and is talking to Hal, Eli's brother. She has no idea why he is working for the Black Company.
* Everyone boards the ship and sets sail. Other passengers include a couple and a graduate student named Caleb who studies pirates and is very excited about the possibility of meeting pirates. The travel is smooth until they spot another ship fast approaching. It turns out to be a gang of Aarakocra pirates who are targeting Ice Man's metal crate.
	+ The party and Ice Man fight and successfully defeat the Aarakocra pirates, sinking their ship in the process. Eli dives down into the water to loot the ship. She finds a small gold dragon, a bag of holding containing a book with teeth (Gorp), a small case of potions, a fey amulet, crystal spectacles, and 97 gold.
* The party discovers that Caleb purposely spread rumors that the transport ship has magic valuables in order to bait pirates into attacking the ship. The Aarakocra pirates were likely sent by the Collector, a mysterious person who sends out treasure hunters to find the rarest magical items to sell. They lie on a magical floating island and will send out letters of invitation to people that are most powerful and influential in the world and then auction off the rarest magical items in the world. Anyone who attends the magic conference enter a forced cease fire.

## You Give Love a Bad Name

* The transport ship arrives in Nymeria's Port Madise. The party hires a Nymerian Shepherd to guide them through the jungle to Lemuta village. The party suffers from the jungle heat and the blood-sucking insects. Franz refuses to complete the rituals that the Shepherd tells them to in order to appease the jungle because he doesn't believe in the jungle magic. He wakes up one morning to find his Leomund's Tiny Hut covered in vines.
* The party reaches the Lemuta village, reaches out to the contact, and are brought to the Zion festival. It's rumored that Queen Jabari, leader of the Kaseyo Kingdom, is in attendance.
* The party wanders the stalls, many of which are selling magical drugs.
	+ Reggie buys and takes magical cocaine.
	+ Barnabus sees words being magically written in the air. They say:
		- *To a home long estranged, you have returned*
		- *Yet your mind still roams, your spiritual journey unfulfilled*
		- *Forget not your Symphasian family*
		- *For a Red Sun rises from the East*

* When it's about time for Reggie and the Stars to perform, Reggie goes backstage to get ready and runs into Eve, his disappeared girlfriend. He demands to know where she was, and she says that she didn't want to be with him and ran away. Terry, Reggie's arch-nemesis, shows up and reveals that he and Eve are dating now.
	+ Terry and Eve perform \_\_\_\_ on stage in a subtle diss at Reggie. Enraged, Reggie runs on stage and tackles Terry and Eve, causing all of them to roll off stage. Eve is furious at Reggie and calls him an arrogant narcissist. High on drugs and emotions, Reggie casts Banishment on Eve.
	+ Aelis, Barnabus, and Eli attempt to stop Reggie from finishing the spell, but the magical cocaine increases Reggie's reaction time and he's able to evade them. Eve disappears to another plane of existence for a couple of seconds before reappearing. She is extremely traumatized by her experience.
* Kaseyo Kingdom guards arrive and arrest Reggie. Reggie and the Stars can't perform without their lead singer, so Eli goes onstage as Edgar Allen and recites The Tell Tale Heart. While they are performing, Franz identifies the Arasaka contact and gives them the Black Company call/response. The contact gives him a carved piece of dragon's bone that will lead them to an Arasaka facility that contains a VIP. The party assumes that the VIP is Damian Roark.

## Stayin' Alive

* Reggie is brought to the Kasaeyo Kingdom to stand trial for his crimes in front of Queen Jabari and the Kasaeyo Council. Reggie pleads guilty and provides a motive for his crime. The party tries to defend him by arguing that he's too stupid to understand what he was doing.
* The punishment for Reggie's crime is being fed to the crocodiles as a sacrifice to the CrocoSphynx. Reggie manages to downgrade his punishment to lifetime imprisonment in exchange for providing information about his father Veginald Star and the College of Whispers.