Out of the Frying Pan (TF010)

**“Out of the Frying Pan”** is the tenth session of the Team 3.5 game.  Making their way back from the heart of the Avonstead, Team 3.5 experience dreams, compensation, and the feeling that they might be being watched…

# Synopsis

## Abralis 20

In the immediate aftermath of the battle, the party collected themselves around an impromptu camp.  They also went around and collected the four artifacts: Lath placed the mantle on his shoulders, Lemmy grabbed the sword, and Aine grabbed the two crowns.  Schnicktick explained, briefly, the nature of the portal: it led to a parallel plane of existence known as Delirium: where the Faefolk live, separate and safe from Loctet in the plane of Convergence.  Schnicktick actually hails from Delirium, and had been looking for a way to get home to his family.  With this one planar egress now lost to him, Schnicktick bid Team 3.5 adieu, as he began to strip off his clothes.  He shared tender goodbyes with Lemmy and Lath… and *a* goodbye with Aine, who pressed a trinket from the Monastery into his hands to remember her by.  He totally didn’t lose it the second she was out of eyesight.  Regardless, they gathered their strength and began the return trip to Crusene.

Aine, dedicated to finishing *Love, Distilled*, read the rest of the day, bumping into logs and trees as she did so.  She didn’t aid much with camp that night, sitting on a log as Lemmy and Lath prepared around her.  Eventually she finished late into the night, passing out immediately as she finished the final page.

That night, each of the three members of Team 3.5 had some manner of premonition that came to them in the sleeping hours.  For Lath, with the mantle of the Wolf King around his shoulders, he had a dream that he *was* a wolf, running through the woods.  In his wolf form (with mostly white fur dotted in black), he mused on the fact that, while it was nice to travel alone for a while, it was also nice to have a pack to call his own.  Eventually, emerging from the woods, he found his two pack mates standing on a ridge, the rising sun behind them: a cream colored wolf with white swirls throughout her fur, and a mechanical wolf, with an unmoving jaw.  The three then bounded off back into the forest to hunt.

For Lemmy, an odd thing occurred: the thing in his chest began to vibrate and change frequency.  In his low power state, he could do little but watch as his vision blacked out, and came back into focus to see Cassie.  For a moment, he thought he was just remembering the first time he came online, when he realized that it couldn’t be: the Cassie in front of him had deep, dark bags under her eyes, and her wrists had a smattering of bruises.  Cassie was roughly removed from Lemmy’s field of vision as a very skinny red drakeblood peered into his eyes, before moving “Lemmy’s” head.  Lemmy looked down at his body, and saw that it was made of a consistent, matte black metal, and that the thing in his chest (which, for Lemmy, is red) was actually purple.  The drakeblood and Cassie talked for a moment, the drakeblood shaking her, before storming off.  The last thing Lemmy saw before his vision returned to the campfire was a crying Cassie saying the words “I’m sorry.”

Aine, hitting the hay right after finishing the first volume of *Love, Distilled*, immediately fell into a foul nightmare.  Under a sky with the sun blotted out, Aine was forced to re-experience a variety of the trials she had experienced on the road: the bruises, the cuts, and damage, and especially getting almost killed.  Each wound pushed her further into the darkness, before a single mote of light filled her field of vision.  She then witnessed all the good she herself had done, and had experienced on the trip: Lath making her a cure all for her hang over the night after saving Toffy.  Climbing on Lemmy’s shoulders to get away from the spiders in the Eighter Alleys.  Varad healing her during the Day of Carving.  Aine burying both the bandit that attacked her and the remains of the Legion soldiers.  Her first date with Peri.  Keeping Nesro alive in Arborro.  All these things and more filled her with light and love and warmth, as the wounds and pains were stripped away.

## Abralis 21

Aine, tired from the lack of sleep but enthused by her dream, attempted to make tea for Lath.  It didn’t go… well… and Lath offered to properly teach her what ingredients to gather and how to make it properly.

As the party made their way back to Crusene, they found more and more evidence of creatures being taken over by the infection just sitting on the ground, umoving.  Lemmy removed another seed from what looked to be an orcish woman, and Aine attempted to heal away the infection.  She made an interesting discovery: while the creatures infected are 100% dead, the plants themselves are still alive, yet dormant.  It seems that, once the directive of “infect host” has been completed, the seed simply sits and waits for a signal to do anything.  A signal which is no longer coming, thanks to the party killing the creature in the forest.

Lemmy, in a funk from the dream, was brought out of his reverie as Aine fully recounted the conclusion of *Love, Distilled* to him, similarly growing aghast that it ended before the two lovers could even speak.  Lemmy then asked to read the book, which he did with machine-like speed, finishing the whole thing in a couple of minutes.  Aine was agog at this, and asked if he could teach her how to do that.

Sleep passed peacefully this night.

## Abralis 22

The party arrived into Crusene as the sun was beginning to set.  Aine pulled out the two crowns and placed them on both Lemmy and her own head, attracting a great deal of attention.  Eventually, Divergent Legion members began to flank them, with one of them asking why they were wearing the *priceless artifacts of the Gordon family in full view of everyone*.  They were escorted with due haste to the Chateau Aesthetica, where they were brought to that same waiting room from before.  Lady Duff Gordon arrived in more relaxed clothes than she was wearing previously, and was utterly shocked they had managed to find all four artifacts.

Aine recounted what had occurred, making sure to emphasize that Melanine aided their attempts (and dealt the killing blow), imploring Lady Gordon to aid his community.  Lady Gordon conceded to the wisdom of this, ensuring greater financial support for the annex village Melanine hailed from.  Speaking of money, however, Team 3.5 received *healthy* financial compensation for their deeds, as well as a “official charter”/passport of sorts from Lady Duff Gordon herself, opening up several avenues for them, should they need to.

From there, the party split into two.  Lath and Aine went to return to the Sunbeam Library, and Lemmy went off on his own.  Lath, as he was leaving the Chateau, realized he quite liked the weight of the pelt on his shoulders, and began brainstorming ways he might get it back.

Regardless, Lath and Aine arrived at the Library, where Amafrey welcomed them in with tea.  As Aine recounted their success, Amafrey tapped her fingers on the second volume of *Love, Distilled*, enjoying watching the younger monk squirm in anticipation.  Eventually, Amafrey conceded, switching out the books and wishing them safe travels.  Before they left, Lath grabbed a book at random from the shelves, tucking it under his arm.

Meanwhile, Lemmy found another bar to go to: the Raucous Satyr.  After paying the mostly human bouncer, Lemmy found himself in a loud, hostile crowd, one that was actively booing off a half-elf performer from the stage.  Leaping up there before anyone could react, Lemmy pulled a song from the multiverse out and played it for them, turning the crowd from hostile to jovial as they danced.  He then hunted down the bard.

The bard was wallowing in drink and despair.  Lemmy probed a little bit about the Hazelheim Opera House, before revealing the pin he found in place of Cassie about a year ago.  The bard shot back from the table as if shocked, and began running for the door before being stopped by Lemmy’s magic.  The two then had a very tense conversation outside, where the bard very angrily stated that Lemmy had *no* idea what he was trying to do.  Again and again the bard emphasized how powerful, unknowable and unstoppable the Ensemble was, and that Lemmy was a fool for trying to do anything contrary to their wishes.  Lemmy, angry for perhaps the first time in his life, was unswayed.

Lemmy reunited with Aine at the Red Gauntlet Inn, where Lath had already retired for the evening.  This tiny bar on the poorer side of town was hosting a pretty spectacular band, the Midnight Whisperers, that he noticed had immediately taken note of him.  He had a tense interaction with the singer, before spending the rest of the night keeping Aine company.  Aine drank *quite a bit* that night, tipping the singer a gold piece.  Lemmy successfully stopped her from passing out, getting her increasingly incoherent and boneless mind and body up into their room, where Lath had prepared a pitcher of water for her to drink.

## Abralis 23

In the early hours of the morning, Lemmy watched as a black clad figure, wearing a frowning theatre mask, opened the door and creeped into the room where the three of them were staying.  Immediately immobilizing him with magic, Lemmy ran over and removed his mask to reveal that it was the singer of the Midnight Whisperers.  The singer broke free of the magic and  made a stab at Lemmy, glancing off his plate and waking Lath and Aine up.  Combat then started in earnest.  An Aine in the beginning of a hangover sprang into action, throwing Dreyla’s Branch at the singer and binding him.  Lemmy then charmed him with magic.

About that time, the window behind them broke, and Lath took a dagger to the back.  Immediately grabbing his hammer and lying low, the singer revealed that one of his compatriots was outside, likely making his way to the window, and another was disguised as a citizen to serve as back up.  Aine also noticed that the singer was using all of their names: the singer explained that they caught wind of Lemmy asking questions about them in Dimshade, and so they had been sent to silence them.  Lath began creeping his way down the hallway with his hammer, attempting to sense which person was using magic to disguise themselves.

Lemmy cast an illusion of the singer leaning out of the window to encourage his compatriot to come inside.  As he did, Aine blasted him with her sun-like ki, knocking him to the ground outside the Red Gauntlet Inn.  Aine then leapt down and tried to time him up.  He wiggled out and made a stab at her before clambering up the wall.  Aine knocked him down again with another sun-infused ki blast, before knocking him out by punching his head to the pavement.

Around this time, Lath was hiding around the corner of a hallway, a bead on his target.  As the magically disguised individual began to walk around the corner, Lath *slammed* his hammer into his face, completely breaking the mask (and several bones in his face).  About this time the rest of the civilians in the Inn began waking up and, in a panic, began running downstairs.

Aine, using her monk prowess, quickly climbed back up the wall to their room, joining Lemmy as he entered the hallway.  The three party members followed after the mob (with the third member hiding amongst them) downstairs, where Aine finally tripped him up, and Lath completely melted his face off.

As the chaos settled around them, Lemmy said he would explain everything.

# Dramatis Personae

* Aine Solana
* Amafrey Solana
* Cassandra Caster
* Duff Gordon
* Glath ahn Latha
* Hunter Gordon
* Lemmy

# Game Data

* Date played: 3/22/2021
* Time played: 3:43:00