Aerois - Episode 25: Into the Fire

Katie Morrison as Aila

 Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Into the Fire** is the 25th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 24th February 2019 from 5PM to 8PM GMT.

*Time to infiltrate Brightflame Abbey and find out exactly what the Abbotess is up to...*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* There are two sponsors today: Displate and D&D Beyond. Viewers are encouraged to join the D&D Beyond Discord. There will be some Displate giveaways later (including the one Tom has chosen).
* HR will be at Twitch Con Europe in Berlin on 13-14 April 2019. They will be doing a live D&D episode from 3-4.30pm on Saturday – they may have a cool guest and more details will be coming soon.
* Merch: Notebooks are very low on stock, and they may not be re-stocked. Any old stock, that is currently on sale, will not be restocked once it is gone. Use the code HIGHROLLERS for 10% off.

### **Recap**

"*In the dark undercrypt of the temple of Kellara, the party dealt with the aftermath of their battle with a Guardian called Breeze, who had attempted to sacrifice a member of the Ashbringer cult to extend the life of the party's friend, Tracker. Quill dreamt of meeting with his god, H'esper, but during it was witness to a strange vision of the city burning around him, with creatures of shadow and ash, and a great blazing doorway, with a woman wrapped in chains at its centre. The party sought out the Fieldwarden of Kalie's Rest, Milika Dawnblessed, and explained the various events that had been taking place. The Fieldwarden then asked the party to investigate Brightflame Abbey, which has closed its gates off from the city for a three-day period of religious mourning, which exempts them from Suvonnan law. During the night, Lucius sent his companion, Nightfrost, a magical relic called an Eterna, to search the Abbey for signs of missing faith leaders that Milika has asked you to locate and recover. Nightfrost found them imprisoned beneath the Abbey, as well as sensing a powerful source of magic. Returning to Lucius, the party slept and awoke to strange dark clouds gathered overhead and nearby animals becoming agitated and frightened.*"

### **Part 1**

*The team gain an unexpected ally and begin their infiltration of the Abbey!*

(There is an addendum to what Nightfrost told Lucius in the night: when Abbotess Aurelia went down beneath the altar into the tunnels, it was locked by two keys that were held by two other members of the Church, a Dwarf and a Dragonborn.)

The party has spent the night in the Dream Lily Tavern(see Trivia) and Quill realises that the new clouds are not natural – there are no signs of rain, thunder, or storms, and the animals being frightened in such mass numbers only happens with extreme magic; he realises that something has changed magically nearby. Lucius tells them what Nightfrost has discovered in his infiltration of the Abbey, including that the passageway under the Abbey’s cloister seemed to be a single tunnel leading to the source of great magic. Nightfrost believes that their greatest challenge will be to get past the locked door that requires the two keys.

As they are having this conversation, there is a knock, and the door opens to show Valla standing there awkwardly – most of them notice that she is upset and has been crying. She says that she was worried about them as she scuffs the floor with her feet. It is clear that she knows she is not meant to be there, but she says that she has been bored staying with Arval and wants to do cool things with the party – she thought that they had tried to leave her behind. They tell her that they are being followed by cultists, but Valla is no fool – she noticed the people who were trying to watch the tavern the party is staying in and distracted them so that she could enter unseen (she has had a lot of practice sneaking out of the Church of Siaska); she tells them that she also has a lot of practice picking locks. They discuss possible strategies to enter the Abbey: Sentry gets some charcoal from the inn’s burned down logs for camouflage and they leave out the back door of the inn to avoid the Abbey’s observers.

They make their way, not followed as far as they can tell, to the Brightflame Abbey – it sits wholly within the walls of Kalie’s Rest. Over the walls surrounding the Abbey looms the bell tower, and Quill thinks that he can see one or two humanoid figures at its top, looking around. The walls of the Abbey are around eighteen feet tall, and the one gate leading in or out has a wooden portcullis reinforced by thick iron rivets and bolts. There are two miniature towers to either side of the main gate which have the winch and chain connected to the portcullis, and two guards, a man and a woman wearing the robes of Palador, stand guard at the gate (these appear to be the only two guards visible from the outside). Despite it being late morning, the dark clouds overhead make it quite dark but there is no hint of a breeze, so it is also rather warm.

They move around to the far side of the Abbey wall and send Nightfrost over to have a look – he lands behind the smithy and training hall, telling them that there are several patrols within the grounds, but none nearby. Aila climbs the outer wall, placing pitons as she goes to the beat of the blacksmith within the Abbey hammering on the anvil. When she reaches the top of the wall, she secures the rope for the others to climb and peers over, seeing the grassy grounds behind the single-floored training hall building. Meanwhile, Sentry drinks the potion of diminution, reducing her size and increasing her stealth. They make it over the wall without incident but are aware that a patrol of four soldiers is approaching: two of the soldiers wear armour with shields and swords, one wears robes that look similar to one of the spellcasters they encountered in the Temple of H’esper, and the last is wearing robes and armour and is carrying a mace. Quill uses *Thaumaturgy* to make the sound of footsteps to lead the patrol away from them before they move north, unseen, to the base of the bell tower.

Across the compound, they see a long thin building they think might be a dormitory, with its door flanked by two guards. In one of the walls of the Abbey proper, there is a stained-glass window depicting an androgynous figure, Palador, completely on fire and standing above the planet of Aerois, reaching down with a hand and cascading light and warmth onto the planet. Above Palador are the heavens, filled with angelic creatures with wings, halos, burning swords – all are coming down towards Aerois itself.

### **Part 2**

*The infiltration of the Abbey is going well so far... but for how long?*

The bell tower is a worked stone building, seventy feet tall with a wooden door at its base; at its tip is a tiled roof and a large brass bell, and two guards patrol the belfry. They send Nightfrost under the closed door into the bell tower; he tells them that the tower is a single shaft with an internal staircase leading to the top of the tower, the base being used for storage of barrels and crates. Valla begins to open the door only to realise that there is a string trap across the doorway designed to ring a small bell if the door is opened: she manages to disarm the trap and opens the door quietly. They sneak into the tower, a twenty-foot square room, and see the ascending staircase along the walls and a giant bell above them; they also hear the footsteps and quiet conversation of the two guards in the belfry. Nova and Lucius begin sneaking up the stairs before a tiny piece of stone step comes loose and makes a noise as it falls to the steps below – one of the guards above looks down and sees them both, and both guards begin to level their crossbows towards the party. Lucius casts *Misty Step* and appears behind one of them on a five-foot balcony surrounding a ten-foot hole that drops to the base of the tower. Nova and Aila are halfway up the stairs, and everyone else is at the bottom of the stairs.

Valla, seeing that they have been spotted, casts *Magic Missile*, hitting one of the guards. Sentry tries to pull her behind some of the barrels to give her cover, but being small due to the potion of diminution, lacks the strength to do so when Valla resists. Seeing that there are more of them below, the guard next to Lucius drops his crossbow and pulls out his short sword to engage Lucius, while the other slams the butt of his crossbow a number of times against the large bell at the centre of the tower to ring it. Quill runs up and tries to *Hold Person* on the guard who just rang the bell, but he shrugs it off and levels his crossbow down towards the rest of the party. Nova shoots at the closest guard with *Eldritch Blast* but he dodges the beam. Aila runs past her and shoves the same guard into the edge of the tower – he manages to stop himself from falling to the ground below, however.

Lucius casts *Lightning Lure* and tries to pull the guard that Aila shoved into the empty centre of the tower, but he pulls back on the lure and resists Lucius’ pull – Lucius has to let go of the spell lest he be pulled off the balcony himself. Valla casts *Magic Missile* at the guard next to Lucius and the three bolts slam into his body, the last burning a smoking hole through his chest – he stumbles into the middle of the tower and falls to slam, dead, into the ground near Sentry, who then moves up the stairs towards Quill. Seeing his friend has been shot from below, the remaining guard levels his crossbow at Valla and shoots her before dropping the crossbow, drawing his short sword, and stabbing Aila. Quill yells to Valla to barricade the door, then casts *Lightning Lure* on the remaining guard – he is pulled into the centre of the tower and tries to grab the bell ropes but misses and falls to his death. Quill sees one patrol group and the two guards from the dormitory door converging on the bell tower in response to the ringing bell.

Quill notices an area with a staircase that goes from the top part of the Abbey down into the church itself, but they will need to jump ten feet across from the bell tower to the church building. Valla has tried to move some barrels and crates to block the door but is too weak to move anything herself, so Nova decides to break the chain holding the bell to the roof of the tower – she casts *Heat Metal* on the chain as Aila prepares to strike it. The militants, wearing tabards and newly made armour with the closed fist symbol of the Ashbringers emblazoned on it, kick the door of the bell tower in and four of the six soldiers enter: seeing the bodies on the ground, they begin to look up… as Aila strikes the bell, deafening Nova and Sentry with the noise, but breaking the chain holding it to the roof. The bell plummets to the ground, smashing into the four soldiers on the ground and decimating them, but it makes a cacophonous sound of metal on stone as it hits.

They decide to attempt the jump across to the roof of the church building. With Quill casting *Gust* as each of them jumps across, all of them make the jump successfully except Nova and Sentry who miss their footing and begin to fall – Aila grabs Sentry and Nova casts *Levitate,* sending herself back up to the roof that she missed. Quill is the last to jump, successfully making the leap just as the last two guards clamber over the bell and shoot two crossbow bolts in his direction: they scrape by his tail feathers as he makes it safely to the other side.

They clamber over to the trapdoor that Quill had spotted from the bell tower and climb down into a narrow wooden staircase until they reach a wooden door. Hearing muffled shouting coming from the other side somewhere, Quill opens it quietly. They are on a large stone balcony of the second floor of the church looking down onto the main room of the church below: directly below them is the altar in front of the stained-glass window and off to the sides are stairs leading down to the floor below which is full of pews, with statues of Palador in alcoves along the walls, paintings and tapestries hanging along some of the walls, and an organ with large pipes at the back end of the church opposite to the window. On either side, leaning over the stairs, are two robed figures speaking to a more armoured cleric and two more people on the level below: there is a desire to go and help at the bell tower, but the cleric tells them that the Paladins of Ash will deal with that and that their orders from the Abbotess are to remain in the church and to protect the site. They use Nightfrost to communicate this information to the deafened Nova and Sentry. Lucius proposes that they storm the church and surprise the people within it and Valla offers to go searching for the keys while they fight; Nova turns her invisible and Lucius asks Nightfrost to transform into his bow form.

They go to enter the balconied area silently but as Quill opens the door, it scrapes the ground and squeals, alerting the two patrolling robed figures on the second-floor balconies. Aila rages, pushing Quill to the side, and moving out to attack the nearest adherent: she hits him with the hammer and her lightning, breaking his arm, but he is conjuring flames along his arm to hit her with *Hellish Rebuke*. Lucius uses Nightfrost to fire an arrow at the adherent on the other side of the balcony and hits him, managing to ensnare the man and doing cold damage to him. They hear shouting from the floor below followed swiftly by armoured footsteps of the militants leading up the stairs towards them.

Sentry moves behind Aila and casts *Cure Wounds* on her. Quill casts *Guiding Bolt* on the the frost-bound warlock on the opposite balcony and hits him, causing him to yell out, “Meister, they have a spell caster!” as the freezing chains deal him more damage before he manages to break free of them. The warlock nearest to Aila casts a *Cone of Flame* that hits Aila, Sentry, Quill, and Lucius and burns them before the warlock on the opposite balcony throws three rays of fire at Quill, Aila, and Sentry, hitting only Quill. Nova casts *Frostbite* on the warlock nearest Aila – a cold, crawling, misty fog extends from Tiangong’s blade and begins coiling up his legs, freezing them in place – he yelps. The robed and armoured figure standing in the main room below calls out, “Be not disheartened, my brothers! We shall win this day. The purge, the *cleansing,* will burn away all sin!” before he heals all those around him, then misses Aila with a *Sacred Flame.*

## **YouTube Timestamps**

1:02 Announcements
5:32 Intro plays
6:41 Recap
8:03 Episode starts
13:55 Dragonborn lore
21:39 Valla
26:26 Valla is better suited for stealth than the entirety of the team
33:43 The group has to choose
35:35 Phrasing matters
39:11 Voting for a new leader
43:20 Group leaves the tavern
51:03 Sending Nightfrost ahead
57:35 DM sarcasm
1:00:14 Climbing the Wall
1:03:39 Tiny Sentry riding a giant echo would be great
1:10:34 The worst part about climbing
1:15:43 Group stealths to the point even the viewers can’t see them
1:20:08 Break starts
1:31:18 Break ends
1:36:20 Tiny sentry is terrifying
1:42:28 Group enters the bell tower and Valla is a master rogue
1:48:48 Initiative
1:53:30 Alarm goes off
2:06:38 Group has Guards closing in on them
2:09:34 Nova’s master plan
2:11:26 Jingle bells Jingle bells oh that’s gonna hurt
2:21:46 Group enters the cathedral
2:25:46 The group skipped a whole dungeon

*feel free to add extra timestamps of significant events!*

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Stormchasers (Player Characters)**

* Aila
* Nova V'ger
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Nightfrost
* Valla

#### **Mentioned NPCs**

* Palador
* Abbotess Aurelia

## **Featured Locations**

* Kalie's Rest
	+ Brightflame Abbey

## **Trivia**

* Mark thanks Anna Prossler(Markism) for organising them to be at Twitch Con Europe. It takes a few years for him to realise that he is adding an L and that her name is Anna Prosser.
* **Continuity Error:** Mark calls the North Street inn where the party is staying “The Dream Lily Tavern” and says that this is what it was originally called. He lost his notes but says that a comment let him know the original name. The original name was, in fact, the Dusk Dream Inn.
* **Lore dump:** The Dragonborn came from space in gold crystalline ships that Aerosians would later learn were the same types of ships that Kalus had; they gave Siaska warning that Starbane was coming. The Dragonborn were refugees, having escaped from their home planet which was taken over by Kalus Starbane, and they came and swore to help defend Aerois. Since the Sundering, they have fallen into their military culture – military rank is everything and one is expected to provide service. They operate out of the remaining Dragon ships on which they arrived, which are their hometowns, are powerless, and are scattered across Aerois. There are legends and stories about the spaceships in which they came down: they are gold and work for the Dragonborn because their great ancestor wyrms, the great ancient Dragons, sacrificed themselves and used their spirits to take over the ships, so now the ships are living dragon spirits, but they have faded in power and are no longer able to fly. The Dragonborn generally keep to themselves but still remember their oath to protect Aerois so now they often supplement town guards and have patrolling armies that deal with The Remnant whose focus is still the elimination of the Court of Shadows. It is not uncommon for one or two who fall out of the military hierarchy to become mercenaries, bandits, etc.
* The potion of diminution has the following effect: When you drink this potion, the target’s size is halved in all dimensions and its weight is reduced to 1/8 of normal. Your size changes to small. Until the spell ends, you have disadvantage on strength checks and strength saving throws and the target’s weapons also shrink which causes them to do 1d4 less damage but cannot reduce damage below 1. The effect lasts an hour. Mark gave Sentry advantage on stealth and dexterity checks.
* When they are planning their entry to the Abbey, there is reference to Richard O’Brien and the TV show “The Crystal Maze”.
* East Coast Suvonnans are described as having a Bronx-style accent. West Coast Suvonnans have a more generic American accent – Merrick Tallfellow is described as one of these.
* The way that Mark works out the party’s infiltration success is to treat their stealth checks as a skill challenge: every time they have to stealth, they do it as a group check (Mark compares the number of successes vs the number of failures). Every time they fail, the alert level is raised.
* Mark makes the DC for the jump across the roof (without the gust assist) an Athletics 13.
* Mark jokes that the party going through the roof avoided his “cool Scarlet Monastery dungeon” which is a reference to a low-level World of Warcraft dungeon (Chris Trott is also wearing a Horde t-shirt this week). He later admits that them going through the roof was always a possibility that he had allowed for.
* Katie was very excited that she did 6 damage (on a d6) with her lightning. She has previously rolled a 1 or 2 for her lightning damage.
* Mark says that he usually makes magic item DCs at 13.
* One of the donators suggested that Nova and Lucius would make a funny couple. Kim immediately pretended to vomit while Trott did not react at all.
* There has been a “Daddy” count since episode 1, and by the end of this episode, Lucius had uttered the term 95 times in total.