Acquisitions Incorporated: Season Ten

## Acquisitions Inc. Season Ten

Season 10 consists of two standalone mini-adventures played at PAX East 2016, *Acquisitions Incorporated: The Series* , and the live finale at PAX West (formerly PAX Prime).

## Story

### "How Not to Host a Murder"

Jim invites his friends to his 40th birthday party, complete with a fake murder investigation, only to be murdered for real by one of the guests.

### "I.S.T.A.R. Facilities"

The party goes through Viari's unauthorized and therefore top-secret testing and assessment facility for new AcqInc interns.

### The Series, Part 1

With Dran Enterprises still working on the buyout paperwork, Portentia Dran reveals to AcqInc the location of the dwarven vault where her and Omin's sister keeps a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. The crew disguises Omin as Auspicia Dran and infiltrates the Horn Enclave, narrowly dodging detection, and secures the piece of the Rod, just as the entire facility goes into lockdown due to a (seemingly) unrelated theft. Binwin and Jim spend most of the game locked up in a box, and team escapes the Enclave before they can find out who set them up.

### The Series, Part 2

Upon returning to the Waterdeep office, the team finds the entire staff slaughtered and Portentia kidnapped by the Zhentarim in retaliation for the thefts that AcqInc were framed for at the Enclave. Before they can act on that, however, they receive a proposal from Dran Enterprises to join forces to retrieve a second piece of the Rod from a white dragon lair deep in the mountains. It ends even worse than their trip to the Ambershard Manor.

### Pax West Finale

Binwin is dead and frozen. Jim is in a magical glade, combing his unicorn. Viari and Omin are on the airship. It turns out that Jim is in Klauthen Vale. This is the home of Klauth, one of the most powerful dragons in the Forgotten Realms. Jim convinces them it's safe. The airship flies there. Omin and Viari send Jim off and try to secretly thaw Binwin's corpse out.

Viari has a special power - he's a chosen and he can request a favor of his god. But he can't remember the god's name. He tries to use it anyway. Viari sings a song and Binwin is brought back to life! Jim is none the wiser.

The group doesn't know it, but Klauth is watching them. Flabbergast feels bad for being associated with Dran Enterprises. The group sort of befriends him.

The pieces of the rod will be taken to a cloud castle. Dran Enterprises is working for Stratovan. The group realizes that Klauth is nearby, watching them. They see that he has wands strapped to his wings. They toss a bunch of treasure in the vale as tribute. It is accepted.

Jim scries Portentia Dran. She's at the cloud giant castle. Scanning the castle, he spots griffons, dragonborn, and two dragonborn with wings.

Viari remembers those Zhentarim women he ran into at the dwarf fortress. He wants to scry them and sees them having an "intimate moment"! The group starts fighting over the crystal ball.

Omin throws Jim the orb and he drops it. The orb falls out of the flying ship. Jim gets on his flying broom and tries to catch it. He passes through a cloud and runs into two silver dragons. Jim knows these dragons. One's name is Vandal. Vandal says the giants have captured a silver dragon named Claria.

We do some extensive planning. The group is going to attack the cloud giant's castle! Viari is riding a silver dragon. Binwin is riding a beer golem/automaton full of greek fire. Jim is on his flying broom. Omin stays on the airship coordinating the movements. They drop greek fire on a tower. Viari jumps down onto a frost giant's back. Binwin rides Tipsy and has him pee ignited greek fire. The giant Viari is riding catches on fire! Viari does a complicated maneuver on a chain, frees a giant slave and recruits his aid.

Viari ends up on a building far away. He asks the giant to throw him but the throw goes off and Viara is hurtling towards a glass solarium. He grabs the iron rungs. Viari is shot by two arrows.

Uh oh... here comes Isohedrus, the white dragon who pummeled the group last session. Jim tries to charm the dragon and fails.

Omin remembers that white dragons are "fucking dumb." Viari pulls an arrow out of his side and throws it at the dragon. He drops out of view. He convinced the dragon that a giant did that.

Jim befriends a griffon. Jim gets on the griffon, Binwin gets on his broom. Jim flies into the huge double doors at the front of the castle. He wants to bash through them, but the doors don't budge and it is quite painful.

Binwin comes over and bashes the doors open with a natural 20! Chris opens up the castle and we get a look inside.

Inside the castle, there's a dragon transfixed by a stone in there and a cloud giant. The giant drops green flame on the group and does piles of damage. The giant has a high-pitched voice, which is unexpected.

The dragon has runes painted on its scales. Above it, floating in tiny orbs are pieces of the rod. There are 6 of them.

Viari realizes that the stone transfixing the silver dragon is the Nightstone, which was originally located in his hometown. The Nightstone is stolen in chapter one of Storm King's Thunder. When the dragons see it, they are neutralized by it.

Viari runs over to throw his cloak over the stone, but the floor gives way under his feet and he falls. He is going to fall all the way to the ground far below! Jim casts benign transposition so that he switches places with Viari. Jim has his broom of flying, so he is safe and Viari is safe. That was very quick thinking.

Omin casts stone shape to cover up the nightstone. The dragon comes to its senses and attacks the cloud giant. Binwin runs up the back of the dragon and does a pile of damage.

Viari stabs the giant with the apocalypse dagger. The giant's flesh burns away completely. There's a blast of energy from the dagger that washes throughout the whole complex. Everyone succeeds on their Con saves except Viari! Viari's arm is burned off. He takes 48 points of damage. He has 1 hit point left.

Jim is down. The pieces of the rod fall. One is rolling toward the hole. Omin goes to grab it and rolls a 19. This is the rod piece that Jim stuck up his butt. It has healing powers. He heals everyone for 12.

Omin touches the rod to Viari's stump. His arm regenerates.

The group gets away on the airship.

### The Holiday Special

On the way back from Stratovar's castle, Viari realizes that one of the artifacts there was probably stolen from his own hometown of Nightstone and convinces the rest of the party to check up on it. From there, the story segues into the weirdest mix of Yet Another Christmas Carol, Saving Christmas... uh, Deadwinter Day, and a bunch of other holiday-related, if twisted aesops.

Vari has an evil arm. He's a bit worried about the arm and whether he will be able to use it to play the flute or use it for other personal things.

The group has the apocalypse dagger and the nightstone.

Viari knows that the nightstone came from the town of Nightstone. We learn that this is where Viari grew up.

The heroes take the airship to the town. It's apparently abandoned. Viari is quite alarmed. From what they gather, giants attacked the town and he villagers fled and hid to a locale nearby.

Viari's Home: The group realizes that Viari has a connection with the town of Nightstone and starts to try to question him, but he isn’t forthcoming.

The church bells are ringing. Viari races in. There are two goblins swinging on the bell rope. Viari gives them a brutal thrashing.

Viari admits that he came from this place and that his parents live here. He thinks that they probably fled to a keep nearby.

They head to this place, once run by the Argonezzers. Chris says that they made beer and that they really liked sex a lot. The heroes do a lot of careful exploring. They are baffled that nobody is around and wonder where they fled to.

A giant spider jumps the group. Omin almost immediately rolls a critical and destroys it, doing 30 points. The group rolls natural 20's like crazy in this session.

The Evil Dwarf: More exploring leads to the discovery of a silent dwarf guarded by a shield guardian encrusted with gems.

The dwarf has a German accent. He tells the group that the villagers have been put to work in the mines in exchange for letting them stay.. The group offers him riches.

His name is Orlok. The guy calls his golem "Max" and talks to it. Orlok is not an Argonezzer. He says that those people left once the booze business went bad. Orlok has a very sinister voice.

A fight breaks out. The gems on the golem absorb spells. Viari summons his owlbear.

After quite a bit of back and forth, the group defeats the shield guardian. The heroes demand that Orlok tell them what they want to know. Orlok agrees to show them where the villagers are.

Jim Is Cruel to Germans: Orlok’s crystal chair floats. Jim asks him if he can walk. Orlok says that he can walk but that it is hard. Jim casts dispel magic on his chair and the dwarf crashes to the ground. Orlok struggles to his feet.

Orlok tells the group that there is a monster down there in the mines. As they get deeper in, they find a few bodies. They see one with a bite mark in the middle of her back.

After studying the wound and another natural 20, Jim realizes that the monster is a cloaker.

Viari's Family: They find the villagers. The people of Nightstone want to finish paying off their debt. They don't quite get that they’ve been enslaved.

We learn that Viari's real name is Timothy "Goodboy" Dunstucker. He's a little embarrassed about it.

There are a billion good jokes throughout this section. The players are on fire tonight.

Viari has a brother, Jack, who apparently is the golden child. Viari, not so much. Jack isn't here.

The group goes to find the cloaker. They fight it, it tries to flee. Binwin kills it by chucking a handaxe into it.

Jim is down to 2 hit points.

The villagers are saved. The group debates what to do with Orlok, who basically engineered this whole thing.

Prognosis Negative: They learn that an elf shot Orlok in the head 40 years ago, and the an arrowhead is still lodged in his head.

The group is thinking that because this is the Christmas special, there is probably some 'redemptive payload.'

The group befriends a blind cook, who stumbled onto the combat with the shield guardian. It turns out she is a member of the Argonezzer clan.

They pull out the arrowhead. It turns out that it was an arrow of dwarf slaying. It seems like Orlok's personality has changed, and that the arrowhead altered his personality. Jim chucks the dwarf slayer at Binwin, just to freak him out.

They find a goblin that they let go... it's eating the dead goblin, his friend. It’s a festivus miracle.

Orlok rewards the group with 5,000 gp. Omin tells him to use it on Nightstone and to get the Argonezzer family back in town.