RQG 101 - Resolutions

## Summary

The party wait with bated breath for Eren Fairhands to work his magic. In the Temple of Aphrodite, everyone is healed! Even Sasha... eventually. The party then returns the heart to the vault before heading to the Tahan family home. Plans are made as the LOLOMG prepare for the next stage in their quest.

## Synopsis

Sasha has appeared back in the temple, and is explaining to the other three about what she saw: Brutor showed up, wearing full armour, and got Sir Everard MacGuffingham’s sword. Hamid says that they should get back to the ritual, and Eren Fairhands asks what is going on. Sasha says that she had a chore to do, and Hamid says that they needed to establish what her disappearance was.

Sasha is already wearing the heart, and Fairhands says that they should get on with it, as there have been enough distractions already. Sasha hugs her favourite daggers and closes her eyes. Fairhands reaches out and holds his hands next to Sasha’s shoulders, closing his own eyes and going very quiet. The heart begins to thrum, and the light it gives off gets brighter and brighter, to the point where it’s painful to look at.

All of the party have to close their eyes, and the thrumming continues until it suddenly goes still. Azu opens one eye, and Fairhands is still standing there quietly. She opens the other eye, and Grizzop opens his as well. Fairhands opens one eye as well to see what’s happening and then opens the other, asking Sasha how she feels.

As the ritual had been going, she’d felt hot and prickly all over, and then nothing; now, she doesn’t feel terrible. It’s the best that she’s felt in ages. She says that she feels average, and says that that is an improvement. Fairhands asks to take the heart off of her, and Grizzop mentions that they need to keep it in their possession to get it back to the Meritocrats. He clarifies that he would be taking it off her just so that they can run full diagnostics, but Grizzop says that she could just drink a potion. Sasha doesn’t seem that enthused by the idea, and hands over the heart to Azu. He closes his eyes and then opens them again, and says that she doesn’t seem to be undead anymore. He offers to do a minor heal to double check, and Hamid asks if anyone in the room can channel positive energy, since he could use a heal as well. Azu can, and heals all of the party members.

All of the party feel marginally better, but Sasha gets a bonus because it’s the first positive healing she’s had in ages. Grizzop and Azu both cheer as she says that she feels good. Fairhands asks if he could try something stronger, and Fairhands asks her to sit down. He holds his hands out and closes his eyes; there’s a bright pink glow, and the entire team is healed up to full. Grizzop calls him a show-off under his breath. Everyone apart from Azu hears the distinct sounds of people outside the room cheering about how it’s a miracle.

Fairhands asks how she feels; Sasha feels absolutely brilliant, the best she’s felt in months. She smiles, slightly, and thanks Fairhands, flexing her fingers. It becomes clear that one of her fingers is missing, and Fairhands asks if she wants to fix that as well - Sasha says yes, and pulls off her glove and places it on the table. Fairhands warns her that he will place his hand on hers, and Sasha agrees to it. He puts his hand over hers, and there’s another bright pink glow. When he pulls his hand away, she’s got a full hand again. Sasha asks if he could make her another arm, since it’d be useful, but Fairhands declines.

Hamid thanks him for helping. Grizzop says that they should take the heart back to the bank; for a moment they see an almost covetous look go across Fairhands’ face as he looks at the heart, but he does still give it back over to them. He asks if they would like a small force to escort them back to the bank, and Hamid says that they absolutely would.

A rosewood box with velvet pillows is presented for Azu to put the heart in, and give her the key. A massive group of paladins and clerics form around them to begin the journey. Hamid casts *detect magic* on the chest to make sure he can still see the small glow from the box. However, once the box is closed, he can no longer detect the magic.

As they leave, Sasha turns around and runs back in to give Fairhands a hug. He’s quite surprised, but does hug back, and then Sasha rejoins the group. They head out, and Grizzop wonders if this will encourage the Meritocrats to give the spear of Artemis back. Since they’re surrounded by paladins, there are a fair few groups of people watching them walk off. Hamid is refusing to take his eyes off the box.

They make it back to the bank. There are a lot of guards at the entrance, and Fairhands steps forward, asking if they mind him speaking. The party lets him go ahead, and he says that the temple of Aphrodite would like to return the heart to the Meritocratic vaults, and would like to see that it is being returned safely. He asks them to accompany him to ensure it has been returned properly, and the party agrees.

Time skips forward as they’re let into the vault, and Grizzop wonders where Wilde went off to. During the spinning room bit, Fairhands nearly throws up, but the rest all face inwards after last time. None of them see any sneaky things happening, and time skips forward again to them getting back to the bank, the heart having been returned. Fairhands shakes all of their hands, and the Aphrodite crowd head off.

Sasha, excited, says that they should rob a pyramid. She feels great, and thinks that she could jump across that pit that Carter fell into. Hamid instead offers to take her to a great restaurant on the strip. Grizzop says that they’ve been in Cairo for a while and that they should get moving on to Damascus sometime soon. Hamid says that they can at least put it off to tomorrow, and that they can discuss their future plans over dinner tonight. Grizzop says that he thought it was a time sensitive situation, but Hamid says that it’s not time-sensitive as of yet; they’ve just happened to save the world two times while investigating the different threads. Sasha says that she doesn’t think what they’ve been doing here was a waste of time, and Grizzop tries to explain that that isn’t what he meant, but Sasha just apologizes for being dead. Grizzop, feeling guilty, says that they can all go to dinner and that it’s fine. She says that she didn’t mean to get in the way, and Grizzop apologizes.

Time skips to dinner. Hamid has taken them to the fanciest restaurant in Cairo - Griddle of the Sphinx - and they’re all eating. They start to discuss their plans; Hamid says that their next stop needs to be Damascus, but that they’ve been encouraged to take on odd jobs to keep their cover as a normal mercenary company. Sasha asks if there are pyramids in Damascus, but Azu says that they shouldn’t rob pyramids. Hamid reminds everyone that his sister has offered for them to investigate the pyramid under the Tahan bank branch, and that they could do that tomorrow morning or head to Damascus. Sasha says that heading to Damascus is fine, and Grizzop says that every time they go somewhere it seems like there’s a world ending situation somewhere. Sasha mentions that Damascus makes nice daggers. Hamid says that they haven’t saved the world in Cairo, but that they have saved Sasha.

Sasha says that since they can just call up Einstein and ask him to transport them, they can move quickly. They ask what Azu is thinking, and Azu says that she thinks they should be working to save the world rather than exploring the tomb. Hamid explains that their current mission is just because the Meritocrats are worried about what the separatists are doing, and that they are just gathering information - it’s not necessarily a save the world expedition as of yet.

Sasha mentions that Barret really wanted to get into the tombs, and that he wanted the heart. Hamid isn’t sure that the heart was what he wanted, but Azu adds that they swarmed her quite heavily when she was holding it. Grizzop mentions that if the Meritocrats hired them, Saira could just hire someone else, and Hamid agrees. Grizzop explains that although this isn’t time-sensitive, the longer they take to get information, the longer the separatists have to build up whatever work they’re doing. Hamid explains that they need to take jobs as a cover, to hide their true mission, but Grizzop suggests that everything they’ve been doing in Cairo up until this point sort of has been a cover.

They decide to head to Damascus tomorrow morning - Hamid still wants to say goodbye to his parents and family. Sasha is excited, saying that Damascus is the place that sells the best daggers, and Azu wonders if they make the daggers.

That evening, Sasha goes off to buy some healing potions at a shop. She gets a few potions of *cure moderate wounds*. She also practices tricks now that she has her new finger; however, she’s lost her additional speed from being human and alive again.

Azu heads back to her room at the temple of Aphrodite, picking up a few things like her diary, pictures and letters. There’s a small box in her bedside drawer that she didn’t put there, so she opens it. Inside is a small replica of the heart with a note (from Eren Fairhands) that reads ‘With thanks’. Azu bursts into happy tears, and wraps it around her neck. She writes a letter to Eren Fairhands and puts it under his door before leaving.

Grizzop heads over to the bank, and transfers 2,000 gold to his contact in Berlin. He also goes to get the magical bow from Newton’s house and figure out what it is. If it’s not important, he’ll sell it. (Meta note: Alex handles this off-audio).

Hamid heads back to his house. He sees unusual lights coming from the lounge area, clearly magical - none of his family are magic users (apart from Aziza). He starts walking a bit faster, and as he gets closer, hears pops and bangs, what might be magical combat. Hamid jogs. It’s definitely magical.

Hamid sprints in the door, and immediately sees his two twin brothers mid-faux combat in an entirely trashed lounge. They turn and see Hamid, and the lights immediately die and everything falls to the ground. They greet Hamid, and say that it isn’t what it looks like. There’s a minute of silence, and then one of the twins blames the other, who immediately denies it, and they start fighting again - Hamid casts *Sleep* on the both of them, and they drop to the floor, fast asleep. Hamid picks them up and puts them both on the sofa, tucking them in.

He starts cleaning up the room, casting *prestidigitation* to speed it up. The servant who’d gotten drunk at the beginning of the trip with Azu, Grizzop, and Sasha comes in, and apologizes to Hamid, helping him clean it up. They ask what Hamid did, and Hamid explains that surprisingly wasn’t him and that they’ll need a new set of tutors for the twins. The servant winks at Hamid, not believing him, and Hamid sighs, not willing to debate with them.

Time skips ahead. The twins, upon waking up, found being knocked out absolutely hilarious, because according to them, magic is awesome. Hamid explains to them that with great power comes great responsibility, and that they’re going to need to learn how to control their magic. He tells Saira about the development, and suggests that she hires wizards to tutor the twins, even though they’re definitely sorcerers. Hopefully, a wizard should be able to help the twins control it.

Additionally, Hamid learns that his father and brother are being held pending trial; it will be bad, but the family is going to be okay. It’s early stages, but they assume that his father will be getting minor punishments since he was trying to take the fall for his son. For his brother, it’s more up in the air.

Time skips ahead to tomorrow morning, and they all meet up at breakfast. Hamid’s family is all kicking around, relatively informal, and Hamid is teaching *prestidigitation* tricks to them. Most of the tricks the twins are interested in revolve around fart smells. Sasha is practicing knife tricks in front of them, and they’re absolutely loving it. Hamid says that the boys need to be careful because Sasha only just got her finger back that she lost from doing knife tricks, and gives her the biggest wink; Sasha (who cut her finger off to escape Barret) doesn’t like the cover story. Grizzop tells them that he can teach them how to fire a bow really far, and the twins grab Grizzop and drag him away from the table. Hamid apologizes to Sasha.

Time skips ahead again to the end of breakfast. Ishaq and Ismail have been trying to get the party to do even more dangerous things, such as sitting on Azu’s axe when she throws it. Instead, she puts them up on her shoulders and carries them around.

Eventually, the party finds a quiet space on the lawn, and decide to call Einstein. Grizzop asks what the climate is like in Damascus, and Hamid says that it’s similar to here. Sasha wraps a piece of cloth around her face in preparation, and Hamid says that she’s probably alright. He, Grizzop, and Azu all have *endure elements*, so they’ll be able to cast that if they run into any problems.

The party stands back to back and Grizzop pulls out the mobile stone, trying to connect to Einstein. About a minute passes, and then Einstein’s voice finally comes through. Hamid asks how the beach is, and Einstein says that he got bored, went to a glacier, and that now he’s going back to the beach. Grizzop asks if he can teleport them to Damascus, and Einstein says that it’s all take with them. Grizzop asks what they can give him, and Einstein asks for recommendations for places other than beach and glacier. They agree - Sasha mentions a nice mountaintop she’s recently been to - and then Einstein appears in front of them.

He asks who Azu is, and they introduce her; Einstein says that she’s massive, and Azu proudly says that she is and that she’s glad he noticed. Einstein pulls out a map, and asks Sasha to point where the mountain is; she says that she doesn’t know, but that she recommends mountaintops. Azu points out the mountains in Kenya, and Einstein disappears. Grizzop gets the stone back out, and Einstein says that he likes it here, but that there are a lot of people shouting and running away. Azu says that they probably haven’t seen teleporters before. Grizzop asks if he can send them to Damascus, to the main city, and Einstein reappears, before sending them all away.

They appear in Damascus, surrounded by goblins, heavy machinery, and an enormous amount of noise.

## Quotes

**Grizzop**: "She could just drink a potion."
**Sasha**: "I’d rather not do that! That could hurt."
**Eren**: "That’s amazingly high risk, again. I mean, it’s ultimately you are in charge of your own care, but certain parties tend to be quite rough and ready with these things."
**Grizzop**: "We would find out!"
**Sasha**: "He keeps trying to give me potions to find out!"
**Eren**: "You should always be in charge of your own medication where possible."
**Sasha**: "Thank you!"
―The party try to decide if Sasha is cured.

**Eren**: "How do you feel?"
**Lydia**: "Her usually quite dour face has a little twitch of a smile."
**Sasha**: "Very good, yeah, this is good. Cheers for that! That’s good, look, I mean, I’m alive, look."
**Lydia**: "She flexes her fingers, and of course, as she does that, although she does have the gloves on that hide it, it is quite immediately obvious that one of the fingers is missing."
**Eren**: "If you’d like, I could fix that too, while you’re here."
**Sasha**: "Actually, that…alright."
**Eren**: "Are you sure?"
**Sasha**: "I mean, I might have to relearn how to do those coin tricks…and that one where it looks like you’ve stolen your finger, and then you put the finger back. But then, in my case it turns out there’s a double punchline cause the finger is actually gone, so that was quite good. Alright, let’s see what you can do!"
―Sasha realises that she feels better now than she has in a very long time.

**Sasha**: "Oh! Oh, that’s weird, that’s weird! Okay, what else can you do? Like, I’ve thought it would be really useful to have an extra arm, right? Or maybe a tail, like a monkey has, I could climb even faster then. Could you do that?"
**Eren**: "I’m afraid that whilst I am very happy for you that things have gone as well as they are, I feel like we might be reaching the limits of what I can ethically provide for you."
―Eren Fairhands heals Sasha's missing finger.

"As we’re leaving, Sasha stops and turns around and runs back in and gives Eren Fairhands a hug."
―**Lydia**

**Einstein**: "Oh my gods, what? Hello."
**Hamid**: "Nice to hear from you again."
**Einstein**: "Is it?"
**Hamid**: "How’s the beach?"
**Einstein**: "I got bored."
**Hamid**: "Oh, where are you now?"
**Einstein**: "On glacier, super cold!"
**Hamid**: "Oh, that sounds wonderful!"
**Einstein**: "It’s not. I made a mistake. Going back to the beach!"
―Hamid asks Einstein if he can transport them to Damascus.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

* Azu gets a Perception check: nat 1
* Sasha makes a Perception check: 25
* Azu channels positive energy: everyone heals 5 hit points
* Everyone makes a Perception check: Grizzop gets 23, Hamid gets 26, Azu gets nat 1, Sasha gets 27
* Everyone makes a Sense Motive check: Grizzop gets 18, Hamid gets 20, Azu gets 30, Sasha gets 17
* Everyone makes a Perception check: Grizzop gets 13, Hamid gets 14, Azu gets 14, Sasha gets 21
* Hamid makes a Perception check: 18