The Seventeenth Session

After being knighted and tasked with finding the escaped assassin, the group wondered how to go about it. Shag used a new spell he learned at the Arcane Coalition to reanimate the severed head of the defeated assassin, and used Charm Person to convince the head to disclose the other assassin's actions. The head revealed that they prayed to Mournael to receive an extension of his powers of darkness to extinguish any sources of light, and then used Misty Step to escape. Yief then spiked the head like a football, shouting "Raid: Shadow Legends!" as the head cracked open upon hitting the ground. Investigating the hallway the King came into the throne room from, they decided to go through the doorway that had an escape ladder to the sewer beneath the castle. They made the location connection to the beginning of Elder Scrolls games and then followed the direction the water was flowing, toward the back of the castle. Eventually coming upon a ladder, they followed it up and out a pair of cellar doors. Shag confidently began to try and track, but briefly went blind for some reason. Halrek picked up the slack, seeing moved dirt that hinted someone had been running, and the group followed the tracks.

Arriving at the edge of a small housing development, they saw a figure hiding behind a house. Halrek began sneaking toward the man, with Shag close behind. Getting close enough to see that it was indeed the assassin, Halrek threw darts at him before they were seen, badly injuring the assassin. The rest of the group quickly closed in, beating the man within an inch of his life before questioning him. Intimidating him, they were able to deduce that there was a third assassin still at the castle who would be making another attempt. Yief shouted "Raid: Shadow Legends" before crushing the man's balls with his hammer and then killing him by crushing his head, truly making it a horrific three-part death.

Returning to the castle, the imprisoned kingsguard members were released since the assassin who they were suspected of was killed. Alder Stoneheart took point in organizing the castle guard forces in ranks, and suggested that the earlier plan of having Halrek pretend to be the king may still be viable. Sure enough, after about an hour of the group taking places in the throne room, an assassin spider-climbing on the ceiling nearly hit Halrek with a thrown dagger. Aoth then came out from his hiding spot and used Thaumaturgy while Shag let down his invisibility to use an Eldritch Blast to shake the assassin off the ceiling, causing him to fall onto a spiritual weapon Aoth had summoned beneath him, badly wounding him. Immediately coordinating their attack, the group quickly beat him, with Shag delivering the killing blow, going "stab stab shoot," with the "shoot" being an Eldritch Blast that knocked the assassin over the railing of the throne's platform. Hitting the ground, the man began choking on his own blood as his stab wounds began pooling, activating a summoning blood stone. His body vaporized into the stone, causing it to brightly glow, summoning a very large Tanarukk demon. The demon immediately roared, using its massive sword to destroy part of the railing and throne platform.

Shag jumped over the destroyed railing to StabStabShoot, with Aoth following close behind. Aoth's hammer was knocked from his hand, at which point Yief jumped down to protect his teammates. Shag was hit, but Yief was able to block one of the strikes aimed at him, keeping him from being badly hurt. Shag successfully StabStabShoot-ed again before disengaging, while Aoth drew his mace and flanked. After having the mace knocked away as well, he drew his Mythril sword, Durindana, while also controlling his spirit glaive to attack from the other side of the beast. After a flurry of attacks from Yief, Aoth, and Halrek, the beast let out a roar and lifted its sword to attempt a heavy downward swing at Yief, but Yief reacted more quickly and swung his hammer upward, cracking the demon upside the jaw and killing it.

As the demon slowly fell backward as its legs gave out, Alder and the kingsguard arrived, saying they heard the Thaumaturgy blast and came to help, but evidently weren't needed. The king came out from his safe room with the high general, and thanked the group profusely for their service. He gave them full access to the castle's resources as well as a rich reward. Aoth went with Alder to get a custom suit of Adamantine armor as the Kingsguard would wear, marking it with the insignias of both Midfall and Dun'Rashin.

To get Yief to stop advertising for Raid: Shadow Legends, the king bought Yief a tavern in the cemetery district and had Derrack go take care of cancelling his contract.

Vissella then came and found everyone, and realizing how much action they had found, came to the conclusion that maybe the capital was too crazy for them to be able to lay low, and they had already attracted a decent amount of attention in just a few days. Aoth then requested that the king help them transport "two very important Draconian refugees," which the King was happy to do as he still felt ashamed that he was unable to get forces to Draconia in time to help them before the invasion.

Before the caravan was ready, Yief decided to stop at the library to get some books on smithing, as he had acquired some tools from the castle. While there, they were approached by Nul and Fish. Nul explained that he had been absent the past few days as he'd been talking to Fish, and Fish realized that he was an abnormal automaton and wanted to study him more. Nul realized that he could learn a lot from Fish about science and likely understand his spellcasting better, and the things they could figure out together would likely be a huge help to the Free Lands. He realized this would mean he would have to leave the group and not see the mission with the boys to the end, but he knew his teammates were good enough to do so and he said he would see them again in the Free Lands. Yief began to cry, and Nul gave him a hug. Yief tossed him in the air like a child, saying "Yief yeet Nul," to which Nul responded it wouldn't be the last time. He and Fish departed, and the group left for the caravan.

The king had set up 4 large covered carriages with 4 guards each. They all got on their carriages and began their journey to the Methwood.