SESSION EIGHT - Hidden in plain sight

[Mubistar, 18th day of Sigen]

As the unsuspecting student leaves the seamstress office with his replacement cloak, he awkwardly converses with the group for a moment, before turning to head off. His new duds packed away in his dufflebag.

Cairi putting on a flirtatious act to try and seduce him before immediately regretting it and whispering amongst the party that she didn't want to do that anymore.

Thinking quickly, to not let their target get away, Miguel puts on the student act once more, claiming he's late for class as he makes his way past the actual student. Bumping into him on purpose and apologizing, all while quickly pulling out the cloak from his dufflebag, and replacing it with the used burning hands scroll as a means to not tip the man off with the change in the weight hanging off his shoulder.

Quickly shuffling the cloak behind his back, Miguel signals discreetly to the group that he's about to make a run for it now that he has the cloak. To which Cairi responds promptly with a cast of thaumaturgy, making a gust of wind lift the back of the student's shirt up and over his head as he begins to cuss and complain over what's happening to him.

The group scatters, Ross grabs the man, keeping his shirt pulled down over his face to muffle him and bringing the man down to the ground before sprinting down the hall too, buying the group more time because he's gotta get up.

The bullied student manages to get up after the group rounds the corner, yelling obscenities and complaining about the terrible time he's been having - first his laundry got stolen, now he's getting pushed around - well at least he's got his cloak right?

Wrong

The student gets a glimmer of excitement though as he sees his cloak has been replaced with a magic scroll. But upon further inspection, he finds the uses of the scroll have been exhausted. So he tosses it on the ground angrily in retaliation. He then begins digging in his pockets for more tokens to exchange for another.

The seamstress shouts at him to go after whoever just stole his cloak rather than get a replacement.

He attempts to do so and is thwarted by another casting of thaumaturgy by Cairi, as he begins flailing to pull his shirt back down after the wind picks it up over his head once more.

Cairi runs away with a giggle to join the others.

After a brief regrouping to go over the next phase of a plan, (and a lengthy conversation about one of the nearby fountains that is a massive tentacle spewing water out its tip) which is to find a way in to the cult compound. The group splits up once more to scout around the lighthouse and the surrounding area to look for ways in to the hidden sanctum.

Cairi and Miguel take one section of the campus, looking for anyone that just looks a little too shifty, and land their sights on two persons exchanging a curious object. With quick thinking, sneaky feet, and a clever use of disguise self, the two manage to secure the object for themselves, it's an emblem of sorts that's meant to be used in a meeting the next day.

They make a plan to show up to the meeting tomorrow, claiming someone else stole the emblem, and they were coming to return it as heroes to the meeting.

Meanwhile, Edenberry, Yak, and Murphy head up over by the lighthouse, and while Edenberry tries to tap into what kind of magic is surrounding the place, she can't quite make it out. The trio gets distracted as Edenberry then begins to teach Yak how to cast magic, and Murphy - being the anti-magic sort that they are, slinks off quietly, before the professor of magic here at the college approaches the two playing with magic. A brief conversation leads to Edenberry wondering if she should actually enroll in the local classes or not.

Elsewhere, Ross is on his ownsome swimming about in his seal form, looking for possible underwater entrances to the cult. Using a very methodical search technique which involves bobbing back and forth along the underwater supports of the city, hoping to bump into something he otherwise can't see. This particular method remains unfruitful but he does discover an underwater mining operation with carts full of shellrock mysteriously disappearing into nothing. He antagonizes a few aquatic kobolds around the operation, and gets chased around by manta rays before escaping into the space the mine carts that are disappearing to. He's quickly caught however and rather than go back and contend with the rays in the water, Ross makes the choice to wildshape into a rat and book it past the bugbear and kobolds that are now on his tail, he takes a full sprint through more of the cult's strange compound, getting chased by the bugbear, kobolds, and soon a gaggle of potent spell casters. Having to dodge and weave between lightning bolts and other various spells being hurled at him. With no clear way through deeper into the sanctuary, Ross has to back track the way he came and dive back into the water to contend once more with the manta rays that manage to catch up with him. Attacking him and flinging him out of the water - thankfully however, Edenberry and Yak are there to catch him and pull him up.

Its shortly after this that the group meets up again, with Ross looking the most worse for ware, he very much does not want to talk about it, and they head back to the detective's office to recoup and go over plans for tomorrow.

It's during this, that Murphy is nowhere to be seen... A strange force has pulled them away to the clock tower, and they've been conducting their own investigation, one that takes quite the supernatural turn for the triton...

what's the plan and what's gonna happen to Murphy? find out next session!