Session 49

General Summary

• The plan to stop Baxton before Sol returns has hit a major snag at step 1, as Lizardtamer became hostile toward the party when they refused to be her servants.
• Kesmet gave a big speech that later made Lizardtamer decide not to kill him outright.
• Lizardtamer's gnolls seemed to ignore her orders when they couldn't see her.
• The party was forced to retreat, thanks in part to Dwardazik bravely sacrificing his prized keg of ale as a distraction.
• Kesmet crafted two firebombs out of marionettes, using the tar from earlier and some other ingredients.
• Dazki and Grogery, at least, plan to go to the Undermart to buy information. Kesmet intends to go too, if offered.

 

Full Recap

The session opens with the party (minus Barry) engaged in conversation with Lizardtamer in The Spire of Beasts.  

How Not to Train Your Dragon

  While the others are trying to reason with Lizardtamer and weasel their way out of being her servants, Kesmet looks around. He recognizes some of the gnolls that were at the ogre fight the other day, and nobody from Grittooth's clan. It appears that the rest of the party isn't getting anywhere, so he decides to try his luck.   He starts walking towards Lizardtamer, but he doesn't make it 10 feet before two buff gnolls move to block his path. Undeterred, he gives a polite, "Excuse me, gentlemen" and silently teleports right past them to stand directly in front of Lizardtamer. Being magical herself, she is not shocked; rather, she simply smiles, showing off sharp, pearly white teeth.  

Kesmet: Your majesty, I think we got off on a very wrong foot here. There is something very important that you are either ignoring or overlooking, and it's that you've been had. Tricked. Conned. Misled. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Taken for a ride. Had the wool pulled over your eyes. And been outright deceived. One of your own people has fed you a mistruth so egregious that they have put the future of all gnollkind in jeopardy.   Lizardtamer, still smiling with bared teeth: Your kind are always one for talking.   Kesmet: You're calling us your servants... more to the point, you were expecting us to do something for you for nothing in return. And that's just not the case. You see, we are more like salesmen rather than servants, salesmen of the traveling variety! Going door to door, looking for and offering opportunity, not just free services.   Kesmet (cont'd): We visited Grittooth's door and, after some coaxing, got her to open it. Now we're knocking on your door. Whatever your history with her, we're not against you, but we will not help you against her either. We're certainly not doing anything for you out of the goodness of our hearts, kindness of our souls, or reverence towards you... well, except the goblin. He's pretty reverent.   Kesmet (cont'd): But we have our own agenda, and it happens to intersect with yours at the moment. I'm asking you to consider something that will cost you nothing, but may get you so much in return: listen. Only listen. Hear what we have to say. Lend us your ear with even an iota of respect, and we can give you something worth more than the scales from a thousand dragon's backsides: the solution to your Grittooth problem, and an assured future for all the gnolls in The Spire of Beasts.   Kesmet (cont'd): You will do more than just survive.   Kesmet (cont'd): You will thrive.   Lizardtamer: You talk a good game for a human-kin. You will surely be one of my favorite servants, especially with your casting ability. What, pray tell, merchant of fortune, do you have to offer me, Lizardtamer?   Kesmet: Ultimately, what is it that you want? You say you want Grittooth dead, but that's a means to an end. If we can achieve those goals without killing Grittooth, what difference does it make?   Lizardtamer: I want what every soul of every gnoll would want. Gnolls used to roam the plains, taking what they needed and handily outcompeting any human camps or travelers. The humans feared them, and fear is deserved. Gnolls hunting humans is a natural order, so by biding time, the pendulum will turn again, naturally pulled to the laws of nature. I strive to keep the clan alive until once again, the gnolls will become slavers.   Dwardazik: That doesn't seem so unreasonable, miss queen. Many people fight each other for various reasons, but surely you can find that working together with others is advantageous?   Lizardtamer: By no means! We always take pleasure having the humankin doing the manual labor on our behalf.   Kesmet: So, what you ultimately desire is to come back out on top, hunt humankin, and subjugate them?   Lizardtamer: It is not about what I want. This is what will happen, given the time.   Kesmet: How much time?   Lizardtamer: I will wait as long as I have to. We will survive, as we always have. The only question that needs to be answered is, will you work with us, or will you work against us? I have no need for any other subtleties or silver tongues.   Kesmet: I've been completely straight with you this whole time. You're talking about the natural order of things, and you will come out on top, but He gestures to the slum what part of your path includes being in this small space, just barely surviving? You're talking about how you'll eventually make it out on top, but how? Forgive me for saying so, but it seems the pendulum is still swinging the other way: the humankin are running the whole city while you're fighting amongst yourselves! We found Grittooth in less than a day, and you've been fighting for how long?   Kesmet (cont'd): You will be back on top? That won't happen by itself. We're not with you or against you. We are an independent party, offering to work with you (not for you) to achieve each of our goals.   Kesmet (cont'd): Are you sure that nature and time are on your side in this?   Lizardtamer: So, you are keen to not follow the natural order? You are so powerful that you know all?   Kesmet: I never made any such claim! I'm simply pointing out things that anyone can see. Did you ever capture Grittooth? Did you come close to killing her, taking her out, and solving your problems?   Lizardtamer: There is always time. All we must do now is survive, and the world will be gifted to us once again.   Kesmet, turning to gesture to all the gnolls: You're saying there's time? That all you need to do is survive? What of your subjects? Are they willing to sit around doing nothing? Are they content with just surviving? And for how long does everyone here need to "just survive"? How long until your lives truly begin? He turns and gestures to all the other gnolls, but he never quite turns his back on Lizardtamer outright.   Lizardtamer, putting a clawed hand on his shoulder and turning him back to face her: You only have permission to address me, humankin. I own your fate now. Not them, me. Are you with me or against me?   Kesmet: Neither. I'm for me.

  This causes Lizardtamer to dig her claws into Kesmet's shoulder, initiating combat with the party.  

Key Combat Moments

• For anyone who didn't notice that Lizardtamer is a cleric before, it's definitely obvious now: she casts Spirit Guardians just like Grogery, only hers take the form of enslaved beings and do necrotic damage. She can also cast Cure Wounds.
• Uncountably many hostile gnolls surround the party, but Dwardazik is able to charge through them and knock them down to clear a path for the party to set up a chokepoint and an escape route all in one.
• Lizardtamer very nearly kills Kesmet, but she cancels her Spirit Guardians before it would have really done it, presumably because of his speech earlier.
• Grogery tries to sacrifice himself to save Kesmet, but Lizardtamer has other plans.
• Dwardazik has a much easier time convincing the gnolls on the far side of the combat zone to disengage from the party, presumably because their line of sight to Lizardtamer is blocked. It does cost him his prized keg of ale, however.
• The entire party is able to escape to safety, but just barely.

 

Uninspiring

Dazki: All we wanted to do was convince the gnolls to be bounty hunters!   Grogery: They have this mentality that, just because your race or culture did a certain thing in the past, it's their right to keep doing that.   Kesmet: After we rest for the day, I say we smoke and burn her out!   Dazki: First things first, we need to grab a carriage and get to our house.

  They hail a carriage from just outside the spire (carriages don't dare go in there), and they tip the driver 1 silver to ask no questions.  

Kesmet: It is so much better when people take bribes!   Dazki: You can't bribe worth shit!   Kesmet: What do you mean? I did it perfectly!   Dazki: No, you're supposed to be subtle about it. He describes the normal process of bribing that most of us are used to.   Kesmet: You can't afford not to bribe enough. I've seen it done by the Hounds Guild. You're supposed to build up a rapport with the person, you work out how much to bribe them, how much is fair, you know...   Dazki: THESE WERE GUARDS.   Kesmet: I know, right? What unwashed amateurs! They're already part of an established corrupt order, how was I supposed to know that these ones wouldn't even negotiate? He turns to the driver. We don't know each other, and you took my bribe. What's the deal there?   Driver: I didn't see nothin'. Kesmet gives him another silver for being so professional. I didn't hear nothin' either!   Kesmet: And you just keep not hearin'!

 

Mansion to the Beat of Another Drum

The party arrives back at the mansion. They have better things to do than talk to Barry about what happened.   Dazki grabs the messenger bird to send a message to Isaiah:

Gnolls not happening. Apologies for the worry. Thanks for all your help. Even the brightest fire must be tended to burn. Trust in Alice.

  Kesmet grabs two of his wooden marionettes and some materials, including some of that tar from before. He carves out a portion of a wooden puppet, soaks some of his cotton in the tar, inserts it into the recess of the puppet, and seals it back up with a piece of cloth and a plank of wood. He repeats the process with another one. They don't look half bad, and they will broadly do what he intends for them to do, though their potency is unknown.   Dwardazik sinks into a corner and sobs. His ale is gone. Grogery gives him a hug:

Grogery: I'm sorry, I know that meant a lot to you... that sacrifice will not be in vain.   Dwardazik, maniacally, looking him dead in the eyes: It was dwarven ale.   Grogery: I know...   Dwardazik, now touching his nose to Grogery's: IT WAS DWARVEN ALE!   Grogery: You're beginning to scare me.   Dwardazik, letting him go, sobbing: It wasn't worth it. I should have fallen.   Grogery: You're worth more than a barrel.   Dwardazik: You take that back!   Grogery: OK. You're worth more than a dozen barrels!   Dwardazik: Those gnolls knew what was right!   Grogery: That's not true...   Dwardazik: Leave me. I must mourn the loss.   Grogery: I'll be up in my space.

  Dwardazik then goes to the diggable area in the basement to dig a grave.   Grogery goes upstairs to set up a meditation space and have a serious breakout meditation session after all this failure. Afterward, Dazki joins him:

Dazki: Well, we've still got plenty to do today. Are you coming with me?   Grogery: Sure, I just need to send a message to Isaiah.   Dazki: I've already taken care of that.   Grogery: Oh, OK. Well... I have absolutely no idea how to tackle the Baxton thing.   Dazki: That's why we go buy information.   Grogery: To the Undermart?   Dazki: If you want. I'm going regardless, but I understand if you have reservations.   Grogery: It's fine, I'm just trying to figure out if it will be safe enough to have... like, you didn't really get hurt too badly? Comparatively speaking?   Dazki: I'll shake it off.   Grogery: I can come with. It's dangerous for anyone to be alone right now.   Dazki: I was going to let everyone know... I need to get cleaned up first.   Grogery: I need to get cleaned up too. It'll feel nice to not have weird spirit energy clinging to my chainmail.

  Kesmet will definitely want to join Dazki and Grogery at the Undermart. He needs information too. I don't think he was there for this part of the conversation, so I think that was out-of-character.  

Grogery: Actually, getting to see Lizardtamer face-to-face connected a lot of dots. It seems that she, and possibly a large number of gnolls there, worship a god of butchery and slaughter. There are some myths about the gnolls coming into being as an intelligent race by feeding off of the god's carnage while he was walking the earth, so to follow in his footsteps is to continue his savagery.   Grogery (cont'd): Eventually, by their actions or by the actions of the world, they will be able to... kinda what Lizardtamer was saying: they were on top as slavers, they see other races as inferior, through trickery they got the upper hand, but will be brought down. "Return is inevitable", there's not a lot you can do to reason with that mentality.   Dazki: Not much different from elven nobility, then.   Grogery: Ironically, yes. Lizardtamer seems to respect...   Dazki: She respects being bowed to, but not negotiation. There's a difference between compromising and plain obedience. To compromise, you must be able to give something to get something. It's not always, "you have to lose so that I may win", but that was her view. He then grabs his bow and rapier and hands them to Grogery.   Grogery: What is this for?   Dazki: The past couple of days, I've made some rash decisions.   Grogery: Like what? It seems like Dwardazik has gotten us into way more fights than you, and Kesmet has threatened to burn down buildings!   Dazki: I stabbed a gnoll through the chest and pushed him several stories down. I held back against everyone but the gnolls. I don't like being that person.   Grogery: So what do you intend to do about it?   Dazki: I don't know, but for today at least, hang onto those for me. I need to think a bit.   Grogery: In that case... I'm definitely coming with you to the Undermart.   Dazki, opening his cloak to reveal a dagger: I'm not stupid, I'm not going unarmed. But this is last-resort protection. Hang onto those for me for, like, a day while I try to figure it out. I don't want to be like Baxton.   Grogery: I will remember that... He then draws some parallels between Dazki and Baxton.   Dazki: We're not identical, but I could easily become him. That's not something I want.   Grogery: I don't see it that way, just the fact that you're stepping back from this and taking that caution means you're nothing like him.   Dazki: No, it means that right now I have the wisdom and sense in myself to be aware of that. It doesn't mean I couldn't ever be that person, it just means at this moment I have the self-awareness not to be right now. Once you start down that path, it's hard to go back.   Grogery: I'm always here to talk if you need to discuss things from a spiritual sense.   Dazki: Gotta say, I'm starting to sound like as much a monk as you are. Not that that's a bad thing.   Grogery: You need to give people the benefit of the doubt, but...   Dazki: People like Alice are sometimes necessary to protect against people like me.   Grogery: We can just do our best and try not to go too dark.   Dazki: If and when you go back, keep an eye on your brother. There are dark places that are easily accessible with the right money and power.   Grogery: He's not really old enough to be expected to start going down those sorts of paths yet. You guys age so slowly.   Dazki: Just so, that doesn't mean he won't start down there by accident or ignorance.   Grogery: Well, the good news is I can contact him now. Sometimes I even have the spells left to do it.   Dazki: Hell, I was gambling when I was like 50.   Grogery: I'm going to try to keep in contact with him. We miss each other.   Dazki: Good. Now I have to put on fancy clothes. I have to look nice. Thanks for the pep talk.   Grogery: You're welcome. I'm glad to get something positive done today.   Dazki: It's not over. We'll get plenty done yet, we just have to keep working. No rest for the wicked.