Session II: The Kinks of Gaston Gassedoff Jr.
General Summary
6 Menphina 996 YK Our heroes spend their first week adjusting to their new lives in Sharn. Koko finds a reasonably clean apartment in Sunrise, Upper Tavick's Landing and returns to her job as sous chef at The Cloud Dragon, Kanye tries to keep low profile from his old crew, House Tarkanan, as he continues to steal from unsuspecting tourists and rich folk to pay for his tiny place in Foundation, Lower Tavick's Landing, Xaris finds a cute little flat in Little Barrington with views of the Thunder Sea in Middle Tavick's Landing as she enjoys the arts and culture the Upper Central Plateau has to offer while busking on the side, and Rias enraptures a unsuspecting noble in her web of seduction as he buys her stuff and lets her stay rent free in his estate within Dalan's Refuge, Upper Tavick's Landing. Gideon is nowhere to be seen, mysteriously disappearing from the group as he attends to his affairs. The session begins inside the Cathedral of the Cleansing Flame in Sharn's Sovereign Towers, a holy religious site of the Church of Althaea. Xaris arrives to respond to her mother's mysterious message urging her to come and talk to her privately. She sits in the back of the pew observing the daily sermon professing of Saint Althaea when her confidante and butler Alfred quietly greets her. Xaris gives Alfred a warm embrace as the warforged awkwardly pats her on the head though internally quite joyful seeing his charge alive and well. He takes Xaris to one of the Cathedral's exclusive rose gardens where her mother, Valindra ir'Cethleann, is patiently sitting in the middle gazebo solemn and quiet. The two awkwardly and tensely greet each other, a painful history producing the emotional divide between them. After some small talk, her mother tells Xaris that her brother Miklan ir'Cethleann is still alive and has informed them that he is back in Sharn. Worried about her safety, she urges Xaris to return home, but the young bard refuses her mother’s pleas. After a bit, Valindra becomes furious and demands Xaris for once to listen to her for her own safety and come back home, but Xaris coldly leaves as her mother berates her for her arrogance and stubbornness. Alfred, worried about Xaris, assures her everything will be okay while he runs back to the rose garden in attempt to contain her mother’s wrath. Fast forward to the early evening as the scene shifts to The Cloud Dragon. Koko is helping Kanye nurse his hangover while prepping food for dinner guests as the restaurant's owner and head chef, Pierre Ghallanda, directs the rest of the halfling line cooks and waiters for tonight’s festivities. The two adventurers hear a horn from the front of the restaurant and walk out to see Fives on his sparkly new magicycle (motorcycle-like vehicle powered by levitation magic) back from his earlier delivery and with a fresh supply of essential ingredients. Thanks to Koko, Fives was able to quit his job on the Lightning Rail and find a steady and secure job at The Cloud Dragon as a delivery driver. He is eternally grateful to Koko's kindness. The night continues and guests pour into the restaurant. Kanye, who owes Koko a bit of coin due to his excessive drinking, is now working as a waiter at the restaurant with major reservations from Pierre. Nonetheless, the halfling operator trusts Koko’s judgement and lets him work. Rias and her sugar daddy, the ill-repute noble Gaston Gassedoff Jr., son of the gaudy real estate mogul Gaston Gassedoff, enter the restaurant after a full day of frivolous shopping and extravagance. They are seated at their table as Kanye takes their order of two truffle mac and cheeses, fried lobster doused in Q'Barran blend of spices, and a large bowl of Thrane salad to share. Gaston attempts to flirt and make small talk with Rias who smiles and pretends to enjoy the pleasantries. The young noble is encouraged by his progress with Rias and drinks heavily while attempting to be "handsy" with Rias as she fends off his advances. The story shifts to Xaris who has been aimlessly wandering around the city throughout the day contemplating about the encounter with her mother and the stark reality that her older brother is alive. She passes by the Cloud Dragon and notices Rias eating dinner with Gaston Gassedoff. Remembering his reputation for sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior towards women, Xaris worries for Rias’ safety and heads to the bar to observe and watch the two closely in case she needs to intervene. Unbeknownst to Xaris, Kanye is at the bar serving drinks and the two see each other. Xaris, still peeved with Kanye from a few days ago after he threw a mushy tomato at her during a busking performance, makes small talk with the rogue while he tries to make amends by giving her a drink on the house despite Pierre and Koko's disapproval. Xaris takes a drink of alize and immediately gets hammered to the amusement of Kanye as she begins venting to him about her mother. As the night wanes and most of the patrons at the restaurant have left, the plot thickens. Xaris is passed out from a couple of drinks of alize while the now incredibly drunk Gaston becomes very “handsy” with Rias as he takes off his boots and tries to rub his feet on the inner part of Rias’ thighs. Throughout dinner Rias does her best to divert the womanizer. She attempts to temper down the situation by tickling his feet, not realizing how delicate the young noble was. He immediately screams and kicks his leg up in the air causing the table and everything on it to fly in the air and hit him. Rias deftly dodges the flying leftovers of food. Drunk and furious, Gaston berates Rias and immediately slaps her with the back of his hand causing the sorceress to fly across the restaurant and land on the passed-out body of Xaris. Enraged with Gaston, Koko throws a frying pan at the noble hitting him in the head. Kanye challenges him to a duel above the restaurant on the rooftop deck. With his honor on the line, Gaston accepts and the three of them head to the rooftop as a groggy Xaris is woken up by Pierre and slowly follows behind to watch. The duel commences but Kanye, being the cunning rogue he is, strikes first before the countdown hits and gets a few daggers behind Gaston’s back as fight ensures between the adventurers and Gaston. They underestimate him at first, Gaston being much more skilled than they first imagined. He almost bleeds out the halfling barbarian, but Fives comes to “save” the day as he jumps from his magicycle to grapple Gaston after another late night skydash delivery. As the heroes deliberate what to do with Gaston, he gets out of Five’s grasp and uses his ring of feather falling to jump off the rooftop safely land down to the street below. Worried about the repercussions a spoiled and violent noble might bring down upon them, they frantically try to stop him. Rias flashes her breasts at Gaston hoping he will be stunned by their magnificence, but forgets her breasts were still bruised from last night’s activities and is unable to seduce Gaston to stop. Koko tells Fives to throw her at the noble so she can stop him. Fives obeys and tries to throw Koko at Gaston but throws her too hard as she flies past Gaston and careens off the bridge to certain doom. Fortunately for Koko, Gideon drunkenly passes through the Skyway in the wee hours of the morning after a joyous reunion with a few of his friends from Cyre. He finds a commotion near him as he hears Kanye, Xaris, and Fives yell at Gideon. He sees a bloodied person with four daggers in his back and a flying Koko about to fall to her death. He quickly casts feather fall on Koko as she swiftly grabs onto the ledge of the bridge saving herself from certain death. The drunk Gideon asks how Gaston has so many daggers inside him. Frightened with the sudden turn of events, he tries to hobble his way out, but Fives throws Kanye who headbutts Gaston knocking him out from the blunt force impact. The heroes hear the whirring of sirens from the City Watch and quickly discuss on what to do with Gaston’s unconscious body. While Kanye loots Gaston’s ring of feather fall and coin purse, Gideon throws Gaston’s body inside his bag of holding to the horror of the group as the bag probably does not have any air inside. They move back into the restaurant and Pierre, who is cleaning up the mess from earlier, asks what is going on as the group quickly tells her they must hide. Gideon and Fives dash into the pantry as Fives takes Gaston out of the bag so he will not suffocate, Pierre tries to clean up all the blood covered around Koko’s damaged body, and Rias watches as Xaris uses her disguise self spell to turn into a spitting image of Gaston. Moment later, two policemen from the City Watch arrive at the scene with word from some concerned citizens about a fight breaking out inside The Cloud Dragon. Realizing she cannot emulate Gaston’s voice, Xaris thinks on her feet and tells Rias to make out with her as they begin kissing in front of the officers. Perplexed and suspicious with the scene, the watch ask Gaston if everything is okay, but Rias persuades the policemen to leave them alone so they can continue their pretend make-out session. With it being late and not wanting to disturb the two lovebirds, the watchmen are satisfied and give their goodbyes to Pierre as they leave the establishment. After the watchmen leave, it is calm for just a moment until Gideon, convinced that danger is still afoot, tries to throw Gaston back into his bag of holding as Koko and Kanye try to restrain him from doing so. Pierre is yelling behind Koko letting her know that she is responsible for all the damages to the restaurant tonight, Xaris passes out in the corner of the kitchen from all the excitement and alcohol in her system, and Rias stares dumbfoundedly at the scene wondering what just happened. Alfred arrives at the restaurant, hearing word about Xaris’ comings and goings in the area, and arrives to find Xaris passed out and the other adventurers caring for her. He asks Kanye if she is okay and if they are her friends, and the tiefling nods and tells Alfred to tell Xaris’ mother that she is a “bitch” and to leave the poor girl alone. Happy that the young and sheltered Xaris finally has friends, he nods happily and asks the other heroes to tell Xaris that he came to check up on her and that if she or the others need anything to come to him for assistance. Rias tells the group that she plans to take Gaston back to his family estate in Dalan’s Refuge and try to convince him that it was all a dream. Tired and with no other better ideas the heroes agree, and Fives takes them all back to their respective residences. Rias convinces the Gaston Estate guards that the noble is unconscious due to partying too hard and carries him to his room. She sleeplessly lays next to his mangled body as she tries to think of a way to convince the rash noble that everything that happened tonight was all a dream. The next morning a battered, bruised, and hungover Gaston painfully wakes up and attempts to recall what happened. Rias playfully massages his shoulders telling him he had a bad dream. Unluckily, Rias touch triggers his memories as he turns around and furiously yells at her for what she did last night. She unsuccessfully tries to deceive him that the events of the night before were a dream, and when he pulls out his rapier on her, she immediately flees the room as Gaston quickly tries to pull on his pants before chasing after her. As she reaches the front entrance of the estate Gaston yells at his guards to stop her from fleeing. Two guards approach Rias to prevent her path forward. Thinking quickly, Rias flashes her now unbruised breasts at the guards and they are stunned by their shapely form and magnificence. She convinces the two to buy her some time as she escapes the estate as the guards ready themselves for Gaston Junior’s wrath. Back at The Cloud Dragon, Koko makes some delicious brunch of chicken and waffles for Xaris, Kanye, and Gideon as they nurse their hangovers. Rias does the walk of shame and arrives last. She worriedly informs the group that she was unsuccessful in her attempt to temper the wrath of Gaston Gassedoff Jr. More likely than not she surmises things are going to get much harder for them here in Sharn. Before they can reflect about what to do next, they hear the front door of restaurant swing open...
Rewards Granted
ring of feather fall, coin purse (30 gp)
Character(s) interacted with
Alfred, Valindra ir'Cethleann, Pierre Ghallanda, Gaston Gassedoff Jr.
