Lost Lore 8: The Deal - To Grandmothers House Game

General Summary

You've come to deal then! I didn't expect that you would have the guts to do so.
We hold to our accords, and said we'd return. Why would you expect otherwise?
Because men are cowards.

— Granny Illsemine and Adjenna, as the hag tends her horrible stew

  After bidding Tarre, Dorath and Rex adieu, Ospher, Crisnos and Adjenna returned to Frial to get some sleep with Polly, Tick, and Kay in tow. We crashed into our beds at the 12 carrots and woke up to find the pixies hadn't bothered to rob us blind, which I considered a glowing success. While Ospher spent a little time finishing up memorizing his spells, I went downstairs for a brief conversation with Greasom, one of the owners, and Digby, to follow up on some of the stuff Laurent mentioned prior to his death. Neither of them seemed to be aware to any extent of an undercurrent of nighttime travesties within Frial which was well enough, either Laurent was lying to frightening us, or they're good to keeping their cover.   I returned upstairs with a plate of food and Founders cakes for Polly and her siblings which Ospher suspected may have jeopardized their toes and digits due to the high sugar content of the fare and we left them to sleep off their sugar hangover in peace in our room and clued in Charity as to what we've been up to and introduced her to Crisnos, who had taken on a much more nervous demeanor after having finally had a bit of rest from a very hectic 24 hours. She said she was happy to help us out and was looking forward to getting back to spending time with us and hoped we could actually just enjoy the actual Founder's day that was coming up in two days. We agreed that it would be nice and that in order to not have lied to her great-grandfather, upon our return, we would check back in on the Abby for a couple of hours to ensure things were as we left them and then get a full night's rest tomorrow and take the day off without mentioning anything to Digby.   We told Crisnos and Charity we needed to collect up a couple more people that we thought would be instrumental in the fight, and went to the Order House where we saw the recruits training in the yard with polearms that appeared blunted to prevent mishap. We caught the attention of Ser Brightshine and Nicholas, though we only waved Brightshine over since we felt that if the worst happened and he died at the hanging tree, we wouldn't have to worry about Lions breathing down our necks accusing us of murder. Ser was glad to see us in tact and our brains firmly in our heads and mentioned that he was allowed to train outdoors again and accumulate duty through new means after an "accident" that cut off a few fingers of one of his instructors. After asking for his help, he said he'd be glad to go if we would help retrieve one of the fingers from the sewer grate it fell down before a rat got at it so that his jar could preseve it's duty. Ospher's mage hand was instrumental in this task and we were off for the Righteous Lobster thereafter.   From a distance we could see a fresh supply of "Lobster" had just been delivered in a multitude of crates. Some of them smelled quite foul, even to me, and there was a faint scribbling/scratching emanating from a couple of crates. I put that out of my head immediately and went in to determine if Addison and Bohannan were in residence yet. We found both of them sitting at a table in the gloom, looking somewhat miserable over a couple bowls of Lobster Soup. We walked up and explained that we had gathered our ragtag companions and were ready to leave whenever they were. Bohannan countered with requesting a bit of pre-planning and had evidently had the fortune to possess a fairly detailed map of the areas surrounding the Grace of Sandor. After some discussion, we agreed that we would plan on hiding most of the team in the trees to the west of her hut, while Ospher, Crisnos and I would engage for the deal and confirm that Nirue was unharmed in any manner. Surveying our companions didn't reassure Bohannan, but I could read in his face that he felt confident enough to protect Addison regardless of the circumstances of our assumed incompetence.   We left after Ospher investigated the presence of Chef Pete, who was suspiciously not there but a fresh pot of Soup had just been delivered and left to re-heat desperately. After we put a bit of space between us and the city gates on the south road, I revealed to Bohannan that we had three additional companions that had precious intel on Granny Illsemine as well and we would have a discussion later to understand exactly what they knew about the green hag, though they still needed to sleep off their Founder's cakes. A few hours down the road, Polly told us that she had a number of spells at her beck and call that she could do a limited number of times per day, including fire, illusion, darkness, enchantment of the senses and enslaving creatures. But the main thing we would want to watch for was her ability to become invisible whenever she wanted and her terrible claws which cold rend a bear in half easily and her incredible strength despite her decaying countenance. After this, we resolved to face her at first light instead of that evening to have at least that be in our favor.   We arrived at dawn as planned whereupon Crisnos, Ospher and I came in from the east while the others circumnavigated to the west side noticing much more about the tree's surrounding now in reasonable light. There was a deep pond in the southwest, not far from the tree in the west was a heavily used well, a couple of trees with their boughs absolutely covered in spiderwebs and the copses of trees to the southeast and west of the hut itself where Bohannan, Addison, Ser Brightshine, and Kay would wait. Polly and Tick would stay in my bag in case things got treacherous from the start. Approaching her door, we observed her two remaining harpies in the trees sneering at us and licking their lips, and horrifyingly a creature that I had assumed was only of myth revealing itself atop the well, what Ospher told me was a true Manticore.       Not really believing it at first, we went in the door with impunity and were smacked in the nose again with that sickly sweet smell as with last time. Illsemine was there in her glory this time, stirring a roiling pot of food at her cook fire, and I immediately noticed that Nirue was not in sight. She spouted some canned shit about being surprised we kept our word, but we pulled the ring out after she indicated that Nirue was in a cupboard nearby. She was incredibly dazed and appeared to be fine, just addled from Granny's magics. She attempted to run to Crisnos' arms as she got her wits to her, but Granny magically held her in place and we made the exchange and started looking over Nirue with concern. I thought she was fine and Crisnos asserted the same so we went out the door with her a few steps to get away from watching Illsemine lasciviously lick the ring to learn its secrets. The harpies in the trees were laughing at us as we stood there but the manticore remained in place in the meantime so we took another moment to check Nirue again and question her thoroughly. She said she didn't recall anything from the point a couple days ago where she saw us until the cupboard was opened, which combined with a sense of wrongness in my heart / from Nisaba, conveyed to me that we were likely being beguiled. I asked Polly to use her power to read thoughts on her and she quietly told me that Nirue wanted to eat her, and us. I voiced my concerns to Crisnos and suggested that perhaps she'd been infected or implanted with something, and he declared that he would use his powers as a Champion to purify her. This is when his heart shattered.   As he laid his hands on her, both Ospher and I were too slow to react to a change we saw coming and observed the entire hilltop exploding into action. Nirue seemed to melt back into the form of a harpy and dove for Crisnos' neck which the Scale armor I granted him doesn't exactly cover that much better than a leather jerkin. She grievously wounded him and rendered him unconscious and then took flight towards her termagant sisters in the tree that were preparing to dive upon us. We noticed that the Manitcore was coming to ruin us, so we agreed that now was the time to deploy our other secret weapon, the dread horror of gnomish technology, I lit the wick of a stick of Dynamite, and gave Ospher the second stick for his discretion and set to work on staunching Crisnos' neck. Ospher's catapult spell caught the Manticore unprepared and between the force of the blow and the explosion of powder, the beast was stunned into inaction while the two of called for our backup as the sadistic hag's treachery was manifest.   The harpies ineffectively attacked me as I shielded Ospher from their strikes and our confrère sprang into action. Charity and Ospher both struck the harpies in the trees with magical power, Charity wounding two of them and Ospher's wand driving one of them away in an amber ray of fear. Bohannan and Addison broke off to deal with a gigantic toad monster that crawled forth from the adjacent pond, dealing two astonishing wounds to it while evading it's nightmarish attempts to swallow him whole, Ser Brightshine went to engage the Manticore, surprising it as it was attempting to shake its head from the concussive blast and laced a couple wounds into it. Crisnos, back on his feet not threw a javelin at the false sister, injuring it.       Polly, Tick and Kay managed to use their innate magic wisely around the battlefield, and eventually I directed Polly to find Illsemine before she could surprise us and rip someone's head clean off of their body. One of the two harpies unaffected by Ospher's fear magic attempted to use her enchanting song to lure a few of us into the jaws of the Manticore itself and unfortunately, Ser dropped his polearm and was gored rapidly by the beast. Between Ospher, Charity and Tick and Kay, however, the harpies and the Manticore were felled by their accumulated wounds, and Bohannan and Addison cleaned up the frog's threat as well, leaving the mutant grenouille to drip it's lifeblood out onto the wet grass. Polly spotted Illsemine and illuminated her within the hut, ruining her invisibility magic as she overcame the Ghelf warding on the relic and forced it to accept her as its master. Her wretched figure was now limmed with a faint azure flow rendering her very difficult to strike, as Crisnos quickly found out, charging into the hut and hurling a javelin at her that appeared to strike true and then veered off course as it neared collision.   Ospher catapulted a jug of oil in at her and while she was far more nimble than I would have expected, he still got her lit ablaze when he sparked the oil alight with prestidigitation. She ran outside as everyone drew in to attack her, and slammed her hut shut on Crisnos, attempting to burn him alive within. He proceeded to exit via a window as I sent Polly within to protect our promised payment to her and her siblings since she had dealt with our direction expertly thus far. I asked Tick to be ready to dispel Illsemine's next spell since it would likely be one that would affect everyone gathered around her as they attempted to strike her repeatedly and only accomplished glancing efforts. Working in tandem at this point, she was not immune to our collective deceits and a few of us were able to strike her precisely in a campaign of misdirection and feints. Twice, her spells failed against the power of Tick, who went to help his sister quench the flames in the hut, and then Kay, as she consumed a pustule growing on her filthy torso that granted her vitality and unleashed a horrible inhuman chittering ululation that beckoned four spiders from the webbed trees nearby. She then gouged her claws into Ser's surprised back and pulled them out with flecks of his organs on them and left him to die.       Ospher's fear wand drove off two of the four spiders that were approaching and I went to intercept the other two of them while trying to protect Brightshine and Addison from being a convenient snack for the spiders, but one them spat webs at me, preventing me from administering further aid to Brightshine. Illsemine attempted to break out of being surrounded by all of us, but Crisnos' fury and holy puissance proved the better at this reckless action and he lodged his pitchfork into her, holding her steady enough for an Enlarged Bohannan to deal the killing blow to the Green Hag. The threat finally subdued and the fire inside the hut extuinished, minus some minor damage to the furniture within, I asked Polly to dispel Illsemine's corpse in case there was a final curse on her repulsive corpus that would activate when we grabbed the relic back. In an incredibly surprising turn of events, we then discovered her body rapidly decaying in front of her eyes, leaving behind a few magical items that we split with Polly, Tick and Kay.   We let them search their new home and eventually discovered a partially grown body within a coffin filled to the brim with chemicals and wearing an identical magical item to one that was around her neck. All of them in tandem were meant to convey her spirit from her dead body to this one upon her defeat, effectively ending her horrible reign of terror. Before agreeing to destroy the body, I persuaded Crisnos to beseech Corellon to return her spirit back to Tairos within this body and reform it in her likeness, which he would not grant. Ideally, this will later serve as a reminder to Crisnos that this entire event has occurred for a purpose beyond the safety of his immediate family, but in my conversations with him before leaving the tree hideout, he seemed to be equally deluged by grief and anger at fae peoples. Polly offered Ospher and me a couple of treasure chests and some magicite that Illsemine had stolen from prior adventurers she killed and we pledged to sent the Satyrs to her for their mutual survival in the plains.     We bid Bohannan and Addison a safe trip back to the Rylan Woods and after a brief period of mending our wounds, we set out back to Frial ourselves.     I asked Crisnos to communicate with Corellon to share if they had any leads on The Lady Midnight's sister, The Libertine, he asked for some time to be alone with his grief, but I told him this was of dire importance to me.     Charity and Ser were a huge help in this matter. I hope the four of us can deal with Wagner Abbey, and then see what we can learn about Bell Haven district. Come to think of it, our solicitor meeting is the day after Founder's Day.     We managed to keep everyone we brought with us alive and thwarted her scheme to curry favor with The Autumn King. We also learned to not trust that a hag will hold a deal with a life on the line. May we never find ourselves in such a situation again.  

By our agreement, these spoils are yours. The ring however, is Addison's.
I STAKE MY CLAIM!
Shut up, let them have that.

— Adjenna, Tick, and Polly discussing the desiccated corpse of Illsemine

Rewards Granted

Successfully squandered a week's vacation with trauma, nightmares, paranoia and death.

Missions/Quests Completed

Nirue's fate is confirmed. Crisnos has avenged her with our help. Crisnos gained level 2 in Paladin.   Ser Brightshine has gained 1 level in Fighter.   Charity gained level 4 in addition to Ospher and Adjenna.   Our fae friends have found an out of the way safe residence.

Character(s) interacted with

Greasom - Unaware of what horrors actually lurk in the night with the magical displays.   Digby - Confirmed that he is not aware of surveillance upon the city's magic users by Roche's circle. He's very willing to torture someone to death to find out more information, which isn't new information, per se.   Charity - She is now aware that we're very sympathetic to displaced persons and was surprised by the tales of our vacation time.   Polly, Tick, Kay - The Pixies have their strange hag treasures and their new residence, hopefully the illusion magic will persist, but between them and the Satyrs, they can manage an effective camouflage.   Addison & Bohannan - Our deal complete and Segravia's relic secured, we have held up our end of the bargain without being directly responsible for her punishment upon the chamberlain's return to the Lake Bask/Rylan Woods encampment. Bohannan is going to escort her home, perhaps this is the last we will see of him as he may not want to leave her or won't be permitted to leave.   Ser Brightshine - He's still a really weird guy, taking perverse delight in the permanent maiming and crippling of his instructors. Fate saw fit to protect him this day though. What does Destiny hold for him?   Crisnos & Nirue - His quest has been completed and a new fire of anger has been stoked within him. Why does Correllon want him to feel this way? Nirue will no longer have to suffer in this world of cruelty and unwelcome terrors.   Granny Illsemine - Defeated and her schemes laid to rest. Through accidental means we have thwarted her future plans as well. May whatever she sows beyond serve her the justice denied to her victims.