Codename: Sleeping Alley, Report the Eighth

General Summary

We met the Alley Sleepers in the expired bathtub of danger, chasing down the mystery of exactly what happened to Clownrose Dive. 
They decided the best way to go about unraveling this particular thread was to spring one of its erstwhile members, Dizzy Biscuit, from bondage. To do so, they'll need the help of some other Brass Lamb cells in Riverskint. "Porter" told them to seek out either Pale Bell or Mad Spine cells, but warned that they WILL NOT work together due to some bad blood.
Our heroes sought out Mad Spine & found them to be amenable to helping spring Dizzy. At this point, Hama vu Farlight returned to our group from "communing with the stars." It turns out that commune resulting in a DREAM FIGHT with a big ol' mammoth. Luckily, Hama's companions were also there in said dream, willing & able to lend assistance, & reinforcing, as a strange voice insisted, that everything is stronger together. 
But, as our folks wanted to weigh all the options, they also tracked down Pale Bell to see what they are all about. Operating out of Flenk's Meats in Saw's Milk, Pale Bell is all about brute force. Crown, a massive half-orc, Greenharp, a halfling fond of knives, & Foxtale, a human with just a bunch of bulging pockets, all agreed to lend their particular talents to the cause, provided they operated ALONE.
Rieta, perhaps being inspired from Hama's tale of his epic dream, gave a rousing speech praising unity of spirit, working together, and letting the past be the past. It proved to be very effective, as both cells agreed to work as one. Hooray!
With both cells working together, the operation--"Operation: FreeCookie"--to rescue Dizzy went incredibly well. A 4th level member of The Decree was located, information gathered, and the assault on the black site where Biscuit was being tortured was flawless. Well done, all!
Oh, and some other things happened. Althea saw Tolse Honorarrow again, still shackled and showing signs of abuse. Having seen Aletha, Tolse grinned strangely and spat out her own bitten through tongue at the paladin. She then promptly died. Nobody quite knew what to make of that, but it certainly brought a bunch of feelings to the group. Svo'Kool pocketed the tongue, presumably for an uncouth reason. 
Althea also felt the presence of those eyeless crows watching her, especially that one with a broken foot. Eerie!
Grex took this opportunity to blink out of this plane and into another one. He found himself in an uncanny place--familiar, yet not--and saw figures that were at once aspects of himself, yet totally separate. Weird! Thankfully, he blinked back into existence right as Dizzy was getting rescued and found a strange black orb in his pocket. Definitely magic, but what kind?
Also, Svo'Kool got his tusks sawn down by a dwarven blacksmith/dentist named Bratsong Iverson. Hama decided to take advantage of Svo'Kool's diminished faculties (as Iverson had to give Svo a magic sedative) to poke around in his brain a bit, encouraging him to be less of a goddamn scumbum. It worked! Nice! I'm sure there won't be any consequences!
Except there would be, as Hama's pokin' led Svo to not feel as angry anymore, not to be filled with rage. Bad for a barbarian! 
After being rescued, Dizzy told her tale. Our crew needs to find Lyric Witch or Bent Card or both and see what they have to say about who sold out the cell. Someone is definitely operating for The Crescent, but who?
It was decided to first seek out Lyric, who has been hiding out in [...]. A quick, nearly fatal, ghost fight later--complete with a truck to ass possession for Svo'Kool and Rieta damaging Svo's trunk--Lyric Witch revealed that either Basic Iron Wave or Bent Card was to blame for the cell's destruction. So, it was time to find Card. 
To find the Card, you must become the Card. For this, the gang took themselves dockside and just got blitzed as hell playing dice in The Broken Anchor. All except Svo, that is, who contains, now, apparently, discretion, moderation, and multitudes. Some pointed questions and investigative work revealed that there is a baller rager happening at an island near Isle Skint that might be where Card is. So, it was off to get to the rager, with a balls drunk Rieta and Grex leading the way.
Somehow, they got there, though, and discovered Bent Card being worshipped as an avatar of Hruggek by a bunch of bugbears. Oh shit! Grex decided that maybe he could suggest the bugbears worship another and he did so quite flawlessly. Nice! No bloodshed for once.
Bent Card told them that it is entirely Basic Iron Wave who works for the Crescent. All they have to do now is find him, and either kill him (Card's wish) or apprehend him alive (Lyric's wish). This choice may indeed have consequences!
But first, Svo needs another tusk trim. So it was back to Iverson the blacksmith/dentist. This time, though, the dwarf looked unnerved and quickly sawed off Svo's tusks without any sort of sedative. Hama and Rieta, sensing something was up, stared intently at the dwarf and his features began to seem remarkably similar to Basic Iron Wave. Just then, a bunch of strange clockwork creations around Iverson's shop began to glow. Uh oh!
And that's where we left it. We'll see what that glowing means during our next session.

Missions/Quests Completed

Operation: FreeCookie

Character(s) interacted with

Bleaker, a member of Mad Spine
Rosebreak, a member of Mad Spine
Complicated, a member of Mad Spine
Crown, a member of Pale Bell
Greenharp, a member of Pale Bell
Foxtale, a member of Pale Bell
Dizzy Biscuit, a member of Clownrose Dive 
Lyric Witch, a member of Clownrose Dive
Bent Card, a member of Clownrose Dive
Bratsong Iverson, a blacksmith/dentist

Report Date

11 Nov 2020

Primary Location

Riverskint

Secondary Location

[...]