Session 3 - "Break and Blossom" Report
General Summary
Kona 20, 1246
The morning dawns bright and clear, with the various members of the party slowly waking in their cabins at Filigree's Folly and making their way to the dining hall. Foenix is the first to awaken, but not the first to go to the dining hall. Instead, he simply waves at each of his compatriots as they traipse across the garden, adorned in the inn's complementary slippers and robe as he sips coffee and relaxes on the front porch of his cabin.
But, eventually, he does join the others. Their meal is quite delectable: coffee, chocolate croissants, oranges, and fluffy pastries filled with sweet cream. Thais comments with some amount of discomfort how indulgent this meal is, but Micaiah is quick to defend the breakfast as more about the experience than it is about nutritional values.
But, the conversation is quickly dropped as the party turns their interest towards something that is weighing heavily on everyone's minds: the burglary of the diplomat's home.
Micaiah suggests that perhaps the party should befriend the Glowbugs, seeing as how their skills in espionage could be helpful. She also suggests that the party try and become friends as well, should they want to keep working together. That suggestion is met with uncomfortable silence, before one by one the party introduces themselves properly.
Alimony says they're looking for a bard by the name of Henry Avon, but cannot or will not give more information beyond that except to say that wandering minstrels are hard to track.
Seraphine says she is looking for her mom - a drow that she has nothing more than the race and general timeframe of her own conception as the clues by which to find her.
Thais simply says that she's looking for purpose in her life, and Foenix just says he's looking to survive.
From there, the continued attempt at burglary brings about a suggestion of a trial run. That is, finding a noble's house that they can steal a writ of passage with less access and seeing if it would be possible to use that as a template to forge a copy of the diplomat's daughter's writ. Thais mentions that she knows of a girl who definitely deserves the indignity of having her writ stolen: a girl who's family crest includes an oak tree.
Micaiah perks up. She knows that family: the Roches. Actually, she knows the girl too. Her name is Élodie Roche, and she's a bitch.
But at that moment, everyone's attention is taken by Seraphine suddenly standing up and running from the restaurant, out into the street, abandoning everything on the table in front of her.
They follow her outside to see her staring at a funeral procession: six people in black mourning gowns with gloves and veils to completely hide their faces and forms. They're carrying a coffin between the six, with one final figure similarly dressed at the front of the procession, carrying a bell in one hand that they ring intermittently and swinging a bronze censure of incense.
Seraphine shakily tells the group that one of them was a drow - she saw their skin - but when they saw her, the Black Rose (as Ali informs the party), a follower of Laravelle, simply turned their head and continued onwards.
While Ali suggests that perhaps it was simply because the Rose is in a funeral procession, and not because they were specifically ignoring Seraphine, it still shakes Seraphine to her core. The first drow she's ever seen has completely disregarded her.
Thais decides this cannot stand, and so she begins to force her way through the crowd on the sides of the street, following the funeral procession. Foenix grabs Seraphine's hand and they follow, Seraphine protesting weakly all the way.
But, eventually, they come to the graveyard. Unlike the cemeteries of Havre-Ordure, filled with mausoleums, the Brillantan style seems to favor monuments to honor the deceased. The only thing that resembles the rows upon rows of small house-like structures for loved ones to visit their remains in the undercity are the above-ground stone tombs. Blocks of stone which have reliefs carved into them.
In fact, that is exactly where the Roses are headed. The party loiters some distance away, watching as the Roses ascend a small hill to a weeping willow with a waiting stone tomb. They watch as the last rites are performed, and the coffin is lowered into the crypt.
Micaiah, having learned from Ali about the practice of all Black Roses dressing alike - and in the likeness of their goddess - in order to allow her to join the mourners unnoticed, decides to step behind a monument and disguise self to appear as one of the Roses.
He climbs the hill, joining the Black Roses as they push the tomb's stone lid into place. As he does, he looks around carefully, eventually spotting the drow's grey-ish skin peeking out from between the black sleeve and gloves of the drow's garments.
As the Roses begin to leave the graveyard, he pulls that Rose aside. It is, of course, not a far stretch for the Rose to immediately assume that Micaiah is not some imposter Black Rose, but Laravelle herself. They are immediately awestruck and gladly agree to follow Micaiah back to the others, where Micaiah introduces them to Seraphine.
The drow Rose pushes back their veil, revealing their full face before introducing themselves as Xen.
Seraphine, overwhelmed with so many questions to ask, eventually asks if Xen can step away with her, which Xen agrees to.
Once they're alone, Seraphine just blurts out her most burning question: are the drow evil?
Xen, for their part, seems rather confused by the question. They left Kōsaihama for a reason, but the drow are not more evil than any other race. Kōsaihama may not be somewhere they would choose to live (in fact, they warn Seraphine against visiting), but it is not because of the drow's presence. They even council that perhaps Seraphine should ask Thais sometime about her home country, as they do not think of themselves as evil, despite doing some things truly heinous.
Seraphine does not understand totally what Xen means, nor does she like it, but she accepts it nonetheless. Xen soon departs, telling Seraphine that it was lovely to meet her.
Heading back to Filigree's Folly, they take tea in Micaiah's cabin as they discuss next plans.
They eventually decide to sneak into the Roche house by way of the Diamond River, with Foenix stealing a boat from a house a few doors up. A boy sees him steal it from inside the house, but is too slow to stop the halfling.
Stopping at a place where everyone can step into the boat, Thais is left waiting on shore, as she believes that she will be more hindrance than help.
With that, the group sets off. Seraphine guides Foenix, telling him that she believes in him, while Foenix and Olena take up the oars. Unfortunately, even with Seraphine's words, Foenix is a rotten rower. He eventually gets his oar stuck in some spout in the river's bottom and breaks the paddle, leaving Olena as the only one to power or steer the boat.
But, despite the setbacks, eventually they make it to the Roche estate. Foenix takes up a position to attempt to surveil the house, while Seraphine moves over next to Micaiah so they can shield Foenix's form from prying eyes as a couple on a date on the river.
This would have worked, were it not for Élodie and, even more unfortunately, Babette Louvre sitting on the balcony of Élodie's room. Élodie notices and recognizes Micaiah and invites him ashore, excited to see he is unharmed after the rumors of his disappearance having gone around.
Micaiah, having little choice, steps on shore and tries to reassure her that the rumors were exaggerated and she was simply on an extended holiday, recruiting a new patron of the Louvre house - she introduces Seraphine as that candidate. Élodie accepts this with her normal fountain of prattle, but Babette seems less convinced. Her face is set in a frown, and she responds to Élodie and Micaiah with the same level of curt politeness.
Élodie is delighted to see Micaiah alive and well and calls for some champagne. Seeing an opportunity, Seraphine orders Foenix to fetch it instead, under the guise of him being one of the pair's servants. Begrudgingly, he goes along with the ruse and pockets a bottle of champagne for himself for the trouble. But he manages to get the layout of the first floor whilst inside, and reemerges with the drink, which he dutifully pours for the four gathered in the house garden.
Babette asks Micaiah to step to the side, and she bluntly informs him that she knows he wasn't on "holiday" or anything like that. She knows he ran away, and she wants his help escaping too. Her debutante is coming up, and there is a man slated to die for her coming-of-age ritual, who she'd like to save if she can. That is why she cannot - or will not - flee now. She asks him to come for her in two weeks time, so that they can save her sacrifice as well.
Meanwhile, Seraphine is using the opportunity to get some petulant revenge. See, she has heard the story of Thais's first meeting with Élodie, and is now using her magic to charm Élodie into cutting off a good portion of her own hair, which Élodie does, completely at Seraphine's mercy while under the influence of Seraphine's magic.
Then the adventurers depart, promising to come back and visit soon (and Seraphine knowing that she never can, as once the magic wears off Élodie will know how she was tricked).
Seraphine presents the lock of hair to Thais when they meet back up with her triumphantly, and the gift amuses Thais so much that she lets out a full bellied laugh, almost hysterically amused when compared to her usual stoicism.
But having looked at the Roche residence as the first target, the group decides to take the opportunity to visit the diplomat's home and at least get a look at it.
They walk down the street, and pause outside of the diplomat's residence. Thais and Foenix, being the most familiar with organized patrols (Thais) and subverting such patrols (Foenix) are the ones to figure out that there is most likely a rotation of guards. Most commonly those times would be dawn and dusk; or dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight; but it's difficult to tell which is true at first glance.
Seraphine is the only one to notice at first what seems to be a humanoid owl in armor inside the home. Once she points it out, however, the others notice as well. It is a curiosity, to be sure, and Micaiah takes a moment to attempt to glean more from the person.
She takes out her lute, and disguises herself to be an ordinary human bard, strumming a merry tune from the street. The sound of her voice and song are enough to draw the owlin guard to the window, which they open to listen to the rest of the song. They throw a few silver pieces to Micaiah as thanks, before returning to their duties. Perhaps not the information or reward they were looking for, but a reward nonetheless.
Waiting until that evening, the group reconvenes outside the Roche resident, around dusk when the changing of the guard will create enough chaos for them to slip in unnoticed.
It is decided that Foenix and Micaiah will be the infiltration team, with Micaiah disguising himself as a maid, and Foenix scaling the exterior of the building and entering in through the balcony facing the Diamond River - which is a set of twin glass doors into Élodie's room.
Micaiah's journey takes him first into the pantry, filled with foods, wines, and other dry goods. He looks through the desk in the corner for the butler, and finds a ledger that contains a single page stamped with a red eagle. He looks around, but is unable to find the eagle stamp in the drawers.
He gives up, and exits the pantry. Finding the linen closet, he finds a set of fresh bedclothes and takes them as he makes his way to the first of two guest rooms located near the garden on the first floor.
After entering, Micaiah drops the linens on the bed as he begins to search, locking the door so he is not disturbed.
This bedroom, adorned with a turquoise blue wallpaper and matching blanket on the bed, seems to not have been used for a while. Still, there is a calligraphy set in the drawers of the writing desk, which he takes.
Exiting that bedroom, he walks across the hall to the second guest bedroom, which seems to still be in use. The rose pink wallpaper is pristine, but there's an odd easel set up in the corner with a painting that seems to have freshly been completely painted over with black. While odd, Micaiah does not give it much thought, and without anything else showing up, he leaves soon afterwards, heading back to the boat on the river to meet up with the others.
Foenix's infiltration goes smoothly, though his entrance into Élodie's room almost ends in disaster immediately, when the cold draft from outside makes Élodie call out for her maid, Désirée, to close the doors quickly. Thankfully, she does not leave the bathtub, and the privacy screen means that she cannot see Foenix and he cannot see her.
He slips over to her nightstand, shifting through the drawers and finding a hairbrush, makeup, Élodie's writ, and an embroidered handkerchief. He takes the writ and the handkerchief before stepping out of Élodie's room and into the main hall of the second floor.
The next door he chooses leads to a painter's studio, with finished paintings all over the walls and an easel in the corner. One such painting is of a unicorn, with a man kneeling before it. When, out of curiosity, Foenix turns it over, he finds it labeled The Blessing of Kings. The room itself seems devoid of secrets, but the painting intrigues him enough to take it, cutting it out of its frame. For good measure, he destroys all the other paintings in the room.
Foenix steps out of the room for half a moment, quickly opening the door next to it and stepping inside quickly before closing the door behind him.
He finds himself in the bedroom of what, to a human, would be a preteen boy. But this child is clearly an elf, in the middle of a trance. He is awake enough to flinch at the sudden brightness of the hall's light streaming across his face when Foenix enters, but Foenix props up a pillow in such a way to block the glare from the boy's eyes as he leaves, and as such he remains undetected.
The final place Foenix stops is the room of the parents. It is at once overwhelmingly opulent and disappointingly average, with a large bath in the corner that can fit more than two people at once, a four poster bed with red curtains, and a matching plush rug that his feet sink into with every step.
He begins his search with the bed, but the only thing he finds there is a set of iron shackles attached to the frame and hidden under the mattress, which he discards with disgust.
Then he checks the desk, where he has more luck: scoping out hidden buttons to press in the carved face of the desk, he is able to open a secret compartment containing correspondence between Joie Roche and a man named Gaias Aquinas, which make reference to a marriage as well as to "the King of Kings." There are also gems and a few legal documents (such as the deed to the very house they were now burglarizing), so Foenix swipes everything into his bag.
The final place he checks is the wardrobe, where he finds that the bottom panel can be slid out of place, and an opulent red cloak with gold motifs around the shoulders is stored. The motifs themselves seem like teardrops, tufts of fur, or maybe even small leaves - Foenix would liken it to a laurel wreath or perhaps a lion's mane. He also takes the iron shackle for good measure.
Rolling that up to take back with him, Foenix makes his way back out through Élodie's room, once again causing her to berate Désirée for letting the draft in.
Foenix arrives a little after Micaiah, both of them having to splash through ankle-deep water that is overflowing the Diamond River's banks. This is unusual - and a bit worrisome - but the party is more interested in a clean getaway and so does not pay it much mind.
Back in Micaiah's cabin, Foenix lays out everything he's found. It is an odd collection, to be sure, but Thais seems to recognize it, going stiff and silent.
Some of the others notice and ask her about it, but she refuses to say, and Micaiah, in a moment of completely misreading the room, playfully places a crown he wove out of flowers from the garden on her head. She immediately tears it off and throws it onto the bed, which understandably hurts Micaiah's feelings a bit.
Still, she reads the letters found in the Roche parents' desk, and is able to tell them that Gaias Aquinas is the head of a minor family in Cactsia - his father being the first ever in the family to earn his Ivory. She takes the letters for herself, but beyond that offers no further insight into the items sitting on the bed.
Seraphine, sensing the tension, finally explodes with excitement. As celebration for a job well done, she's having Girls' Night at her cabin! Thais is immediately against it, but Micaiah, Olena, and Seraphine insist.
The "boys" - Foenix and Ali - take their leave to go drink at a bar on the very highest level of Havre-Ordure, where the Brillantan sometimes go when they want to slum it. Thais very unhappily watches them go without her, as Seraphine begins to brush Thais's hair.
She asks Thais about being a Cactsian soldier. If she liked what she did. Thais hesitates, saying that she did what she was told. Micaiah attempts to make a joke out of it, which Seraphine silences. Seraphine pushes back, insisting that she wants to know if Thais liked it.
When Thais still refuses to respond, Seraphine says kindly, "I don't think you're a bad person. I just think you had to do bad things."
That's enough to break Thais, and she abruptly stands and leaves. Seraphine turns on Micaiah, chastising her for being "glib."
Meanwhile, the boys have started a brawl, stolen a cart, crashed it, and are laying on the street, drunkenly laughing as they stare up into the stars.
Thais takes the marigold from the tomb of Arsène Léon and sets it on her bed. After staring at it for a bit, she suddenly punches herself in the face once. Twice. Three times. Bleeding and bruised, she gathers up the flower before laying down for bed herself.
Rewards Granted
- 7 sp
- a bottle of Maison des Délices champagne (2 gp)
- a calligraphy set
- 4 gemstones
- chalcedony (50 gp)
- sardonyx (50 gp)
- zircon (50 gp)
- bloodstone (50 gp)
- a handkerchief embroidered with "ÉR" (25 gp)
- 1 iron shackle
- a red cloak with gold embroidery around the mantle
Character(s) interacted with
- Babette Louvre
- Briannon, a waitress at Filigree's Folly
- Élodie Roche
- Xen, a drow member of the Black Roses
Notes
Quotes of the Session
Micaiah: "Have you any interest beyond murder?"
Olena: "You seem to have an eye for weak spots - in security and in bodies."
Beau: "Micaiah is a god, confirmed."
Thais Argyri
Paladin (Oath of Redemption) 7
18
13
16
10
11
18
Foenix Stolnent
Rogue 3
Arcane Trickster 4
14
18
19
18
13
13
Micaiah Louvre
Warlock 7
7
18
14
12
15
20
Comments