Session 7 - "Encore and Epilogue" Report
General Summary
Kona 23, 1246
With the party's fine garbs put in place, they make their way over to the Théâtre du Chant - the Theater of Song - where they are putting on an epic play known as The Dragon's Heart (starring Faelyn Bellas and Z’Beryl Morningdove): a story about a man who is cursed into the form of a dragon and is only saved by his true love's kiss. This particular theater troupe, however, claims that it is the most lifelike performance that you will ever see.
Everyone puts away most of their weapons and armor, planning for a relaxing evening at the theater (though Seraphine insists on keeping her staff).
The first half of the play goes well enough: a general tale of an evil advisor looking to take power for himself and a proud, noble knight who will stop at nothing to keep the king safe and is in a chivalric, pining romance with the king's daughter. In the end, to keep the knight from foiling his plans, the vizier turns the knight into a dragon, with his only hope being the love of the princess.
Thais is enraptured by the story, to the extent that Micaiah at one point leans over to suggest that perhaps she should take over for Faelyn (as the knight's actor - and indeed the entire cast - is struggling with the performance tonight).
At the intermission, Foenix and Seraphine have some expensive wine - called Petralios - served in concentrated doses on silver-plated spoons. Foenix takes the opportunity to steal the spoons, even as Seraphine recoils from the taste.
The second half of the play does not go as smoothly. Instead of puppetry or special effects, the Théâtre du Chant lives up to its promise, and the dragon-knight is portrayed by a real dragon. A red dragon wyrmling, to be precise, with its wings clipped and its snout muzzled and as the heroine beseeches it to remember who it truly is, it roars in outrage. Gouts of flame on its lips bathe the heroine, but they turn white as they glance off her body harmlessly. The muzzle, it seems, is magical, turning all attacks from the beast into harmless special effects.
Olena and Foenix, both understanding Draconic, can understand the dragon's furious shouts to be released.
Foenix turns to Seraphine, quietly whispering to her about the situation, which is when she notices the vizier's actor, carrying a blade, preparing to take a dive from the rafters down upon the dragon. Fearing that he may be preparing to kill the beast in another show of "realism," Seraphine uses her magic to hold him fast as Foenix hops over the few rows of seats in front of them and begins to scale the pillars to reach the catwalk.
The show stalls out, with the princess - Z'Beryl - unsure how to proceed and the orchestra playing the cue for the vizier over and over again.
The crowd begins to stir anxiously, several of them noting the frozen form of the vizier. Olena can hear them: most are wondering if he suddenly lost his nerve to do the dangerous stunt, but none are the wiser of Seraphine's trick.
Foenix, reaching the catwalk, approaches the vizier. He attempts to force the vizier to take his dive and free the dragon upon his landing. When the vizier refuses, saying that he will be killed by the dragon if he does so, Foenix shrugs and simply stabs the man to death. Seraphine flinches in shock, but it's too late: Foenix drops down onto the dragon's back and in one fluid motion, cuts it free.
Olena stands up as the crowd begins to panic, attempting to react as an audience member would to this shocking turn of events - her ruse that this is all part of the play only convinces them for as long as it takes the dragon to shake itself free of its bonds and turn it's draconic breath on poor Z'Beryl, who is incinerated near instantaneously.
The crowd screams as one, and they all begin to run for the exits, trampling over themselves to do so.
Seraphine stands up in her chair, yelling for Foenix to translate that they're trying to help the dragon and it shouldn't attack them. He does so, but it only seems to work marginally.
What helps more is when Foenix feeds a healing potion to the dragon, helping to knit the clipped wings back together. It flies over the heads of the fleeing audience, to the exit where Olena waits to direct it out. It creeps into the sunlight before taking flight - but the healing potion's effects are temporary, with the slits in its thin, leathery wings beginning to tear back open as it flies.
Foenix directs it underground, and it tumbles to a hard landing as the halfling jumps free at the last minute.
Seraphine runs out of the still-burning opera house, her keen druid senses taking in the confusion, smoke and cloud trails to track the dragon. She calls for the rest of the party to follow her as they descend back into the undercity. Ali has to grab a frozen, mortified Micaiah and drag him along with everyone else.
Meanwhile, Foenix hides the dragon in an abandoned building, and Seraphine joins him inside upon arriving. She attempts to give the dragon a healing word, but the dragon is quick to explain that it may have been too long since they were damaged.
Still, Seraphine is unabated, and when she attempts to show kindness and empathy to the beast, it lashes out, telling all of them - the entire party - just how little it thinks of them. They are a lesser species than dragonkind, and to think of themselves as equals is foolish and unwise. Seraphine backs off, and the dragon escapes, crawling up the cave walls like a lizard before taking unsteady flight with half-broken wings.
Thais is furious at Seraphine and Foenix, saying that this was uncalled for and dangerous. Not only are animals utilized all the time in coliseums, but it's a red dragon. Neither Seraphine nor Foenix see anything wrong with what they've done, and so they stalwartly refuse to bend under her anger.
Eventually, Thais turns with a growl and stalks back to the Bitch's Rest. The others follow behind, to grab their belongings and turn in their keys, but no one speaks to the paladin. Not even when they go to the Glowbugs' hideout to stay the night before making their descent.
Fawn asks if they had anything to do with the burning theater and death of an actress in Gracile, but they brush her off. Still, she allows them to stay, and they make camp a bit away (Thais sets up her tent even further from the others, sulking by herself).
During watches, Seraphine tells Foenix an old bedtime story that her father used to tell her.
Kona 24, 1246
Wickett takes the party down into the depths. She instructs them to head north, following the road where they can. There will be three traps/puzzles and a locked gate, which she gives them the key for. The first will be in a family gravesite. Wickett gives Foenix a fake gold coin that will assist with this first puzzle (it has a Goldbug on one side, but a basic examination shows it to be ceramic - PAINTED gold).
The party sets off, eventually coming to the graveyard with the locked gate. One of the locks/traps that Wickett mentioned is immediately obvious: a slot next to the gate with a clay tablet written in thieves' cant that reads "He who has it doesn't tell it. He who takes it doesn't know it. He who knows it doesn't want it. What am I?" (the answer is, of course, counterfeit money). Unfortunately, the slot is filled in with mud and a NEW riddle has been left on the opposite side of the clay tablet.
It simply says, "arrange me!" in thieves' cant, with six numbers that have been scraped off the headstones: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. Most of the headstones have either been scratched off or worn down, so that names are not even visible. The only thing left are four numbers, in this order: 8, 1, 2, and 0. There are blank spaces in each grave in this sequence: 8 _ _ _ 1 _ _ _ 2 0
It is eventually Micaiah who uncovers the sequence: 8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 3, 2, 0 - that is, to arrange the numbers alphabetically by their name.
But the victory is short lived, as a gossamer strand of filament shoots out of the darkness of a cave in the hillside next to the graveyard, and a cave fisher - a large, spider/scorpion-esque creature crawls out. The filament attaches itself to Micaiah and attempts to reel her in, but Micaiah manages to keep her feet. She draws her dagger and attempts to slash at the filament, but the sticky nature of the tie catches her blade, wrenching it from her head. Jonquil's attack on the cave fisher doesn't do much damage, but it does sicken and poison it, leaving room open for other attacks.
The rest of the party was quite far from Micaiah before the cave fisher's appearance, and so Ali, Olena, Foenix, and Thais must simply close the gap in the split second before the fisher can attempt to grasp at Micaiah again. Olena works herself up into a rage and Foenix shoots his bow, but misses the creature.
Meanwhile, Seraphine calls upon the spirits of nature, and growths of vines begin to push out from the ground around the fisher, grabbing at and entangling the creature.
The fisher attempts once again to reel in its prize and this time Micaiah is unable to resist, being dragged across the ground and into the reach of the fisher's claw - but she is quick enough to roll out of the way of its meaty claw.
Ali is about to take another strike, when there is a hissing sound from the cliff ledge above them. They turn to see a second cave fisher, which also shoots out a filament that attaches itself to the front of Ali's armor, but Ali plants their feet and when the fisher attempts to pull them in, they stay steadfast.
Micaiah tries once again to cut himself free, but loses another dagger to the filament failure. The fisher, seeing an opening, attempts to clamp down on the tiefling's hand, but misses so badly failure that Micaiah has enough time to pull out a third dagger and jab down into the claw. Meanwhile, Jonquil flies up the cliff face and attempts to stick the second fisher with another poisonous barb, but the sprite misses.
Ali, disregarding their own predicament, strikes down and lands a critical strike with their axe upon the first fisher that leaves a crack in its carapace, while Seraphine runs up the stairs to the top of the hill where the second fisher is and puts out her staff. Her hair begins to lift away from her face, and her eyes blaze with the light of the sun as a flaming sphere erupts into being, barreling into the second cave fisher.
Olena runs up to the first cave fisher and lets her rage take her, swinging recklessly in all directions. A solid hit with her hammer cracks the carapace even further and shakes the ground. It disturbs what other nests of arachnids there are, and out from under one of the headstones a swarm of spiders erupts, quickly rushing towards Foenix and covering his body, biting repeatedly.
He desperately swings down, crushing quite a few, before he runs for the cliff face and swings his bow over his shoulder before he climbs up the cliff to the highest point of the hill, out of the spider's reach disengage.
The second fisher - on the top of the hill - tries again to reel in its prize, and this time Ali is yanked backwards, battered against the cliff as they find themselves face to face with the monstrosity. It uses a claw to attempt to grab its prey, but Ali ripostes the attack with their axe, swinging down with enough force to sever the tip of one claw.
Thais pulls her sword out of its scabbard, wielding it in her two gauntleted hands as she swings down with a searing smite that completely severs the front and back halves of the first fisher where Ali and Olena had already connected. The impact shakes the ground, dislodging another spider swarm that begins to coalesce around the paladin and harry her.
Micaiah, now free from the cave fisher's filament, draws his hand up his chest as if drawing his own filaments up from the ground - but instead of spider webs of adhesive, tendrils of ice begin to spread across his body as the armor of Agathys coats him a protective shell of rime.
He orders Jonquil to attack, and the little sprite hits the second cave fisher with a direct hit of a poisonous barb. The poison is so shocking and potent that it drops the creature into unconsciousness, giving Ali a chance to get their feet, pulling themselves up off the cliff face and onto solid ground.
Seraphine takes her ball of fire, and rolls it once again over the body of the cave fisher, igniting its extremities, while Olena stops to help Thais with her arachnid problem. The slam of Olena's hammer on the ground scatters a good portion of the swarm, while her well timed hits and stomps on the rest sufficiently kill off or dismay the rest into leaving her friend alone hit.
Meanwhile, Foenix has climbed the rest of the way up the cliff face and takes a running shot at the unconscious second cave fisher, embedding an arrow in its flank. The shock of pain rouses the creature, and seeing the situation has turned against it, it begins to flee further into the abandoned city.
On the first level, the spider swarms have not been completely eradicated, and one begins to engulf Olena. Thais takes the opportunity to return the favor to her friend, beginning to pat and squash the bugs that begin to burrow underneath Olena's armor and exposed, welted skin. Micaiah helps, and between the two of them they manage to clear Olena of the worst of the spider swarm. Jonquil continues to fire at the second cave fisher, but unfortunately misses.
Ali doesn't waste their chance, however - running up on the creature and bringing down their axe with a final blow, and their last attacker goes still.
While they catch their breath, Thais takes a torch and approaches the cave fisher's cave, which is coated in webs and mysterious lumps of what turns out to be meals preserved for later. She pokes around for a bit, eventually uncovering a sword of some magical variety as well as a bowl filled with semi-precious gems, which she takes before baptizing the cave in fire. The sword she gives to Ali.
Foenix, for his part, cracks open the cave fishers themselves to see if their last meals had anything worth taking, and finds a flask with brandy in it for his troubles.
As they all sit and catch their breath, Seraphine reaches out to Laravelle...
Rewards Granted
- A clay drinking vessel, its sides and sloping lip decorated with black circles and snakes, and inside a glittering collection of precious and semi-precious stones: flakes of turquoise, yellow agate, razor sharp shards of obsidian, among others. (50 gp for the stones, 1 sp for the drinking vessel)
- A small copper flask, green from age and tarnish. The creeping tarnish has obscured the monogrammed letters carved into the flask's side, but just barely its possible to make out a "D" and what might be an "O". Inside, there are three swallows worth of excellent brandy. (4 sp)
- a sword of vengeance
Character(s) interacted with
- Fawn, elf Glowbug
- Wickett, aasimar Glowbug
Notes
Quotes of the Session
Ali: "See, it's about fucking dragons."
Foenix, after hearing the story of Cap-o'-Rushes: "Why didn't she kill them?"
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
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