Session 17: The Awesome Adventures of Andre
General Summary
Back at the Dragon and Wolf everyone is sitting around a table waiting for Astraea and Andre to get back. Hanurak who is still a bunny is sitting contentedly is saresh's lap. As he falls into a sleep he begins to dream of lyanna lying in his bed with him as she climbs on top of him he looks behind her and sees an old man standing in the corner watching. Lyanna begins to push him further and further into the bed as she tells him to join her and Orryn. Jumping awake he jumps off Saresh's lap and begins to hop to the door, but as he reaches it Astraea and Andre walk in. Seeing a cute bunny hopping towards them Astraea picks it up just as Saresh shouts "By the gods don't let him get out or we'll never find him." Looking puzzled Astraea sits down and places Hanurak in the centre of the table just as he poops in her hand. Looking disgusted at the rabbit, Saresh explains what happened to Hanurak while Faen quickly casts a spell to clean Astraea's hand.
The group spend an hour filling each other in on their various adventures and even with Faen studying the letter Andre received they learn nothing new.
"Who's that guy over there?" Asks Astraea and everyone turns to look at a sheepish looking Tabaxi who, realising the game is up, comes over and takes a seat with them. He tells the group that his name is Twig and says he is a rogue who has just come to the town, noticing the antics of the others from the previous night and seeing as he likes unusual things and unusual people decided to follow them and see what else might happen. Astraea asks if he is any good at stealing and so he quickly pickpockets the dagger of Draco from her. As he holds it a whisper enters his mind "give me back." And he hastily puts it down on the table. Shaking his head he comments on the unusualness of the dagger and Astraea briefly explains how and why she has it. Taking a liking to him both Astraea and Saresh think he should join them as another pair of hands is always useful and the group decide to finish their business with the thieves guild quickly. Making a harness Astraea straps Hanurak to her in a papooseand they all head off to the Dragons hoard.
Cautious at first Samedi soon warms to her as Faen introduces her and confirms that she is a part of their group. Samedi is pleased to see the philopher's stone but before he will hand over the key he tells of his boss' displeasure of the burning down of some warehouses in the docks due to the chase the others had the night before.
Astraea having had enough of being accused of setting things on fire abruptly tells him that she had no part in that fire and doesn't trust that they will get the key if he is now changing the deal.
Samedi reassures her that he will hand the key over if they can get into Orryn's house and bring back something useful for the guild. Astraea still not believing him goes on a rant about how nothing was hypothetically burnt anywhere and Faen never seeing her in such a state approaches and asks her what happened when she and Andre were away.
"Nothing hypothetically happened, no hypothetical barn was burnt." She replies.
"Was it an orphanage." Twig pipes in.
"There was no hypothetical burning of any barn which may or may not have hypothetically spread and burnt the rest of a village which I may or may not be able to confirm if an orphanage was hypothetically burnt. And because of this hypothetical fire we may or may not have been kicked out of said hypothetical village." Faen looking bewildered turns to Andre who is smirking to himself and Samedi stares with bemusement at this elf who seems to be having a break down. Twig wanders off to have a go at one of the gambling tables and loses a little while Astraea recovers and reluctantly agrees to see what they can get out of Orryn's house. With everyone except Twig returning to the tavern they see the festivities for Crinklemas beginning with reindeer running through the streets and people decorating their houses and market stalls selling their wares. Astraea calls her sister through the dagger and asks if she can get them into Orryn's house or at least knows a way in and is told that she isn't sure but does know of polymorph spells and dimension doors as security outside the house.
Mingling as not to give himself away he sees the house next door is open and is welcoming people in for a glass of wine which Twig takes advantage of to see if there is any way into Orryn's house.
Finding nothing but good cheer and Crinklemas spirit, he goes to the house on the other side and after seeing it looks vacant finds a window on the second floor he can slip through and starts looking around the house quietly. In the basement he finds a crack in the wall which upon closer inspection looks like a plastered over door so he begins to carefully chip away at the thin plaster. From upstairs hears a sound. Freezing in place he hears a couple enter sounding like they've had a good few drinks and listens as they head upstairs. Deciding to quietly continue with his work, after a little while he reveals the door.
"Please help me I've escaped from next door the wizard had imprisoned me." Twig quickly says.Seeing his bloody face they take pity on him and the man tells his wife to get some water but Twig refuses and tells them he is leaving and bolts for the door. The wife who was nervous of staying anyway refuses to stay and they both grab their cases quickly and run out of the door after Twig. As he merges again with the crowd outside, Twig sees the couple run from the house, clothing streaming from their suitcases, heading towards the docks. He notices Astraea and the others, he quickly writes a note and walks up to Astraea forcing it into her hand as he passes her and heads back into the house. Not wanting any attention the group walk to the back of the houses while Twig goes back to the basement and instead of waiting for the others opens the door again and just manages to avoid being thrown across the room, again. He wedges the door open carefully and cautiously looks inside but sees nothing except an empty clean basement. The others hear this boom as they approach the house reaching an iron gate which has rusted shut. Astraea messages Twig who is at first startled to hear her voice in his head but he does go to the back gate and using his alchemy jug produces acid to burn the hinges away. Faen who wanted to cast acid splash is disappointed while walking inside with the others he tries to scry on Orryn but only gets static on his connection.
Everyone makes their way down to the basement and Twig explains what happened to him.
While Astraea and Faen are discussing the best way to safely get through the house Twig starts rummaging through the boxes that were broken and finds a little clockwork dragon that was made by Halin many years ago.
Faen casts detect magic and feels a lot of magical traps throughout the house. Dispelling any magic nearby they all safely enter the basement with Twig needing a bit of persuasion that it is actually safe now.
Finding only two doors that are locked one on the first floor and one on the second Twig deftly picks the first lock and Andre cautiously opens the door onto a plush bedroom.
While the others search for anything that could help, Twig getting a little bored decides to jump on Orryn's bed which suddenly collapses and flings him across the room, he grabs onto the wallpaper and pulls a piece off the wall as he falls to the floor, pocketing the scrap of paper he walks out of the room while the others just stare at him wide mouthed. Heading upstairs to the other locked room Twig again picks the lock and Andre opens it but as he goes to step through, a spell hits him and he shrinks by a foot. Faen sensing that the magic has gone enters the room with the others following quickly. Looking around they see they are in a study very much like the lushly decorated office Orryn has in the university.
Searching through his desk Astraea finds pictures of her, Andre, Rashal and several reports about the events at Waterdeep searching further they find a statue of the water queen Beira. Picking up the statue there is a flash of light and Faen senses a lot of magic coming from it, Cuivie tells him that he feels that the magic coming from it is similar to a dimension door spell.
"Hey guys you better look at this." He says.
Everyone comes over and they see at the end of the corridor is a stone obelisk with elvish writing on it is talking about a spell protecting and stopping evil from entering and leaving. Walking down the corridor the door closes before Rourke can leave the study and he is left frantically trying to find a way out of it.
The others continue into the large room and see four openings containing an inky blackness which seems to be held back by some kind of magic field. Twig climbs onto the obelisk and Faen tells him that he is floating above it, looking down Twig sees that he must be on an invisible part of the obelisk and feeling around he notices a hand shaped indentation in the surface.
Astraea recommends he gets off the obelisk and she casts her Mage hand putting it where Twig tells her he felt the indentation.
Suddenly a beam of light shoots out of the top of the obelisk.
"I'm glad I got off that now." Says Twig with a gulp.
The four openings suddenly release the blackness and it flows into the room up to knee height. Astraea feels a calling from one of the rooms and looking in she sees a room full of treasure chests and gold coins.
After the failure of blight Valanthe tries earth tremor taking out more while the nothics go after Astraea again taking from her mind the secret that she has thought many times about joining her sister, Elanil. While she is recovering Faen is mobbed by more nothics while Hanurak continues to bite at their ankles.
With fury building Astraea casts immolation killing 15 more nothics. Andre who is still unconscious on the floor of the mimic room is swarmed by the nothics and before anyone can get to him he is killed. Seeing their friend murdered the others rally together and furiously start fighting even harder, Twig attacks killing more nothics, while Faen shoots a fireball into the mimic room hitting both the mimics and nothics while but as a consequence he turns Andre's body to ash.
The nothics sensing their prey gaining strength hit back hard, they ambush Twig and Faen knocking both unconscious, Hanurak takes a hit and goes down but with the anger building from the loss of a friend and others falling his rage builds and he breaks the polymorph spell throwing the the mob of nothics off him. Valanthe starts casting healing spells to save Faen and Twig and a nothic tries casting rotting gaze on Astraea which she avoids.
Hanurak grabs his gear from Faen while Astraea hastes both Hanurak and Twig but a nothic slashes at Twig and he is knocked out again, while Faen casts chromatic orb taking out a few more nothics but again he is mobbed and falls. Valanthe continues casting her healing magic on the group. Hanurak starts swinging his sword damaging anything close by to him while Astraea casts storm sphere. Seeing the tide is turning in the favour of the heroes the last two groups of nothics turn and flee. Astraea runs into the chest room and kneels at the ashes of Andre. Saying a small prayer she finds a small box and collects the ashes the best she can storing them safely in her bag.
She looks around at the others while Twig collects Andre's belongings and putting them in his bag of holding. Everyone looks dejected at this point but they rally together and know that Andre would want them to continue. Moving through the chest room they enter a similar looking room to the one they were just in but the floor is covered in ash. Suddenly flames appear from the walls and still battle weary and reeling from the death of Andre they are too slow to dodge and get hit.
Managing to get to the door they see a staircase leading down with an inscription above the entrance saying "Embrace the dark for those who do may embrace the light." They go down the stairs and it seems to keep going on forever, after several hours Astraea stops thinks about the inscription they read and tells everyone to close their eyes as they walk. Doing this they soon realise they aren't on stairs anymore and opening their eyes they see a large cavernous room filled with treasure and statues.
Astraea and Hanurak suggest they find a small area that they can camp to get some nourishment and rest after their battle. They see a clear space in the corner so set up a small camp and manage to have a short rest but they are all still clearly shaken by the last encounter. Twig looking around glances at the stairs they arrived from and notices a light approaching. As he tells the others, they all hear the sound of cackling approaching.......
"Who's that guy over there?" Asks Astraea and everyone turns to look at a sheepish looking Tabaxi who, realising the game is up, comes over and takes a seat with them. He tells the group that his name is Twig and says he is a rogue who has just come to the town, noticing the antics of the others from the previous night and seeing as he likes unusual things and unusual people decided to follow them and see what else might happen. Astraea asks if he is any good at stealing and so he quickly pickpockets the dagger of Draco from her. As he holds it a whisper enters his mind "give me back." And he hastily puts it down on the table. Shaking his head he comments on the unusualness of the dagger and Astraea briefly explains how and why she has it. Taking a liking to him both Astraea and Saresh think he should join them as another pair of hands is always useful and the group decide to finish their business with the thieves guild quickly. Making a harness Astraea straps Hanurak to her in a papooseand they all head off to the Dragons hoard.
Hanurak in a Papoose
As they enter they are greeted by the sights and sounds of a busy casino the shouts of place your bets, of joy and anguish as someone wins a hand of cards and the others lose. At one of the tables they see a gaunt dark skinned man, Astraea approaches after Faen points out that this is Samedi their contact in the Society of the Dawn .Cautious at first Samedi soon warms to her as Faen introduces her and confirms that she is a part of their group. Samedi is pleased to see the philopher's stone but before he will hand over the key he tells of his boss' displeasure of the burning down of some warehouses in the docks due to the chase the others had the night before.
Astraea having had enough of being accused of setting things on fire abruptly tells him that she had no part in that fire and doesn't trust that they will get the key if he is now changing the deal.
Samedi reassures her that he will hand the key over if they can get into Orryn's house and bring back something useful for the guild. Astraea still not believing him goes on a rant about how nothing was hypothetically burnt anywhere and Faen never seeing her in such a state approaches and asks her what happened when she and Andre were away.
"Nothing hypothetically happened, no hypothetical barn was burnt." She replies.
"Was it an orphanage." Twig pipes in.
"There was no hypothetical burning of any barn which may or may not have hypothetically spread and burnt the rest of a village which I may or may not be able to confirm if an orphanage was hypothetically burnt. And because of this hypothetical fire we may or may not have been kicked out of said hypothetical village." Faen looking bewildered turns to Andre who is smirking to himself and Samedi stares with bemusement at this elf who seems to be having a break down. Twig wanders off to have a go at one of the gambling tables and loses a little while Astraea recovers and reluctantly agrees to see what they can get out of Orryn's house. With everyone except Twig returning to the tavern they see the festivities for Crinklemas beginning with reindeer running through the streets and people decorating their houses and market stalls selling their wares. Astraea calls her sister through the dagger and asks if she can get them into Orryn's house or at least knows a way in and is told that she isn't sure but does know of polymorph spells and dimension doors as security outside the house.
Twig observing Orryn's house
Meanwhile Twig manages to find the street Orryn lives on and sees everyone from the neighbouring houses out on the streets enjoying the festive time of year.Mingling as not to give himself away he sees the house next door is open and is welcoming people in for a glass of wine which Twig takes advantage of to see if there is any way into Orryn's house.
Finding nothing but good cheer and Crinklemas spirit, he goes to the house on the other side and after seeing it looks vacant finds a window on the second floor he can slip through and starts looking around the house quietly. In the basement he finds a crack in the wall which upon closer inspection looks like a plastered over door so he begins to carefully chip away at the thin plaster. From upstairs hears a sound. Freezing in place he hears a couple enter sounding like they've had a good few drinks and listens as they head upstairs. Deciding to quietly continue with his work, after a little while he reveals the door.
Orryn's forcefield
Turning the door knob slowly he pulls it open and is suddenly flung across the room into a large pile of boxes smashing them into splinters. Getting himself up quickly he shakes his head to clear it and quickly piles boxes in front of the door as he hears noises from upstairs. He runs up the basement stairs hoping to reach the front door but trips and lands in front of the feet of a burly man.
"What the hell are you doing in here?!" The man asks gruffly."Please help me I've escaped from next door the wizard had imprisoned me." Twig quickly says.Seeing his bloody face they take pity on him and the man tells his wife to get some water but Twig refuses and tells them he is leaving and bolts for the door. The wife who was nervous of staying anyway refuses to stay and they both grab their cases quickly and run out of the door after Twig. As he merges again with the crowd outside, Twig sees the couple run from the house, clothing streaming from their suitcases, heading towards the docks. He notices Astraea and the others, he quickly writes a note and walks up to Astraea forcing it into her hand as he passes her and heads back into the house. Not wanting any attention the group walk to the back of the houses while Twig goes back to the basement and instead of waiting for the others opens the door again and just manages to avoid being thrown across the room, again. He wedges the door open carefully and cautiously looks inside but sees nothing except an empty clean basement. The others hear this boom as they approach the house reaching an iron gate which has rusted shut. Astraea messages Twig who is at first startled to hear her voice in his head but he does go to the back gate and using his alchemy jug produces acid to burn the hinges away. Faen who wanted to cast acid splash is disappointed while walking inside with the others he tries to scry on Orryn but only gets static on his connection.
Everyone makes their way down to the basement and Twig explains what happened to him.
While Astraea and Faen are discussing the best way to safely get through the house Twig starts rummaging through the boxes that were broken and finds a little clockwork dragon that was made by Halin many years ago.
Faen casts detect magic and feels a lot of magical traps throughout the house. Dispelling any magic nearby they all safely enter the basement with Twig needing a bit of persuasion that it is actually safe now.
Orryn's Kitchen
As they leave the basement they find themselves near a kitchen where they can see lots of magical spells happening which help Orryn with the housework. Dishes are washing themselves in the sink and clothes are storing themselves after being cleaned and dried, Astraea looks impressed at this and they start methodically going through the house searching for anything useful. Finding only two doors that are locked one on the first floor and one on the second Twig deftly picks the first lock and Andre cautiously opens the door onto a plush bedroom.
While the others search for anything that could help, Twig getting a little bored decides to jump on Orryn's bed which suddenly collapses and flings him across the room, he grabs onto the wallpaper and pulls a piece off the wall as he falls to the floor, pocketing the scrap of paper he walks out of the room while the others just stare at him wide mouthed. Heading upstairs to the other locked room Twig again picks the lock and Andre opens it but as he goes to step through, a spell hits him and he shrinks by a foot. Faen sensing that the magic has gone enters the room with the others following quickly. Looking around they see they are in a study very much like the lushly decorated office Orryn has in the university.
Searching through his desk Astraea finds pictures of her, Andre, Rashal and several reports about the events at Waterdeep searching further they find a statue of the water queen Beira. Picking up the statue there is a flash of light and Faen senses a lot of magic coming from it, Cuivie tells him that he feels that the magic coming from it is similar to a dimension door spell.
Beira the Water Queen
Twig goes around the study taking some of the books and anything that takes his fancy throwing them in his bag of holding, opening the door of the study to search for any hidden panels in the walls or ceiling he finds himself looking down a long metal corridor."Hey guys you better look at this." He says.
Everyone comes over and they see at the end of the corridor is a stone obelisk with elvish writing on it is talking about a spell protecting and stopping evil from entering and leaving. Walking down the corridor the door closes before Rourke can leave the study and he is left frantically trying to find a way out of it.
The others continue into the large room and see four openings containing an inky blackness which seems to be held back by some kind of magic field. Twig climbs onto the obelisk and Faen tells him that he is floating above it, looking down Twig sees that he must be on an invisible part of the obelisk and feeling around he notices a hand shaped indentation in the surface.
Astraea recommends he gets off the obelisk and she casts her Mage hand putting it where Twig tells her he felt the indentation.
Suddenly a beam of light shoots out of the top of the obelisk.
"I'm glad I got off that now." Says Twig with a gulp.
The four openings suddenly release the blackness and it flows into the room up to knee height. Astraea feels a calling from one of the rooms and looking in she sees a room full of treasure chests and gold coins.
The treasure room
The others look in the other rooms but can't see much through the blackness still swirling inside. Casting mage hand Astraea sees that the coins are real so Andre enters the room and touches one of the chests, trying to pull his hand away he realises that he can't and a tentacle comes out from it and smacks him across the face revealing fangs and a huge tongue inside. As this happens the others hear noises from all around them approaching fast.
From the other doors groups of Nothics start surrounding Andre and the mimics as well as the others who are still in the main room. Valanthe tries casting blight on the closest group of nothics withering some of them away as they slash at Astraea.
Hanurak who is still strapped to Astraea's chest starts wiggling with a little squeak as he releases his battle cry and leaps at the nearest nothic tearing its throat out and proceeds to kill another three nothics. Astraea feeling empowered kills another five nothics with a chain lightning strike.Hanurak Attacks
In the treasure room another group go after Andre but still being stuck to the mimic he is not able to defend himself properly they knock him unconscious. Twig sneak attacks back killing more of them while Faen throws a fireball into the mix protecting Valanthe from attack. After the failure of blight Valanthe tries earth tremor taking out more while the nothics go after Astraea again taking from her mind the secret that she has thought many times about joining her sister, Elanil. While she is recovering Faen is mobbed by more nothics while Hanurak continues to bite at their ankles.
With fury building Astraea casts immolation killing 15 more nothics. Andre who is still unconscious on the floor of the mimic room is swarmed by the nothics and before anyone can get to him he is killed. Seeing their friend murdered the others rally together and furiously start fighting even harder, Twig attacks killing more nothics, while Faen shoots a fireball into the mimic room hitting both the mimics and nothics while but as a consequence he turns Andre's body to ash.
Hanurak grabs his gear from Faen while Astraea hastes both Hanurak and Twig but a nothic slashes at Twig and he is knocked out again, while Faen casts chromatic orb taking out a few more nothics but again he is mobbed and falls. Valanthe continues casting her healing magic on the group. Hanurak starts swinging his sword damaging anything close by to him while Astraea casts storm sphere. Seeing the tide is turning in the favour of the heroes the last two groups of nothics turn and flee. Astraea runs into the chest room and kneels at the ashes of Andre. Saying a small prayer she finds a small box and collects the ashes the best she can storing them safely in her bag.
She looks around at the others while Twig collects Andre's belongings and putting them in his bag of holding. Everyone looks dejected at this point but they rally together and know that Andre would want them to continue. Moving through the chest room they enter a similar looking room to the one they were just in but the floor is covered in ash. Suddenly flames appear from the walls and still battle weary and reeling from the death of Andre they are too slow to dodge and get hit.
Managing to get to the door they see a staircase leading down with an inscription above the entrance saying "Embrace the dark for those who do may embrace the light." They go down the stairs and it seems to keep going on forever, after several hours Astraea stops thinks about the inscription they read and tells everyone to close their eyes as they walk. Doing this they soon realise they aren't on stairs anymore and opening their eyes they see a large cavernous room filled with treasure and statues.
Astraea and Hanurak suggest they find a small area that they can camp to get some nourishment and rest after their battle. They see a clear space in the corner so set up a small camp and manage to have a short rest but they are all still clearly shaken by the last encounter. Twig looking around glances at the stairs they arrived from and notices a light approaching. As he tells the others, they all hear the sound of cackling approaching.......
Report Date
08 Dec 2018
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