Session 8 - The wizard always has a plan
General Summary
We return to the group after plenty of celebrations at the death of the oni and a good nights rest. Faen in his morning meditations receives a vision from Cuivie, in this vision he sees a man approaching who coalesces into a fuzzy humanoid shape beckoning Faen to follow, the wizard hears Cuivie's voice all around him.
Showing him a memory from his life Cuivie introduces Faen to Gwyn Sunsword the founder of The Knights of Galthak and the battle of Cuivie's Dread at Springfair where he and Cuivie defeated the Runemen of the Iskelian Empire during the vision Cuivie shows The Orb of Galthak in use mowing down Runemen and reversing the curse on them but he admits it comes at a terrible price.
To use The Orb of Galthak Cuivie explains that his team needed living souls, they calculated that one soul would stop around 10 rune men but the The Iskelian Empire had hundreds of thousands so his country the Galthak Republic first used condemned prisoners to power the orb then volunteers as they needed more until finally, the unthinkable. The Republic held a lottery of its populace to gather the last souls they needed. Tens of thousands of people were sacrificed to stop the terrible threat.
After the battle Cuivie explains that the Galthakian government wanted the Orb destroyed in order to hide their shame for what they had to do. Gwyn Sunsword knew that the orb was too powerful for one person to possess so he split it into 4 segments giving one to each of his four lieutenants one of which the group found in the tomb of Gheelan Orangehand in Breah's Catacombs.
Cuivie tells Faen that he can teach him how to power the orb again once he has found all the segments but only if Faen asks him to as he understands it is a terrible burden to bear.
Faen seeing Cuivie's form starting to shimmer quickly asks if he knows what happened to the lieutenants or where the orbs are now?
Cuivie answers that he doesn't, that Gwyn didn't entrust him with this information all I know is his four lieutenants were called Gheelan Orangehand who's descendants later created The Church of Sunlight after defeating Gorlath the Black Dread on the Hanus Plains , Breten of the Wastes, Taliesin and Theodar Oakfury
Faen thanks Cuivie for the information and tells Cuivie to go rest before the long journey ahead. As a parting gift Cuivie magically summons new pages into Faen's spellbook that show pictures of an arcane ritual with the Amulet of Wotash at its centre.
With that Faen awakens and looking around the large room he occupies with his friends he can see Artorias praising the sun, lazing on a bed of straw gulping water and belching loudly is Andre with Hanurak sitting quietly and polishing his new bracers, Astraea is sitting quietly looking through the letters for any clues. "Where is Valanthe?" asks Faen as starts to rise when he suddenly notices a weighty pair of breasts on his normally flat chest.
He looks at the others and groans slightly at the inconvenience.
"We do not know where Valanthe has gone but I suggest we go above ground and see if we can find her as she does have the Amulet of Wotash." Says Hanurak.
"Are you ok Faen you look troubled." asks Astraea and Faen goes on to tell them of his vision. Hanurak becomes more determined to find Valanthe and retrieve the amulet as she could be danger. Saresh awakens and rises from her bed and seeing that everyone is fit enough to travel they decide to leave the catacombs and head back to the pirate and pipe. As they are leaving Andre stops in his tracks it is snowing lightly and a tight fear grips him but summoning all his dwarven resolve he manages to quash the it and continue forward.
As they exit three bluecoats round the corner and approach the group, producing a wanted poster of Astraea, Hanurak and Andre they ask the group to come with them for questioning. Faen notices one of the guards has runes so Hanurak takes him to one side and convinces him that he is working against the others for Orryn. The guards believe him and let them be on their way. Hanurak learns that Gimil-sin is responsible for their runes not Oryyn and they know nothing of The Orb of Galthak
The rest of the journey to the tavern is uneventful and as they enter, Eamonn is overwrought with worry for Saresh she waves him away telling him not to fuss and sits with Ninki lighting her pipe and visibly relaxing. Eamonn asks the others to sit at the bar where he hands them a coded letter that the Vult's agents recovered from a patrol at the docks. He says that he has learned the Misophist has plans for Breah but he doesn't know what they are. Faen asks him for some cloth puzzled by the request Eamonn hands some bandages to Faen who proceeds to bind his new assets.
"Much better" Faen mumbles as he sits back at the bar, Eamonn shakes his head and walks over to Astraea where he tells her that Valanthe came in to collects her belongings before saying that she was heading home.
Astraea approaches Ninki and Saresh and takes a seat "you are looking better my friend how are you feeling?" She asks Ninki.
"Much better thank you how goes things with you? the wizard is looking larger than I remember." She chuckles.
"A slight accident with a potion, but he will live," Astraea replies "could I ask you about the lieutenants of Gwyn Sunsword, do you have any idea where they are buried by any chance?"
" I am sorry I know of only the exploits of Gheelan who slew Golath the black dragon no less but of the others nothing there may be more information in the great library of the Church in " Replied Ninki mournfully.
"What of Colonel Sandmere?" Asks Astraea.
"A despicable man always meddling in church business. I believe he is from Eidover originally and was for a time a commander of the Kingsguard but fell out of favour with them I never found out why but there were always rumours of magic and dark rituals. As you might imagine he is of great interest to the The Church of Sunlight"
Suddenly a bright flash of light appears as from behind the stage door and Thorbrith Oakfury comes barging into the room like a big swinging dick, handing a cake in the shape of a head to Hanurak. "From Agnes she enjoyed your little joke after the shock wore off of course." He laughs heartily as he sits down among the group.
Pleasantries are exchanged and Artorias excuses himself to go to Garth's Glorious Goods for supplies and to rearm himself.
Faen and Astraea head to see Halin at the library where he tells them that the letter is a common cypher used by the bluecoats and he gives them a means to decipher it.
He goes on to say that Gheelan's tomb is in the catacombs of Breah so it becomes apparent that this is the segment they have found. He also says that Taliesin ended his days in Springfair at the The Sanctuary of Rempeche., Breten was instrumental in the founding of Eidover but could not tell idea where Theodar would have left a segment although he does suggest they read some history on Gwyn Sunsword once Valanthe has returned her book.
Back at the tavern the adventurers regroup and decode the note being told that Moonlight will tell them when the meeting is to be the group eventually place the letter under a beam of moonlight subsequently learning that there is to be a meeting tomorrow night during the Festival of Snow Astraea and Hanurak manage to get two bluecoat uniforms from Eamon and with Andre cured of his Chionophobia by Thorbrith the Faen and the others head to the docks.
Astraea uses her owl familiar to scout one end and it spots a halfling standing next to a dragon statue. Approaching the stranger he stares at Astraea eventually calling her mother. Hanurak and Astraea look at each other quizzically,
"What are you doing here this is supposed to be a solo mission." He barks at Astraea. Playing along she replies by asking him who sent him.
"You did Elanil I am to kill the governor."
After agreeing to escort the Halfling they decide to lead him down some alleys on the way to the governor's palace with Faen and Andre following from a distance but the assassin gets suspicious and isn't convinced when Astraea tries to intimidate him into submission. He attacks stabbing Astraea stabbing her abdomen as he does she can again hear the voices that she did with the Dagger of Draco.
A fight breaks out with Faen again falling unconscious after showing the assassin the dagger of Draco in an attempt to win him over. Hanurak does his best to catch the assassin climbing up and down roof tops and running from one end of the alley to the other, in a fit of rage he carves into the assassins stomach and cleaves into his clavicle but the assassin manages to escape with the Dagger of Draco.
Astraea and Hanurak give chase to the governors mansion with Faen being healed with another potion and Andre running back to the pirate and pipe where they ask for any help. With this Thorbrith grabbing his hammer and Ninki taking the Glave from a passed out Artorias the four of them head the mansion.
Approaching the mansion Astraea points out the assassin on the rooftops and running to the guards they tell them of the assassination attempt but are laughed at until they point out the window the assassin has entered. The alarms go off causing a vibration within the mansion they run inside the building with the two guards. Running up to the third floor one of the guards is shot in the head by the assassin who is currently trying to make it through the and as Hanurak takes a swing at the assassin he is stabbed by the Halfling's blade an aura of green flame surrounds Hanurak before jumping to Astraea knocking her unconscious.
The others arrive and with quick thinking Faen casts fly on Thorbrith who with much gusto flies up to the third floor throwing his hammer ahead of him it hits clean into the side of the halflings face before returning to his hand.
Ninki hurls part of the bannister as a makeshift javelin at the halfling which just misses and embeds it in the wall. While this is going on Faen runs over and heals Astraea. Both Astraea and Faen fire back with some powerful fire spells and as the assassin tries to run a past Thorbrith to escape through the window he is clothes lined and knocked unconscious by the dwarf with everyone shouting don't kill him Thorbrith laughs heartily restraining the assassin by putting one foot on the halfling's chest.
Astraea runs over and takes both daggers which Faen promptly takes them from her and keeping one for himself hands the other to Andre. As he puts the dagger in his robes they notice that there is a chip in the hilt matching Krug's description of the one uses to kill his wife. The guard that was knocked out by flying Thorbrith awakens and more guards start running into the building we leave the group in quite a pickle...
Rewards Granted
Cloak of displacement.
Oni's Glaive
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