Session 46 - It Seemed Like A Good Joke At The Time
In-game timeline: Nightal 10 - Nightal 13 DR1489
With the Players having been away from this campaign for six months, our "Heroes" were having a slightly difficult time remembering what they had done, and why there were here. They also discovered a large sack labelled "Party Loot" that had gone unnoticed for a while and decided to hand around the various scrolls, potions and items that had been acquired in times past and languished long-forgotten. Some items were well-past their printed Best Before dates, but they handed them out anyway. The group also did a bit of shopping, stocking up on essential items - primarily healing potions - and some warm weather gear, as they had a suspicion they would be soon heading for colder climes.
Alwaith and Dogan caught up with Ahvain, the high-elvish member of the Council of the Veil they had been in contact with before, and brought him up to date on what they had found out while in Moonfall. Ahvain was very appreciative of the work the group was doing, and hinted that they may in future be asked to help out further on a specific task that the Council was preparing, should the group be interested. Drogan, until now just silently supping his tankard of ale, suddenly perked up and immediately asked what the payment for such a dangerous task would be. Ahvain, somewhat contemptuously, suggested that other adventuring groups may be more generous with their time towards saving the world from an ultimate evil, but didn't rule out a potential reward. But that conversation is one for another day.
Alwaith showed the recovered Necromical to Ahvain. The device oozed with necromantic power. Ahvain offered to take it off of Alwaith's hands, to be sent to a safer storage, but after some consideration Alwaith decided to keep it for now.
The group then headed to a discreet, but reputable and experienced tattoo artist in town to obtain high quality cover-ups for their Radiant Sisters tattoos. The high cost of such a cover up was almost baulked at, but cover-ups that merge a customer-selected new design in with the existing ink come at a high price. So too, it seems, does the discretion at not mentioning the fact that four people bearing Radiant Sisters tattoos are wandering around Neverwinter. Generously Drogan and Devon between them covered the cost for all four to have their tattoos professionally covered - Alwaith somewhat surprisingly opting for a necromantic design which offset his now-somewhat faded pink unicorn on his breastplate armour.
There followed some discussion as to the next steps - many in the party are keen to progress quickly to tackle the next in the chain of the Order of the Black Sun. Dwarrowsteel is keen to visit home after his ordeal of being dead for over a week. The group believed, based on hints in Lispeth's note, that Dwarrow's home of Settlestone may be relatively close to the next challenge with the denizens of Black Sun, so they may be able to do both. With this agreed, they decide to use the stone circle just outside Oakhurst to travel swiftly - in the hope that the Acto-Heim circle referenced in Lispeth's note will actually turn out to be where they think it is, in the Dwarven enclaves in the north.
Pausing briefly in Oakhurst town, Dwarrow chats with Corkie, and hands her some of the tangleweed he had from Moonfall, explaining that it has the effect of slowing the onset of, and reducing the effects of, lycanthropy, should she ever need such a thing. Corkie was grateful for the gift, both in case it would ever be needed, and for the educational aspects of this new herb.
The group then visit the smith, Rurik, who greets Drogan heartily. Drogan asks Rurik if he could properly identify his bracers for him. Drogan is convinced they are excellent bracers of defence, but he can't understand why he still keeps getting hit so much by even wildly placed swipes with swords. Rurik takes a while to look over the pieces of armour and reports back that they are indeed magical, but although he is unable to detect the true nature of the magic, they are NOT actually bracers of defence. Drogan is convinced Rurik is mistaken and start to doubt the smith's skills. Dwarrow, sensing that some 'bad magic' may be at work here, casts Remove Curse upon Drogan and the barbarian suddenly realises that it was in fact HE that was mistaken, and that he had been deceived into thinking that these were bracers of defence all this time!
The dwarf starts to rage. He looks around for that bastard halfling who had given him the bracers in the first place. Devon is backing slowly away towards the door when Drogan smacks him round the head with a heavy fist! Devon's protestations that it was only a joke and that surely he could see the funny side, were ignored as Drogan continued to beat the roguish hobbit. Not wanting to retaliate, but also not wanting to be killed for what was, after all, a simple prank, Devon cast Charm Person on Drogan and managed to convince the dwarf to stop hitting him!
They retire to the pub and leave Drogan to drink his memories away, still charmed, while Devon crafts a grovelling letter explaining that it was intended as a bit of light-hearted camaraderie between friends, and that he meant no harm, but that perhaps, with hindsight, it had gone a little far. Drogan, when his charmed state wore off, read the letter, and with a final hefty punch to the nose on Devon, called the matter settled and admitted that he did, after all, see the funny side!
The party set off early the following morning and used the stone circle to transport themselves to Acto-Heim, which they find out is indeed quite close to Dwarrow's home town of Settlestone. The arrival "circle" is more of a stone altar than a circle, set high up on a mountainside. It appears that small tokens or offerings have been left on the altar, but the place is deserted. A very weather-beaten, large statue of a dwarf stands nearby the altar though it is missing a hand and much of a leg. When Dwarrow approaches it to investigate what, or who, it could represent, it surprisingly starts to move, and attacks the cleric!
A slow but powerful body-slam from the stone statue is quite easily dodged by Dwarrow, who retaliates by stepping away (avoiding the opportunity attack that came his way) and raises Traxiil to the heavens to bring down lightning from the almost clear sky and strike the stone enemy, who is too slow to dodge effectively. The statue reels from the attack, but the party have not finished with it yet. Devon steps in and scores a critical hit on the statue, smashing it for significant damage before the halfling does his usual tactic of disengaging and moving away. This allows Drogan to step up, raging and attacking recklessly, to show the halfling that he isn’t the only one who can score a critical hit and uses Cleave to chip significant amounts of stone from the statue with his powerful hit, before finishing off the move with another successful attack, bringing the statue crashing down before it got a chance to attack again. It was all over in a flash.
Slightly concerned that they had inadvertently desecrated a dwarven sacred site, Drogan and Dwarrow try to right the even more beaten up, but now unmoving, statue. As Drogan looked more closely at the facial features on the statue, he could see it was a strange looking dwarf - the nose was slightly more prominent, and the hair a little too far back for a normal dwarf. He was relatively sure this was no statue of a dwarf, but potentially was a statue of a dark dwarf - a duergar! Disgusted, Drogan dropped the statue and they left it where it fell.
They head towards Settlestone, arriving around dusk. Dwarrow led the group to his parent's home, where they were all warmly welcomed with drink, a good meal and hospitable chat. Dwarrow left early to visit his fiancee, Silvermoon, but the others spent the evening in the company of Fiorlin and Bethian Hearthstrain, recounting tales of Dwarrow's heroic deeds and brave exploits, whilst hearing a little about the town of Settlestone, and about the Hearthstrain family. They bed down for the night, keen to catch up with Dwarrow in the morning and see what they can find out in this most Dwarven of towns…