Session 81 - They CAN Do A Stealthy Heist After All!
In-game timeline: UNKNOWN (10th day in the Shadowfell)
Our "Heroes" attempt at stealth only gets them so far. Sanada's hunting around the cells for something interesting triggers the inevitable - she makes some noise and attracts attention from the creatures in the lower room. Luckily Solveig hears them coming, and Sanada is aware that she made a bit of a din.
Sanada shadow-steps back to the others and tries her best to hide behind a statue. The others all do their best to hide too, rather than try to confront the alerted guards. This seems like a good plan and they manage to avoid the scout who checks out the noise that Sanada made, finds nothing, and returns.
With that immediate danger over, Solveig checks out the large, circular room nearby. It is empty other than some statues around the edge and some pillars surrounding a central hole. Solveig carefully edges around the wall before realising that the floor is VERY slippery and only his quick reactions stop him from falling and sliding down towards the central hole. The druid quickly shuffles back to the others at the edge of the room.
After some discussion, the party decide to try a different route, and head around to where Sanada found the cells in the floor previously. Solveig, using the last of his Detect Magic spell, spots a magic dagger in one of the cells and fetches it out.
Alwaith heads up some stairs, stealthily, to check out what is in there. It seems to be some creatures similar to those they have seen before, preparing some food, presumably for eating. One is cutting up a large fish, another a big deer or similar. Alwaith heads back to the others before they spot him.
After more discussion amongst the "Heroes", they rule out (for now) just killing everything in their path, which is a surprise, and decide to continue with the stealth approach. Alwaith goes invisible and heads back up to the room above. He spots about 8 creatures in this room, and two exits - one into the large, round room and another that seems to descend under that round room.
Alwaith heads down the steps to find it leads to a pit under the hole above, with jagged stones designed to provide a very uncomfortable landing for anyone falling down the hole. There seems to be no other exit. Alwaith returns.
After a lot more discussion about how to defeat the creatures as quickly and quietly as possible, Alwaith finally reveals that he can make 3 of them invisible. A bit of a game-changer that one and they decide to continue with the stealthy approach.
They all manage to go invisible with a combination of their magics, and they all get across the food prep room. The creatures in there are alerted to *something* going on, but cannot see what, so they continue with their business, albeit on edge.
The group spot a safe way to get around the round room from this entrance, to some steps going up to another level - they follow these steps to another large room which has a couple of very large, caged, enclosures at one end, as well as a large, round indentation in the floor, below a large hole in the ceiling leading to perhaps another level.
Solveig and Alwaith, remaining invisible, head towards the enclosures to check them out. Solveig, despite being invisible, makes a complete pigs-ear of trying to be stealthy and causes a racket as he trips over his large feet. Faith and Sanada hide near the top of the stairs as they hear some of the creatures, alerted to the noise, coming up the stairs. Although Alwaith and Solveig are invisible, the creatures seem to sense roughly where they may be and start to head towards them. Sanada throws some shuriken at one of them, causing some damage and also distracting them from their original target.
Whilst Faith and Sanada tackle the two creatures as quickly and quietly as possible, the other two decide to take advantage of their continued invisibility and press on towards the enclosures. As the fight progresses behind them, they discover the enclosures do contain the two vessels as expected - labelled with Alpha and Omega, and with one containing a young Kraken and the other a baby black dragon. They need to act fast, as the battle may draw attention…
Meanwhile Faith and Sanada engage the two dark creatures. One grapples Sanada but she manages to shadow step away before it can do too much damage. This leaves Faith on his own, and he bears the brunt of some vicious attacks from one of the creatures. Faith responds by taking down the other creature, who was already damaged, but the creature with its arms around Faith starts to shout out, presumably for help. Sanada shadow steps back to help out Faith and attacks the creature, damaging it heavily but not managing to silence it as its cries get louder.
Meanwhile Alwaith makes a decision. He opens the door to the Kraken's cage and runs over to the creature's rock, still invisible and he believes he is still undetected.
Faith, grappled, is bitten by the creature who is now shouting out loud. Faith fails in his attack and remains grappled. Sanada casts silence around the creature to shut it up, and then shadow steps away, leaving Faith to his fate.
Alwaith, invisible, tries to inject the Kraken with the poison he has been carrying all this time. It has all come down to this. Once he attacks, the Kraken will see Alwaith and be able to attack him, so the warlock will get one decent attack in before it would become a struggle. Alwaith tries the 'hit and run' approach and attacks well with the syringe of poison, injecting the slow-poison into the Kraken. He then runs for the cage door and the Kraken's tentacle attack misses, allowing Alwaith to escape!
The small, black creature grabbing Faith lashes out at the cleric, but does minimal damage and allows Faith to try to escape the grapple, though the dwarf fails and remains restrained. Sanada, standing behind the choking creature, wraps her kusari-gama around its neck and kills it, still in the silence of the spell.
With the poison administered to the Kraken, and the alerted creatures taken care of, our "Heroes" have a short time to plan their escape. They are keen to get out quickly and without being detected again. They go down the stairs and plan to get across the slippery, round room rather than attempt to go through the 'kitchen' again. Alwaith flies across the room, carrying Solveig with him. Faith flies himself over the room, but Sanada needs to try to shadow-step across the room and risks slipping down the hole.
Unsurprisingly, the exhausted Sanada fails to remain on her feet and does indeed fall down the hole. Luckily her monk abilities drastically reduces any damage she may take from the fall. But she still needs to try to get out. After failing to grab a rope that had been dangled over the edge of the hole by the others standing outside the room, the monk decides to try to shadow step out of the pit via the kitchen. Remarkably, the creatures are busy finalising the 'meal' and fail to spot or hear her.
And so the party manage to escape from the cave system. They see the Black Sun camp preparing to head in to the cavern as dawn breaks. They give the camp a wide berth and manage to use the last of their energy to scramble back to the top of the ridge, where they thankfully spot the familiar (to Alwaith) large wings of Agratheron who has come to see if he can help. They manage to hitch a ride back to Evernight with the dragon, who refuses to listen as Solveig attempts to tell him all about what they have done, as the wise dragon fears that the knowledge may change the future.
Upon return to Evernight, the party are able to rest, recharge the staff, and Solveig is able to level up for free due to a very useful book left by Graysing ("Beasts of the Shadowfell") after he received a very polite, and very grovelling, note from Solveig sent a few days previously. Alwaith is also granted another level, for free, from the Raven Queen, who is aware of their escapades, though perhaps not aware (or wanting to be aware) of the details. As our Heroes use the staff to escape the Shadowfell, and to escape this time, they all receive *inspiration* for their successful efforts!
The group arrive back in the present, and in the material plane, though exactly when and where they arrive is still to be determined….