Session 88 - City In Turmoil? I'm Off To Bed

Wednesday 18th June 2025

In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 9

Faced with another large spider, the like of which our "Heroes" have not defeated since they were level 2, Alwaith took the best option he felt he could - he closed the door. The DM proceeded to rip up that encounter prep.

With Sanada back at the Veil HQ, the three remaining "Heroes", sans-allies or spiritual helpers - aka "cannon-fodder" - took the long way round to arrive at Thalios' room a little later than they had hoped, but without any spider-based encounters.

There was some discussion about how to open the door, revealing more intra-group discord along the lines of "We only brought you so you could bash the door open!", and "what use are you anyway?", which is usually only reserved for Sanada, but was a fair reflection of the tiredness and irritability of the group who had been not only awake for 18 odd hours, but also fighting, stealthing, dying and swimming in shit during that time. They all took a level of exhaustion commensurate with their mood.

In the end Solveig turned Faith into a Grumpy Ape, and the Grumpy Ape proceeded to bash the door down - achieved with relative ease, if also with a lot of noise. The Ape then sat in the middle of the now exposed room, on a nice rug, and awaited further instruction from the discordant group.

The room was empty, and looked like it had been abandoned in a bit of a hurry. Solveig tore off the sewer plans from the walls, hoping it would help others more intelligent than he to work out the full details of the poisoning plan. Alwaith rooted through the half-open desk, frustrated that any treasure or useful information seemed to have already been cleared out, possibly due to their less-than-stealthy incursion into the sewers. In annoyance, he yanked out the desk drawer with no thought to caution and managed to trigger a trap, causing him to contract the sewer plague, much as Solveig and Sanada had done previously that night. And, since the drawer was empty, he gained nothing for his trouble.

He did however find a very singed note by an extinguished candle - Thalios' attempt at destroying the note had seemingly only partially worked. The note was hard to decipher, but revealed some clues as to why this cult cell had cleared out of members recently, as well as some form of "rituals" that were to take place in two locations at the same time - Secomber and Easting. At the mention of Easting, Faith, still in Grumpy Ape form, grunted in surprise and concern. Alwaith and Solveig, despite uncharacteristically remembering that Easting was Faith's place of birth, ignored his concern and continued to read out the fact that many locals from these two places were to be sacrificed. They decided that Secomber was the place to aim for. This group's sense of solidarity is boundless.

With an obvious exit from this room up a narrow wooden staircase, Faith needed to return to his normal form to get out, and they all emerged in a dark and dingy book shop, which was empty and quiet - unsurprising as it was after 1am at this time. They eventually made their way back to the Veil's HQ to rejoin Sanada.

Sanada had been busy since her earlier return. Grizzelda's early warning to Cortan was prescient and useful, and Cortan had immediately roused as many members of his Veil as he could at such a late hour. With limited information, he could do little more until Sanada arrived to give him a lot more information about the threat to the city's water supply, and Cortan set about trying to persuade the city Watch and the Lord Protector of the very real threat. Unfortunately this was slow work - what with the Veil being (somewhat deliberately) an under-resourced, minor, and relatively powerless, group within the town, and with it being the very early hours of the morning.

With the information brought by Solveig, Cortan and his group were able to pinpoint the 6 water sources in the city that would likely be affected - wells and water pumps - and estimated the relative priority of these based on when the area was likely to rouse from sleep and start to arrive at these sources to collect water.

Meanwhile Alwaith, Solveig and Faith went to sleep.

Sanada, somewhat incredulous at her companions' lack of concern for the city, continued to help out where she could. She went to one of the high-risk water sources, arriving just as the market traders were setting up their stalls, and used a chicken to demonstrate that the water supply was contaminated. This demonstration was effective - more so when the now infected and rabid chicken proceeded to peck at Sanada who, in her exhausted state was a little slower than usual, and she got infected from the purple poison from the chicken's vicious pecking. With little health left, Sanada dropped to the ground, though did manage to kill the chicken first. Luckily Sanada had brought with her an aide from the Council, who was able to stabilise Sanada and get her back to the Veil's HQ, whereupon Sanada needed to rest from all her efforts.

After waking from a good night's sleep, the other three were refreshed. Faith cured Alwaith of his sewer plague and they wondered why no one had appeared with a hearty breakfast and chests' worth of offerings for the mighty Saviours Of The City. It took them a little while to realise that the city was in turmoil. Whilst the information they provided had managed to somewhat contain the outbreak, the lack of warning, and the limited resources at the Veil's disposal had meant that many in the city had contracted the poison from the water supply, and the infectious nature of the poison meant that the infection had spread around the city. There was panic, looting and major disruption. No one was available to make their fluffy pancakes and fresh coffee.

Faith, at least, decided to help out. All of the clerics of the city were helping to cure the sick, and to try to purify the water and this dwarven cleric aided where he could. Sanada was knackered, still recovering from spending most of the early hours helping, and dodging chicken beaks. Solveig meanwhile wondered where their reward was, and Alwaith once again bemoaned the ingratitude of people.

When Sanada had managed to rest enough to allow her to be almost, but not completely, back to normal, albeit still very depressed, they decided to get out of the city quickly - especially as there seemed to be a threat of lockdown now the city management was awake and starting to realise the extent of the problem. The group got some horses and headed out east. Neverwinter would likely be under some disruption for many days, if not weeks.

Faith managed to persuade Solveig and Alwaith, with some difficulty, that they should help Sanada rid herself of her curse of depression by visiting the Dragon Shrine to the north east. Alwaith and Solveig were wondering if the group should rid itself of Sanada. Sanada, having witnessed Solveig's method of "ridding himself of people" was a little concerned and wondered if she wanted to be part of this group anyway. A night's rest seemed not to have increased the unity within the party.

In the end they agreed to head to the Dragon Shrine, taking the shortest path through the Neverwinter Wood. Solveig and Alwaith, refreshed, did a fine job of navigating through the dense wood and they made good time - coming upon the ruined remains of a village which seemed a good place to camp for the night.

It was not completely uninhabited though. A gnome of Irish/Scouse descendancy was receiving offerings to a local Banshee named Agatha. Solveig, flushed with cash and showing the standard rich-person's contempt for the poor, flashed his cash and gave the gnome 100gp for the privilege of visiting the Banshee. After being so blazé about his gold, he then got very offended when he realised the gnome was running off with the money and used his many abilities to chase down the gnome to get his money back. Everyone was surprised, not least Solveig's companions, when he let the gnome go, alive, after retrieving his money. Upon his return to the group Solveig did seem to discover the Banshee's hut in the woods and returned to form when he suggested they just kill her - seemingly forgetting that only 10 minutes earlier he had been willing to pay 100gp just to visit her. Solveig's actions are definitely worrying to his "friends".

They decide to leave the Banshee be, and camp a little way out of the village to avoid further trouble. In the safety of Faith's Tiny Hut, they rest for the night…