Session Summery

After reuniting with Drache at the Silkhorn docks, The Party discusses their priorities and decides to help free Emmeline. They head to Steve Ulan for answers about Azel † and find the town drastically changed, with a cult praising The Party for their deeds. Steve explains he killed Azel † and locked his followers in a room for "exposure therapy." Concerned about Steve's methods and the spread of this new cult, The Party praises him but emphasizes the need for humane practices. They then set off to investigate Keith Horrigan's disappearance.

The Party encounters undead squirrels with a staff of necromancy on their way to Blackwall. After resolving the issue, they reach the city and investigate Horrigan's theft, discovering secret tunnels beneath the palace. They find Horrigan wounded, who claims Dwarves stole everything. Investigating further, they find evidence of dwarven tunnels leading to the beach. They plan to learn more about the Dwarves, exonerate Horrigan, and commission a quest to recover the stolen riches. Finally, they consult Terence Witherfeather about magical mind protection, learning of the Crown of True Sight, which they aim to pursue.

Full Session Notes

After the events of the last session, The Party are approaching the docks of Silkhorn to find Wurinn Fuuldrusch waiting for them, somehow making it there before them. Mordecai Reverence gives him a big hugs and starts to catch him up on what happened in Caalona. while this is happening, Kal The Korrigan † decides to write down their priorities on a list called "What good in the world can we do" with the top of the list being to help drache break out Emmeline.

Worried about the state of the town and Azel †, they decide to go find Steve Ulan. Chenris Tallfellow ‡ suggests that asking Captain Bridges might be the best bet since they were meant to be working quite closely together. As they make their way through the town they find that the majority of people are wearing brown robes and hoods and that people seem very happy. upon closure look, Korrigan finds out that the people under the hoods are surprisingly not just humans, but many other races. Chenris also tries to get a closer look and (due to a bad roll) accidentally trips and pulls down someones trousers. he apologises profusely and returns the group muttering, "Cant do anything right it seems".

Upon finding Bridges they find him in high sprites. After asking for Steve's whereabouts, he points them to Azel †'s church saying that "some exciting things have happened while you're gone." Now slightly worried they rush over to the church to find that they can hear a lot of singing come form inside. there are also 2 large guards wearing white armour outside. After deciding it was best to just approach them, The Party is asked what they want to do. Mordecai replied "We want to join in…?". The guards laugh and let them straight in. Entering the church, they're greeted a radically expanded church from before, now with a large space for a choir with singing and dancing being led by Steve who is wearing a brown robe decorated with Gold.

The songs being sung are actually songs singing The Party for all their good deeds, even deifying them. Mordecai and Chenris are quite troubled by this after the events of Caalona, leading to Mordecai taking a quick breather to think through everything. They decide to waiting in a side room until the songs are over so they can speak to Steve in private. Eventually Steve joins them and is shocked to see them. The Party inquire on what happened in the town and replied with "you said to sort out the cult and i did".

According to Steve Azel † was being very racist, like normal, so Steve just killed him and locked the rest of his, now angry, followers in a room with members of other races because steve heard a theory where you can use exposure therapy to help people understand. so he locked them in a room with a goblin, Dragonborn, elf and Tiefling. he called "exposure therapy". The Party, now concerned about the morals of the situation ask what are all the people doing here and they apart of a new cult now. Steve replies saying probably, no one is here by force in fact a lot f people are going out to other nation to spread the good word. Mordecai looks very afraid at the idea that people are going to Uvam Dynasty. HIs fears realised when Steve explained that no one had returned for Minatota and Yokotori.

Very concerned with morality of the situation, Mordecai and Drache try to explain that 1. you should just kill people when they do bad things, 2. how do make sue he other races are safe in the locked rooms. 3. are people being treated fairly. 4. The Party are not Gods and they make mistakes which people wont take kindly to. Chenris ends up commenting that the method clearly works it just needs to be tweaked to be more…humane. None the less they congratulate Steve on doing a good job with chenris saying they will come back and find away to regulate this operation and maybe invest money into it. He also ask how Keith Horrigan is doing and Steve says he had disappeared about a week ago (The Party had been gone for 2-3 weeks in Ehobel). as The Party leave to investigate he wishes them good luck.

They head straight to Blackwall but on the way, Chenris hears something on the wind. when they listen in more closely they can hear someone is saying "Brainsssss". they also notice there aren't a lot of birds around. There is, however, a dead bird on the floor that had been ripped apart with its brain missing. Drache uses his Detect Good & Evil Feature and finds there are 4 undead beings in the tree above them looking down. They're all Squirrels with one of them having a staff of Necromancy. Korrigan decides to cast Speak With Animals to ask what they're doing. the one with the staff says he is going to use his massive army to rob people of their riches. Hearing this, Mordecai brings out a random broach and tells them that this the most expensive broach in the world.

One of the thralls comes down to get the broach, however, Korrigan wont hand it over until he finds out where they got the magic staff from. The thrall gets annoyed and attacks Korrigan. finally they find out that the main squirrel found a weird rock in the tree and managed to make the staff. Korrigan restrains all of the squirrels with the entangle spell and chenris grabs that squirrel with mage hand and takes the staff away. with the situation resolved, they carry on to Blackwall and managed to make the journey in about a day.

once they enter the city, they decide to go to Ye Old Tavern Down the Road to get some more information on what to expect with the Keith Horrigan situation. Allegedly he had stolen everything from the palace, even the furniture. The are no witnesses since most of the guards weren't on duty, keith had hired his own guards for some reason. with nothing else left to do they go to the Adventurers Guild to get some sleep. In the morning, they make their way to the palace to find that there is a lot more of a verity of races walking the streets of the city, a testament to the work Steve had been doing.

Chenris suggests setting a bounty to get the riches and Horrigan back and give people a portion of the money stolen, they all agree this is a good. they go to the palace to try and gain some kind of idea the worth that was stolen. The palace had been ransacked even the Gold had been stripped from the chairs in the councillors room. Chenris goes to the vault and talks to the bookkeeper and asks for the worth of what was stolen:

• The vault had about 50k Gold
• 70-80k Gold worth of furniture

Chenris realises that there must of been someway to get into the vault from another area of the palace otherwise they would have been spotted. He enters the vault and discovers a secret entrance that had been hastily covered up. Behind some loose brick, they found narrow opening that only Mordecai could get through and enters a dark damp corridor. There is no light, so he makes small fire with some wood scattered on the floor. The only thing in the area is couple of Gold coins, some oil lamps and some mining equipment in a small underground room further down the corridor.

Chenris gives him a torch and surmises that tunnel should lead to the other side of the library. Mordecai explores further and finds a spilt with more corridors and a ladder on the other. he goes down the ladder and finds a room with a few crudely made beds and living quarters Mordecai taps on the floorboards above to try and help The Party in their efforts to find him. the rest of them have fanned out across the library trying to find where they are but none can hear Mordecai. Mordecai finds a lose brick and behind it is the back of a canvas. He realises that he is behind the portrait of Caden SteelBreaker †'s room The Party manage to hear him after shouting they and join them in the office and work on getting him out.

After some investigating they find a small hidden button on the desk which opens a hatch that allows them to open the door wide enough for Mordecai to get through. the group splits up with Korrigan, Mordecai and Obeus Yelris exploring the tunnels further and Chenris and Drache going back to the library to research the tunnels. The tunnel exploration team manage to and open a door to the councillors rooms and shout for the others to join them.

Chenris finds a book in the forbidden section about the castle and how it built.The book explains that Blackwall is apart of the old Dwarven Empire and the black castle was built by Dwarves. When they were under siege by humans, they created a escape tunnels throughout the castle so they could survive and escape if needed. It was sealed when the humans took over. The book also contains a map of the tunnels, interestingly there is no original way to get to what is now known as the vault but there is a way to the beach. It is at this moment when they hear the other group calling them and they rush over to explain their discoveries.

Following the map, they adventure further into the tunnels and start and hear a whimpering. chenris and drache ready for a fight. As they approach they find a large pool of blood on the floor. in that pools of they find Keith horrigan with two daggers in his chest. thye rush over and heal him and question him on what happened. He says he was just trying to do the right thing. explaining further he reveals that Dwarves stole everything and ran off. Mordecai notes that there were no signs of a struggle. Once he was all healed he hides in the council cambers and The Party carried on through the tunnel to find the beach with some small evidence that people had been there recently but no concrete evidence of anything

Chenris says they should go to the Library and learn about the Dwarves in the library and then send ofd the quest to recover the cities riches. While they're at it, they should also exonerate Horrigan. Going to the library, Korrigan tries to find any information on Itone Isles but cant find anything. Chenris, having better luck finds a book detailing the history of the Dwarves called The Chronicles of the Grayfall Empire - A Dwarven Legacy. Before they leave Chenris wants to go to the deans office to try and learn anything abouit Enel Cubus †'s whereabouts. He finds a lot of notes on what he was researching but most of seems to be the scribbles of a madman, however one of the notes says "The Auditors" there's another that mentions the locations Itone Isles and Ember Peak. Finally, there are a few mentions of a place called "Eldertide" a place on another continent to the one where the campaign is set. Korrigan searches the desk and finds a faded map that shows how to get to Itone

Next they go see Terence Witherfeather, they find him smoking a pipe. Korrigan wants to know if there's anything they can to stop having their minds messed around with magic. Terrence tells a story of how ghost literally fucked his head. The wizard allegedly wore a hat to protect himself, He struggles to remember. he finally remembers that he wore the Crown of Trues Sight, lets the wearer see the world as it actually is, and not how people want you to see things. Terrance's prototype broke but the real artefact is out there, although he doesn't know where it is. it should be with a creature that likes to see what everything should be. Chenris had heard of the crown before, it was made by the goblins and it admits an aura that gives this ability to those around. He suspects either Jub or Chatiz might be the owner of the crown.

As they leave for The Tulan Fort they stop at the Adventurers Guild to commission a quest to start the process of returning their riches.