Wednesday, February 15, 2023

#77 - Hit List

 From the prior session.  (Perra had rolled a successful knowledge check on a clue in the history that Merl has revealed from the Eye if Igurse.   The result of that roll was revealed at the beginning of this session.

Lore:  From the prior session on the history of the eye – “The 4th owner only held the item very briefly.  It was a kobold.  A cleric.  Likely a Tiamat worshipped.  This owner died violently.

AND

The 5th owner was a red dragon.  It held the item for a long time.  Maybe 300 years.”

 Perra draws a connection between this information and some history that he has learned.  Studying dragon-ology.  He knows that as demi-human civilization declined during the rise of the plaque, the Cult of Tiamat began to thrive in this part of the world.  It’s reign was brief, before it also succumbed to the plague.  There was a red dragon named “Skakoan” in this area who was the object of their worship.  The Dragon appears to have disappeared from history at that point.  No record of its death has been found.


    For this session
    The party set out for "The Kraken's Back", a tavern in the Ostwick neighborhood.  They knew from their scrying of Egilina in the prior session that a messenger was to deliver something to a man called Kairon at this location.   This is a high crime slum area.  They staked out the tavern for a long period of time.  Nothing interesting happened for several hours.

Nesnan Starkbit arrived, with a hobgoblin bodyguard.  Starkbit is a wealthy gnome.  Known to be the owner of a lot of property in Ostwick and a member of the city's guild council.  

The notice that the bartender give Starkbit instructions to go upstairs, and soon enough he returned carrying a parchment with an inscribed message.

The message was delivered on the roof top by the winged messenger the party had seen in their scry earlier.  

Two simultaneous events occurred.  

1) Mahlkeir confronted Starkbit, demanding to see the message.  Starkbit tried to run away.  Mahlkeir, John's character, and Chases character defeated the bodyguard and recovered the message.  Starkbit escaped.  (Note that John  and Chase were playing alternative character's in the session.)

2) Perra, Sam, and Tik caught up to departing messenger and captured him.

The message they recovered was a hit list, sent by Egilina to Starkbit.  "Kairon", they later learned, was Starkbit's code name in Pale Moon.

The message:

Dear Kairon,

I hope that this message finds you well. 

The time has come for us to make our presence known.  The best thing for us would be to have the head removed from the snake.  Actually 5 heads from 5 snakes to start.  I know that you will do the right thing.

I am not worried about Mr. S.  He is concerned with matters outside of the city these days, and he is rarely even here.  We should observe his shop, and make every attempt to lay low when he is present.  He has a gang of quite powerful followers.  But they are often just a distracted as him.  We need to be careful of them.  If need be, I will deal with them myself.

Let me know what you plan to do, and how I might provide more help..  It will be key that these events occur in quick succession, within a matter of days or weeks.  The creature that delivered this message is called Moroi.  He has a particular set of skills.  He is at your disposal, but I expect you will have to recruit others to aid in this mission.  Having visited my court, you know that I have allies that we can engage in this, at your discretion.  Don’t ask for Uzidalf though.  He is quite powerful of course, but bringing him into this could blow up in our faces. 

The list

Mr. Z in the Hall

Ms. R at the Tower

Mr. D at the Garrison

Any of the lords in Calumet

B from W.S.  If we can lure him out of his hole

And don’t leave out the wrinkly blue reptile 

 The messenger was a stirgoi named Moroi.  They returned the Si's shop with him.  As of the end of this session, he is imprisoned in the basement there.

They learned from Moroi the location of a portal that would take them to Egilina's castle.  They journeyed to this portal.  They had to fight Shambling Mounds and a Hydra to reach the teleport sigil.  They succeeded in doing so.  

The next session will begin at the gates to Egilina's castle.


No comments:

Post a Comment