Summary
The party awoke at Bruce’s manor, where Roz was briefly confronted by Malar—the goddess of lycanthropes—who possessed his shield Jimmothy to ask if he had considered her previous offer. Following this, the group met with the halfling real estate agent Rod. Upon inspecting the abandoned Starlight Inn, they discovered the building was actually a massive mimic, which they narrowly escaped and killed. Taking advantage of the destroyed lot, they finalized a 225,000-gold deal to construct a tavern and bastion named Tale’s End.
Warned telepathically by Theratina about Thompson, the party sought out Ferrar, who revealed his brother Thompson had collaborated with a noble-looking man (likely Ned) on supersoldier experiments inspired by legendary texts like The Champions of Evermore. Ferrar transported the group via his airship to The Border City, only to discover a horrific scene: Thompson had slaughtered the entire population. In the ensuing confrontation, Thompson petrified Ferrar using the dagger from the book, but a dark-eyed Theratina aggressively retaliated, stabbing him repeatedly and severing his hand. Thompson vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind purple blood corrupted by Tears of Silvanus. After Roz saved the lone survivor—a toddler whom Ferrar agreed to escort to Glasscap Grove—the party secured the airship and departed for Vel Rau’dan, intent on using the severed hand to track their foe.
Events
At bruce’s manor
Roz’s Conversation with Jimmothy
- Roz sets Jimmothy upright and knocks to wake him up
- He does a d100 check and rolls a 12
- The face animates
- “Have you considered the offer?” (in a deep voice; some god from earlier session)
- Roz hasn’t decided yet on the offer
- The eyes shrink and it becomes Jimmothy again
- Roz punches him right below the eye (hurting himself)
- He was getting Jimmothy back for the slap in 06-Getting Rich > Roz’s perspective from the dead
- They discuss wanting to be on the same page
- Jimmothy does not trust the lycanthropes (Ferrar, Thompson, etc)
- We then reconvene and agree to buy some real estate to start a tavern/bastion
At the real estate place
- It is a dark, gloomy day
- It probably will rain today
- We enter a simple home with an office inside
- A broad in the shoulders, beer-belly-filled, patchy beard-having halfling man is sitting at the desk
- He is short, sitting in a tall chair to look taller
- His name is Rod
- We discuss buying property
- He is playing hardball (negotiation-wise)
- Each tavern comes with a bastion and optional bastion
- Prices (just to build the building) is:
- poor (50k gold, 60 people max)
- moderate (100k, 400-500 people max)
- elite (250k; 1000-1200 people max)
- There are also tiers of furnishings
- poor (35k)
- moderate (60k)
- elite (85k)
- Monthly costs for food/drink tiers:
- 1000g/month
- 5k/month
- 10k/month
- Staff costs are the same items
- Teleportation circle tiers (I missed prices):
- A normal teleportation circle to TP to
- A nicer teleportation circle which comes with 3 crystals which, when used, TP us to it
- Rings which allow us to TP to it at-will
- We decode on small/poor building, but with elite furnishings
- We go look at a property
- It is the tavern that the hag duped us at 02-The Hag > Starlight Inn
At the Starlight Inn
- Cal negotiates for us
- Raelor finds a tunnel nit he shed leading towards probably the hag lair
- Theodore casts Detect Magic, finding transmutation magic everywhere
- Roz casts Dispel Magic on a stool and everything begins shifting
- The stool becomes a tooth
- It becomes clear we are in the mouth of some huge mimic
- Yharov kicks the door down and we narrowly escape
- We fight and kill it
Back at the real estate place
- He offers a 10% discount for us to buy the destroyed property
- We choose:
- “Poor” size (50k)
- “Elite” furnishings (85k)
- “Moderate” food/drink (5k/mo)
- “Elite” servers (10k/mo)
- A bastion (4 possible facilities and 7 rooms, a living room, kitchen, storage room)
- Arcane Study
- Library
- Garden
- Armory
- A basement (provides storage, we can later put teleportation circle here, etc)
- We agree to pay 6 months of food/servers upfront (80k)
- Total cost is 225k after our 10% discount (and free Arcane Study because Rod is scared of us)
- It will take ~1 month (one story arc however long that is) to build
- We decide to name it Tale’s End
- Our expected income is:
- 750g/week from the food/drink alone
- 3375/week total including facilities’ income (13500/mo)
- Our income multiplier is 4.5x (based on our reputation)
- It maxes at 10x, increasing with reputation and quality of food/drink
- Rod gives us a contract
- If we miss a food payment, they charge us more going forward
- Bastion facilities’ workers are not included with the above costs
- Total cost: 225k gold
- He hands us each a deed
Next steps
- We discuss our next steps
- Theratina admitted she spoke with Thompson this morning
- “In her head” (probably Sending)
- She knows he is bad; worse then Ferrar
- She wants us to go after him (and kill him)
- First, we decide to speak with Ferrar
- We want to get more info
At the Arena
- We knock at the door and Bruce opens the door
- Bruce goes to get snacks while we wait for Ferrar to arrive
- In the room we see:
- Ideas for future fights that Ferrar wrote (he wants to bet on us again)
- Direct map path
- Deed to a flying airship that he owns
- Ferrar tells us that if Thompson dies, Ferrar becomes stronger
- Similarly, if Ferrar dies, all of Glasscap Grove would fall under Thompson’s rulership
- Ferrar claims he is willing to watch his brother die, but can’t bring himself to do so himself
- When asked if he ever worked with his brother, he describes what sounds like Ned Grindledark
- He described him as some crazy, noble-looking guy who wanted to create a supersoldier
- When prompted, he thinks it was Ned
- He said they were using books of heroes as references
- One such book was in Halcov Thunder: The Kingdom of Grundov Khaz
- The Champions of Evermore
- He offers to bring us to Thompson via his airship
- We get on his airship and arrive on the north end of The Border City after about a day
At the Border City
The fight
- It is uncomfortably quiet; nobody is around despite it being daytime
- Theratina is visibly scared
- “I think we should leave”
- “I know something really bad is about to happen”
- We tell Ferrar that she is usually right about these things
- He agrees we should leave
- Thompson walks out of one of the buildings, whistling
- In both of his hands are bloodied heads
- He tosses them on the ground
- Ferrar tosses the keys back to Raelor and approaches Thompson
- His hands are extended to claws, implying he will fight
- High survival rolls imply there are truly no traps (besides Thompson)
- Thompson stabs Ferrar with the dagger from the book and he turns to stone
- He leaves the knife inside him and approaches us
- We still have the option to leave
- We stay and fight him
- At a critical point in the fight, Theratina’s eyes turn dark red
- She begins to rapidly stab with the silver knife (3 times in one turn)
- She cuts off his hand
- The dagger returns to Thompson’s hand and he vanishes in a dark cloud of smoke
The aftermath
- We notice that Thompson’s blood is purple
- We think it is Tears of Silvanus
- We test the hypothesis by dropping it on a plant
- It corrupts and eats the plant
- There is some refinement process that was done to the vial that we found in 00-First Session > The Artifact Notebook and Vials
- We go into some buildings and see every single person here torn apart, limb by limb
- Thompson did it
- There is one 2 year old child that survived
- Roz heals him
- Ferrar says he will take him to Glasscap Grove
- Ferrar says we can take his ship
- We plan to use his hand to find him
- We get on the airship to Vel Rau’dan